Brewers “Open To” Using Angel Zerpa As A Starter

The Brewers and Royals officially announced the three-player trade (reported yesterday) that sent Isaac Collins and Nick Mears to Kansas City in exchange for Angel Zerpa.  Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold spoke to Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the trade today, and revealed the interesting detail that the club was “open to” the idea of Zerpa moving from the bullpen back to rotation work.

“We have some scouts that think he can do it.  He has done it in the past,” Arnold said.  “This guy also has postseason experience, too, which we obviously value a lot.  Having a guy with that kind of versatility and experience in big games is something we think will really help us.”

As we’ve seen teams move away from traditional pitching roles in recent years, there has been an increased willingness to explore turning relievers (sometimes even career relievers) into starting pitchers.  If clubs no longer expressly need their starters to throw more than five innings or take more than two turns through an opposing lineup, stretching a reliever out to handle this increased workload is more of a realistic goal than stretching a reliever to handle seven-plus innings.

Zerpa began his pro career as a starting pitcher, and worked as a starter in three of his first four career games in the majors (in 2021-22).  He started only three of his 15 appearances for the Royals in 2023, however, and hasn’t since started a game in anything outside of an opener capacity.  Instead, K.C. used Zerpa as a southpaw bullpen weapon, and the hurler posted a 4.03 ERA, 20.8% strikeout rate, 8.0% walk rate, and a whopping 60.6% groundball rate over 118 1/3 innings in 2024-25.

Right-handed hitters were quite productive against Zerpa even as he mostly dominated lefty swingers, and he allowed a lot of hard contact along with his uninspiring strikeout and walk numbers.  Zerpa is a hard thrower whose fastball averaged 96.2mph in 2025, but his standard four-seamer hasn’t been very effective over the last two years, while his 96.6mph sinker is his top pitch.  The slider was thrown 44.6% of the time in 2025, with a slider used 31.9% of the time and the four-seamer 19.8% of the time.  As Hogg noted, increased usage of a changeup might be necessary to help the 26-year-old Zerpa adjust back to starting pitching.

It isn’t the kind of arsenal that immediately stands out as a rotation candidate, and it might be that Zerpa just winds up as a reliever if the Brewers decide against the role change in Spring Training.  That said, the fact that the Brewers in particular see starting potential in Zerpa is probably a plus in favor of the experiment working.  Milwaukee’s ability to turn unheralded pitchers into capable or even elite starters or relievers has been perhaps the key element of the team’s success over the last decade, so nobody should rule out the possibility that the Brew Crew could help Zerpa unlock another level of performance no matter his role.

Arnold said the Brewers had “been trying to access [in a trade] for a long time,” as “I think that our group felt like this was a really strong arm to access with really, really good ingredients.  We’re very excited to get him with our coaches who have done a great job tapping into arms like this for a number of years.”

Zerpa is arbitration-eligible for the first time this offseason, and is arb-controlled through the 2028 season.  Because he has primarily operated as a non-closer, Zerpa’s first-year arbitration projection is only $1.2MM.  This is a solid price tag even if the left-hander stays in the pen, but he can successfully move into the rotation, he’ll be even more of a bargain over Milwaukee’s period of team control.

One reason why Zerpa may remain in the Brewers’ pen is the club’s current rotation surplus.  Freddy Peralta, Brandon Woodruff, Quinn Priester, Chad Patrick, and Jacob Misiorowski line up as the projected starting five, and plenty of other starting candidates (i.e. Logan Henderson, Robert Gasser, Carlos Rodriguez, Tobias Myers) are depth options.  The “you can never have too much pitching” mantra applies here since this group is likely to be naturally thinned out by injuries, plus Woodruff and Peralta are both set to become free agents next winter.  As trade rumors persist about Peralta, it is even possible the Brewers could suddenly have a big hole atop their rotation this offseason.