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Doug Jones Passes Away

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Former major league reliever Doug Jones has passed away, according to an announcement from the Guardians. He was 64 years old.

A right-hander, Jones first broke into the majors in 1982 with the eventual American League champion Brewers. That was just a four-game cameo, though, and he didn’t make it back to the bigs until 1986 with the Indians. Despite not really get an extended big league look until his age-30 season, Jones emerged as a fixture in the bullpen by 1987. He worked 91 1/3 frames of 3.15 ERA ball that year before kicking off a three-year run of sub-2.60 ERA, 30+ save seasons.

Jones was selected to the All-Star game each year from 1988-90, garnering down ballot MVP support in two of those seasons. After some uncharacteristic struggles in 1991, he posted arguably his best ever season the following year. Jones worked 111 2/3 innings across 80 relief outings with the Astros in 1992, earning his fourth All-Star nod and his highest MVP finish (14th). He’d continue to be an effective bullpen workhorse deep into his 40’s, earning his fifth and final All-Star selection in 1994 and again appearing on MVP ballots in 1997 before retiring in 2000.

Jones twice led MLB in games finished, wrapping up 70 contests with the ’92 Astros and 73 games with the ’97 Brewers. He appeared in parts of sixteen major league seasons and worked 1128 1/3 innings of 3.30 ERA ball over 846 outings. Jones recorded 303 career saves and struck out 909 batters. His 129 saves with Cleveland ranks third in franchise history, and he ranks seventh in that category on Houston’s career leaderboard. Jones also pitched for the A’s, Pirates, Phillies, Cubs and Orioles over the course of his very impressive career. During his post-playing career, he served as a coach in the Rockies’ farm system.

MLBTR joins others around the game in sending our condolences to Jones’ family, friends, teammates and loved ones.

Guardians Trade J.C. Mejia To Brewers

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1:33pm: Mejia was actually granted a fourth minor league option, president of baseball operations David Stearns tells Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (Twitter link). That’s quite notable for his outlook, as he can now head to Triple-A Nashville and continue to develop as a starter and serve as some upper-level depth.

1:03pm: The Brewers have acquired right-hander J.C. Mejia from the Guardians in exchange for a player to be named later or cash, the teams announced. Mejia was one of seven players designated for assignment in Cleveland last Friday as the Guardians set their roster in advance of the Rule 5 protection deadline.

Mejia, 25, made his big league debut this past season for a Cleveland club that was rocked by injuries in the starting rotation. It wasn’t a great showing, evidenced by gruesome 8.25 ERA and 2.2 HR/9 marks through his first 52 1/3 Major League innings. His struggles weren’t confined to the Majors, either, as Mejia was roughed up for a 6.75 ERA in 39 Triple-A frames — also his debut at that level.

While the 2021 season wasn’t a strong one in terms of results, Mejia had a sharp track record prior to this rocky campaign. Even with this year’s poor Triple-A numbers, he sports a career 3.12 ERA in the minors — a mark accompanied by solid strikeout and walk rates (23.4% and 7.1%, respectively). Mejia also had a 48% ground-ball rate in the big leagues and has regularly posted grounder percentages north of 55% in the minors.

Starting pitching isn’t a major need in Milwaukee, where the Brewers have a star-studded rotation headlined by Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff and Freddy Peralta. Righty Adrian Houser and lefty Eric Lauer round out the mix, and the Brewers also have some homegrown alternative options in the form of Aaron Ashby and Ethan Small — the former of whom could open the 2021 season in the Milwaukee bullpen.

Given that solid group of options, Mejia seems likely to open the year in the bullpen — if he survives the winter on the 40-man roster. Mejia is out of minor league options, so he’ll need to break camp with the club or else be exposed to waivers. With a ~93mph four-seamer and sinker working as a starter, it’s possible his velocity could jump into the mid-90s working in shorter stints. For now, he’ll likely head to camp in hopes of winning a long-relief spot.

Brewers To Sign Pedro Severino

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The Brewers have signed catcher Pedro Severino to a one-year, $1.9MM deal, ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan reports (via Twitter).  Another $400K in incentives are available to the 28-year-old backstop, who is represented by Republik Sports.  The contract will become official when Severino passes a physical.

