The Brewers announced Wednesday that they’ve signed left-hander Tyler Alexander to a one-year, major league contract. He’s a client of SSG Baseball. Fellow southpaw Robert Gasser, who’s recovering from Tommy John surgery, has been placed on the 60-day injured list to clear space on the 40-man roster.
Alexander will earn a guaranteed $1MM on the contract, MLBTR has learned. He can earn an additional $1MM worth of incentives based on innings pitched. That breakdown is as follows: $50K for 40 innings, $100K for 60 innings, $125K for 80 innings, $150K for 90 innings, $175K for 100 innings, and $200K for both 110 and 120 innings.
Alexander, 30, has pitched in parts of six big league seasons between the Tigers and Rays. He owns a career 4.55 ERA over the life of 449 frames. That includes a 5.10 mark in a career-high 107 2/3 innings with Tampa Bay last year. The Rays non-tendered him back in November rather than pay a projected $2.8MM salary in his final season of club control (hat tip to MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz).
A second-round pick by the Tigers out of TCU back in 2015, Alexander has spent the bulk of his career in a swingman role, oscillating between long relief, occasional spot starts and some bulk work behind openers. He doesn’t throw hard, averaging just 89.6 mph on his four-seamer and 89.7 mph on his sinker in 2024, but he has excellent command and typically manages at least a passable strikeout rate.
Alexander has only walked 5.2% of the 1900 batters he’s faced in the majors. His 19.1% strikeout rate is about three percentage points shy of league-average, but that’s skewed a bit by a career-low 14.3% mark in 2022. He punched out 20% of his batters faced prior to that season and has fanned 21.1% of his opponents since that time. Back in 2020, Alexander made headlines and history by punching out nine consecutive batters against the Reds.
The veteran Alexander gives the Brewers some much needed depth in the rotation and a potential long man in the bullpen. That need was already clear even before today’s revelation that fellow lefty DL Hall will be shut down for several weeks due to a lat strain. Between that and the possibility that Brandon Woodruff, still building back up after major shoulder surgery in October 2023, may not be ready for Opening Day, the Brewers only had four clear-cut members of the rotation: Freddy Peralta, Aaron Civale, Nestor Cortes and Tobias Myers.
Alexander likely joins southpaw Aaron Ashby and inexperienced righties Elvin Rodriguez, Carlos Rodriguez, Logan Henderson and Chad Patrick as competitors for that final rotation spot. It’s always possible that the Brewers could add another more established arm to solidify the group, but Alexander is the first fully guaranteed free agent signing of the winter for GM Matt Arnold & Co. They’ve been up against an extreme payroll crunch and haven’t been able to spend anything to this point. That casts some doubt on the front office’s ability to further augment the group — at least via free agency. The trade market could open other avenues, either in the form of an inexpensive (likely pre-arbitration) starter or perhaps by shedding a contract from the current roster that’d free up some money for a different veteran pursuit.
Yeap, gonna need some lefty options with Gasseed and Hall down.
Alexander can be more than just a servicable swingman even for an ambitious MLB team. I hope he cashes in all of these incentives and a much better contract next year.
Gruß,
BSHH
Tyler Alexander isn’t a strikeout pitcher, but he owns the record for most consecutive strikeouts by a reliever, 9, against the Reds on August 2, 2020. I was watching on TV.
Any relation to Doyle Alexander?
No
There’s a reason Alexander has the nick name “Todd The Painter”
Brewers somehow manage to get 115ip and around 4 era for him at minimal cost this year. Under the radar value moves they scoop up and teach to overachieve.
There’s a reason why he was available and signed for basically MLB minimum
over the last 3 seasons his ERA+ is 82. Value? None. Could they turn him around? Maybe. But his value is nothing if he pitches like he has over the past 3 seasons. That’s basically a replacement level AA or AAA pitcher.
Neat story of when he was a spot starter with the Rays ; He threw 7 no hit innings against the Blue Jays before he gave up a hit and was clearly running out of gas,
It was in Toronto and Blue Jays fans gave him a standing ovation
He was mostly awful for the Rays last year, but I did enjoy watching that almost no-hitter. There wasn’t much to cheer about last year as a Rays fan, so that was one of the highlights for me.
WRONG Logan Henderson. Don’t you guys ever fact check?? This happens too much here!
His stuff moves, and he has pinpoint control. Solid pick up.
82 ERA+ over the past 3 seasons in 250 innings of work. Good luck.