Last August, the Brewers signed outfielder David Dahl and assigned him to Triple-A. The former Rockie had been released by the Rangers. Dahl has been brought back to the Brewers on a minor league contract and issued an invitation to Spring Training, per The Athletic’s Will Sammon (via Twitter). The invite was finalized before the transaction freeze went into affect.
Dahl is a bit of a wild card for the Brewers outfield picture next season. The Brewers have lost Avisail Garcia to the Marlins and traded Jackie Bradley Jr. to the Red Sox. Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich will look to recapture some of the prior glory after struggling to match their previous heights in 2021. Hunter Renfroe was added to the picture in the Bradley deal. Tyrone Taylor remains on the roster as an extra outfielder, while infielders such as Keston Hiura, Jace Pederson, and Mike Brosseau could see time in the outfield corners.
Dahl, the tenth overall selection of the 2012 draft, has seen his career derailed by a series of injuries. He’s still just 27-years-old, however. He did not find his way with the Rangers, hitting just .210/.247/.322 over 220 plate appearances. His contributions amounted to a disappointing -1.0 rWAR, leading to his eventual DFA.
the Rox had every reason to bring him back…unless they really fancy themselves contenders.
He just really didn’t stay healthy in CO and was hard to depend upon because of it. Very talented player, but availability was crucial given the lack of OF depth and it just didn’t work out.
the point being though the upside is there and he could still provide them value.
If Dahl had been a tenth- ROUND choice instead of the tenth overall pick, he’d be asking the guy in the car if he wanted fries with that. Such is the way of things.
Never a good fielder, LH corner bat with little to offer but some bat-ball skills. I’m surprised he signed with the Brew Crew, who obviously have their 3 OF positions locked up. There are other OF needy teams that he’d have a better shot with.
Dahl has crazy natural power, and bat to ball skills are a weakness actually. The ball explodes off his bat and he can drive it out of any park in any direction with a flip of his wrists, which is why he keeps getting chances. But he has zero plate discipline, holes in his swing you could driven a truck through, and some odd swing dynamics that pitchers take advantage of. He’s a weird case, but I don’t think he’s gonna figure anything out, for the Brewers or anyone else.
Seems like someone who might benefit from two years in the KBO and then suddenly re-emerge in MLB.
Assuming MLB isn’t still locked down in two years
He played pretty well when healthy for a couple of years. Then pitchers found the holes in his swing and he didn’t adjust.
It’s at least worth the price of a minor-league deal to see if the Brewers can fix enough of that to get a decent 4th OF out of it, especially since he’s just 27 and an adequate fielder in all 3 spots.
Well, he was the 10th pick because he’s extremely talented
Well he was the #10 overall pick for a reason, not a 10th rounder.
He has talent and power. Just health problems which doesn’t help to develop any consistency.
As a minor leaguer, can Dahl work with the Brewers staff during the lockout? 2022 might be this guy’s last chance to show something.
If he’s not on the 40-man, I suppose it’s possible, but I’m not sure if he was paying dues to MLBPA as a recent former major leaguer who hasn’t retired. Then again the MLBPA didn’t strike. Team ownership and staff may have leeway to talk or work with players associated with the organization that are not on the 40-man roster. The AAA phase of the Rule 5 Draft will still go on as planned, though it will be conducted by the AAA affiliates. I’m sure MLB team ownership will be in the loop, though.
The owners only locked out Major League players. Their coaches can still work as can any of their minor league players not on the 40-man roster. Assuming that Dahl wasn’t placed on the 40-man, he is free to work with anyone in the Brewers organization outside of Major League players. He can work out in any team facility and have access to any coach including strength & conditioning coaches, team trainers, doctors, etc. Hopefully they have him on a program to fix his health issues and swing issues. He has certainly shown glimpses of talent that explains his high draft selection, but has not shown the consistency needed to be a regular contributor for any MLB team. He’s still just 27 so maybe a coach can figure out how to unlock his potential and turn him into the next Yaz.
Dahl was pretty good if I remember. Streaky but solid hitter who faced injuries. Not a bad gamble for a low risk high reward deal.
I get the feeling it’s going to be more of a summer training in 2022.
Nah, they’ll get this CBA worked out by the end of February. After the massive losses from Covid, neither side can afford another partial season and more importantly neither side can afford to lose fans to come watch their games. Cooler heads will prevail and they’ll get this done despite the glaring ineffectiveness of Manfred and Tony Clark.
He’ll be the only one there.
I wanted the Tigers to get him last winter. That wudda been a bad move, apparently. On another note, are they going to keep making transactions & just keep saying, “oh ah, this happened right before the transaction freeze”? I call bs! It wouldn’t take as long as it has just to finalize & report a damn David Dahl contract.
It’s a minor league contract.
Probably has more to do with him not being a big name so the ‘I need to be first to report this move’ crowd wasn’t breaking the door down to take credit.
Calm down, there’s no conspiracy. And, what if there is? It’s David Dahl, not Carlos Correa.