After Manny Pina signed with the Braves earlier this week, Severino will now step directly into Pina’s role as the right-handed hitting complement to the lefty-swinging Omar Narvaez behind the plate in Milwaukee.  Narvaez struggles badly against left-handed pitching and he struggled in general in the second half of the 2021 season, so there should be a fair amount of playing time available to Severino with his new club.

Severino, for his part, has a very solid .262/.324/.441 career slash line against left-handed pitching, with particularly good numbers in both 2019 (.812 OPS in 155 PA) and 2021 (.818 OPS in 161 PA).  Severino didn’t do much against righties, however, and between his projected $3.1MM arbitration salary and Adley Rutschman looming as the Orioles’ catcher of the future, Baltimore chose to outright Severino off its 40-man roster earlier this month.  Severino then opted to become a free agent for the first time in his career.

Severino has a third and final year of arbitration eligibility next winter, so this extra year of control gives the Brewers some flexibility in future catching decisions since Narvaez is himself a free agent after the 2022 campaign.  Prospect Mario Feliciano made his MLB debut last year, so if the Brew Crew is optimistic about his future, Milwaukee could potentially roll with a Feliciano/Severino combination in 2023 if the club decided to let Narvaez walk.

Defensively, Severino has been a below-average framer and he has -19 Defensive Runs Saved over his career.  As noted by Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, however, there is some cause for optimism that the Brewers can get Severino turned around in the same way that Narvaez went from being a subpar defender to a very strong pitch-framer in his two seasons with the Brew Crew.

Organizational Notes: Red Sox, Groopman, Orioles, Murray

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Mike Groopman is joining the Red Sox organization as an assistant general manager, per Chad Jennings and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Groopman was previously with the Brewers as VP of International Scouting and Player Personnel.

After short stints with the Reds and Mets, Groopman was hired by the Royals in 2008 and ended up staying for a decade, before moving to Milwaukee in 2017. When he joined Kansas City, the club was in the middle of a years-long tank job that ultimately proved fruitful, as they had four consecutive seasons of .500 or above from 2013 to 2016, which included back-to-back trips to the World Series, losing to the Giants in 2014 but then defeating the Mets in 2015. Since Groopman came to the Brewers, they have also had a nice run of success, having just made the postseason for a fourth straight year.

Of course, front offices are comprised of dozens of employees and no individual can take full responsibility for a club’s successes or failures. Still, the fact that Groopman has been given this new job and new title shows that his work is well regarded in the industry.

Moving across the AL East, Collin Murray will be joining the Orioles as a development coach, he himself announced on Twitter. Over the past few years, Murray has worked with some colleges, in addition to jobs with the Marlins, Angels and Tigers.

Development is going to be extremely important for the Orioles over the next few years. They are currently bottom feeders in a stacked AL East, with the other four teams each logging at least 91 wins in 2021, compared to the 52 notched by the Orioles. However, their farm system is held in high esteem by prospect evaluators, with FanGraphs and MLB Pipeline ranking theirs as the best in the league, and Baseball America slotting them second behind the Mariners. Helping those talented youngsters blossom into productive major leaguers will be extremely important for them to gain ground on their rivals and get back into contention.

Brewers Outright Mark Mathias

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The Brewers announced this afternoon that utilityman Mark Mathias has cleared waivers and been assigned outright to Triple-A Nashville. The 27-year-old doesn’t have the requisite service time to reject an outright assignment, so he’ll remain in the organization but no longer occupy a spot on the 40-man roster.

Mathias has spent the bulk of his career in the Cleveland farm system. He generally offered a solid combination of bat-to-ball skills, plate discipline and defensive versatility, helping to compensate for a lack of power. Milwaukee swung a minor trade to acquire the right-handed hitter in November 2019 and selected him to their 40-man roster.

With no minor league season in 2020, Mathias spent the bulk of the year on optional assignment to the alternate training site. He did appear in sixteen big league games, tallying 36 plate appearances. Mathias came to Spring Training in 2021 hoping to compete for a utility role. Unfortunately, he suffered a labrum tear in his shoulder in March and missed the entire season, although he did at least pick up a big league salary and service time while on the injured list.

Brewers Sign Three To Minor League Deals

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The Brewers have signed outfielder Jonathan Davis and right-handers Trevor Kelley and Jason Alexander to minor league contracts with invitations to Major League Spring Training, tweets Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

Davis, 29, has spent parts of four years in the big leagues — all with the Blue Jays except for a brief 12-game stint with the Yankees late in the 2021 season. He’s never received regular playing time in the big leagues, as evidenced by the fact that last year’s 64 games played and 103 plate appearances were both career-high marks. Davis, often used as a late-inning pinch runner and defensive replacement by the Jays over the years, is 11-for-13 in stolen bases attempts at the MLB level but just a .171/.272/.248 hitter in 259 plate appearances. He’s been better in Triple-A, where he’s a .249/.356/.416 hitter in 640 trips to the plate.

The 28-year-old Kelley also comes to the Brewers organization with some big league experience, albeit a good bit less. He tallied 11 2/3 innings between the Red Sox and Phillies in 2019-20 but was tattooed for a dozen runs on 17 hits (four homers) and six walks with 11 punchouts. It’s not a great big league track record, but Kelley also posted a microscopic 1.52 ERA in 41 1/3 frames with the Braves’ Triple-A affiliate last season and carries a lifetime 1.66 ERA in 130 innings at that level. Kelley has fanned 24.8% of his opponents in Triple-A and posted a 9.1% walk rate.

Alexander joins the Brewers after parts of four pro seasons split between the Angels and Marlins organizations. An undrafted free agent out of Cal State Long Beach, the now-28-year-old righty has a pedestrian 4.87 ERA in 281 minor league innings but much more encouraging rate stats. While Alexander’s 20.6% strikeout rate is below average, he’s walked only 6.1% of his career opponents and tallied a huge 56.2% ground-ball rate since turning pro. Alexander didn’t pitch much with the Marlins organization last year, but in 19 2/3 frames across three levels (including 14 2/3 innings in Triple-A), he logged a 1.37 ERA with a 22-to-3 K/BB ratio and an enormous 67.3% grounder rate.

Robbie Ray, Corbin Burnes Win Cy Young Awards

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The Baseball Writers Association of America revealed the results of Cy Young award balloting this evening. Robbie Ray of the Blue Jays (now a free agent) and Corbin Burnes of the Brewers were named the American League and National League winners, respectively.

Ray claimed the AL award in resounding fashion, an achievement made all the more remarkable by his 2020 struggles. The southpaw dealt with significant control problems during the shortened campaign, leading the D-Backs to trade him to Toronto for essentially no return. After the end of the year, the Jays jumped the market to bring Ray back, buying low on the talented hurler with a one-year, $8MM pact.

That move will go down as one of the best of general manager Ross Atkins’ tenure in Toronto. Not only did Ray get back to heights that saw him make an All-Star team and garner some Cy Young support in 2017, he posted the best showing of his eight-year career. Ray worked 193 1/3 innings of 2.84 ERA ball, striking out an elite 32.1% of batters faced. That swing-and-miss stuff was nothing new, but the 29-year-old also cut his walk rate by almost two thirds. Just one year after walking 17.9% of opponents, Ray doled out free passes at just a 6.9% clip in 2021.

64 American League pitchers tallied 100+ innings this past season. Among that group, Ray ranked 3rd in ERA, strikeout percentage, strikeout/walk rate differential (25.2 percentage points) and SIERA (3.22). He led all AL hurlers in both innings pitched and swinging strike rate (15.5%). That stellar showing earns Ray his first Cy Young award and positions him as one of the top pitchers on this offseason’s free agent market.

As mentioned, the voting tilted quite strongly in Ray’s favor. He appeared on all 30 ballots, receiving 29 first-place votes and one second-place tally. The Yankees’ Gerrit Cole (who received the lone first-place nod that didn’t go to Ray) was the clear second-place finisher, with Lance Lynn of the White Sox coming in third. Nathan Eovaldi, Carlos Rodón, Frankie Montas, Lance McCullers Jr., Liam Hendriks, José Berríos, Chris Bassitt, Lucas Giolito and Raisel Iglesias also received down ballot support.