No, I just think the team did not publicize when this got finalized. Now MLBTR has some time to uncover and write about some small moves cause not much else will happen for a while. Maybe they will be bold enough to let the bloggers comment about appropriate penalties and suspensions for Bauer and Ozuna during the lull. 😉
@Manny – Let’s get the commenting started here! I’m shocked that MLB gave Ozuna a retroactive, 20 game suspension…basically the same as a judge letting someone off for time served prior to a trial. Ozuna will need to pay back the 20 games worth of salary he received while on the commissioner’s 2021 exempt list, but I can’t believe he doesn’t need to sit out any games in 2022. The only remaining question is whether or not Atlanta will dare to bring him back. They still owe him 3 more years on his deal and they have no way to void his contract. It’s going to be very interesting to see what they do.
The same goes for LA and Bauer. Can LA really release Bauer and pay him the $60M left of his contract via player options for 2021 & 2022? I didn’t hear much from Atlanta players about Ozuna but we did hear (via reporters) that a lot of Dodgers players stated they didn’t want Bauer back with the team regardless of the legal / civil suit outcome.
Get your pitchforks ready!
I think Ozuna deserves an 80 games suspension but I would allow it to be retroactive.
I think the Bauer decision will wait until the criminal matter moves forward. Under Bauer’s own comments, I think he gets at least an 80 game suspension, if Bauer is disbelieved and criminally convicted, he could get anywhere from probation to a decade in prison. Under no circumstance do I see a suspension that exceeds two years. I still believe that Bauer will plea to a lesser charge that gets him a probation of a short jail sentence.
Let’s suppose that Bauer enters a plea agreement for battery and gets 30 days jail and four years probation. I could see MLB suspending him for one year retroactively. Then I could see the Dodgers entering a deal with Bauer where they pay him the amount of his 2021 salary in return for terminating the contract and cutting him. And Bauer would play somewhere out of the country in 2022 or 2023 as no major league team will sign him. Just my guess.
Looks like Will Sammon reported it on Twitter earlier this morning shortly before it was reported by MLBTR and Rotoworld (Edge).
I watched Dahl play for the Rangers quite a bit this past season. I believe his tank is empty.
Was fascinated by this move and have kept a close eye on how the brewers have rehabbed dahl. He looks 100% healthy and could be a dark horse all-star pick for 2022.
This is absolutely a good sign again. Last year when they had him at AAA he was really starting to figure things out. He was hitting cover off the ball. He worked hard at improving his swing and game. If they go with the universal DH and expand rosters to 28. He and Westbrook could be very nice additions to this team especially him as the fifth outfielder. Cain is in his final year. Getting rid of JBJ contract and where Cain is at with his contract could really open the roster to maybe bring in Conforto. I do believe teams are still able to sign minor leaguers.
Getting rid of Bradley contract was worth the cost of two mid-level prospects! Even if Renfroe becomes a fourth outfielder and DH, he has some value. His defense is at best average, which is too bad considering he has a great arm. But he could hit as many home runs as Avisail with an average that is just a tiny bit lower.
People are discounting Renfroe’s defense quite a bit. Keep in mind he was a finalist for a gold glove in RF last season, and he was good enough to move Verdugo out of RF and over to LF (Verdugo was great in RF during the short 2020 season). RF at Fenway Park might be the most difficult OF position to play in all of baseball. It is huge and it has all of those funny angles going down the foul line. I watched over 120 Red Sox games last year and Renfroe played a great, defensive RF. If Brewers’ fans should worry about anything, it would be Renfroe’s last 2 offensive months of the season, including the playoffs. He got into a lot of bad habits at the plate and was striking out way too much. From April to mid August, he was a beast at the plate; then it all just disappeared. I hope for Milwaukee’s sake that there was an injury that caused his decline and it wasn’t that pitchers finally figured him out. He had atrocious 2020 with Tampa which led to his DFA. But all I can say is that Renfroe will play a much better defensive OF than Avisail Garcia ever did. He just needs to avoid his offense slipping again if the Brewers hope to replace Garcia’s bat with Renfroe.
Boston really likes the prospects they received back from Milwaukee, especially their 3rd rounder from the 2021 draft. He has a chance to be a very special hitter in MLB, so Boston agreed to take that albatross deal for JBJ off their hands just to get him. We’ll see in a few years who actually won this trade; in the short term, it’s a landslide victory for Milwaukee.
Was AWFUL in Texas last season
I hate to admit this, but if their is one team that can straighten out a guy like Dahl it’s the Brewers. There is a pretty good list of relatively obscure players that had their best seasons in Milwaukee. I’m already worried that he stays healthy and tips the scales making their offense at least average. That’s all it would take for them to win another 95+ games.
Gee imagine that. The Brewers sign another good ol’ southern boy! Who’s also average at best foot speed-wise. But he “looks good” in a Brewer uniform right Stearns and Couns?
There’s a reason I’m no longer a Brewer season ticket holder! There’s a problem in Milwaukee that just continues the unaddressed status quo. The Renfroe trade, not signing or making an offer to Garcia along with this signing are a few more typical examples over the past few years. One World Series appearance in 50 years!!!
Consistently inconsistent. Counsell/Stearns are overrated and need to go.
Garcia is very overrated. He waited to finally get in shape and take the game seriously in his contract year , then got a lot of production during junk time. That is why they didn’t try to resign him. Plus Tyrone Taylor will outperform him .