Voting in the National League was far more contentious, with very little separation between Burnes and the Phillies’ Zack Wheeler at the top. Both players received twelve first-place votes and appeared on all 30 ballots in some capacity, but Burnes’ 14-9 edge in second-place finishes wound up making the difference. The other six first-place votes went to eventual third-place finisher Max Scherzer, who split the season between the Nationals and Dodgers.

To some extent, the battle between Burnes and Wheeler came down to weighing volume versus rate effectiveness. Wheeler tossed an MLB-best 213 1/3 innings, while Burnes worked 167 frames. That’s a rather significant nod in Wheeler’s favor, but Burnes’ per-inning accomplishments were incredible. The Milwaukee righty ranked second among the 62 NL hurlers with 100+ innings in ERA (2.43) while pacing the league in SIERA (2.61), strikeout percentage (35.6%), strikeout/walk rate differential (30.4 percentage points) and swinging strike rate (16.6%).

That’s not to imply Wheeler was ineffective. The Phils’ righty was among the top ten in the league in most rate categories as well. But voters ultimately gave an ever so slight edge to Burnes’ utter domination of opponents, even if that came with a lighter workload than the one Wheeler shouldered.

Like Ray, Burnes takes home his first Cy Young award. He’d finished sixth in last year’s balloting and now looks like one of the game’s top handful of hurlers moving forward. It wouldn’t be a surprise if the Brewers, who control Burnes via arbitration through the end of 2024, try to open extension talks with his representatives at CAA Sports over this offseason.

In addition to the three finalists, Walker Buehler, Brandon Woodruff, Kevin Gausman, Adam Wainwright, Julio Urías and Jacob deGrom picked up some down ballot support. Buehler was the only non-finalist to garner any second-place votes, with two runner-up nods.

See full balloting results.

Images courtesy of USA TODAY Sports.

Brewers Open To Offers, But Stearns Wary Of Trading Pitching

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  • Speaking of adding offense in the NL Central, Brewers president of baseball operations David Stearns acknowledged his team’s need to score more runs in 2022, but he told MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy and Jordan Bastian that “I think we’re likely to remain a run prevention-first team next year, where we’re built around our pitching and defense.  I don’t see that changing.”  With this in mind, Stearns said that while he’ll naturally listen to what other teams have to offer, “it’s really tough to trade pitching,” even though the Brew Crew have one of the sport’s deeper mix of rotation arms.  Since the time of this interview, Stearns did swing one pitching-for-hitting trade, though Milwaukee sent only a single-A relief prospect (Evan Reifert) to the Rays for utility infielder Mike Brosseau.

Brewers Acquire Mike Brosseau From Rays

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The Brewers have acquired utilityman Mike Brosseau from the Rays in exchange for minor league right-hander Evan Reifert.  Both teams have officially announced the trade.

One of many multi-positional players coming through the Rays’ pipeline, Brosseau was an undrafted free agent who rose through Tampa’s ranks to appear in 143 games over the last three seasons.  Brosseau hit .284/.343/.500 with 11 homers over 240 plate appearances in 2019-20, and looked to be on the verge of becoming a regular in the Rays’ infield mix before struggling in 2021.

Brosseau never seemed to get on track in the early going, and then found himself frequently shuttled back and forth between Tampa Bay and Triple-A Durham.  An oblique strain in July further hampered his season, and overall, Brosseau hit only .187/.266/.347 over 169 PA for the Rays.  This apparently made Brosseau an expendable piece for a Rays team deep in infield depth, and as broadcaster Neil Solondz notes, the Rays now also open up a roster spot in advance of the 40-man roster deadline on November 19.

The Brewers have a pattern of seeking out versatile players, and Brosseau has plenty of experience at multiple positions.  He has mostly played second base and third base throughout his pro career, but also has seen a decent chunk of action as a shortstop, first baseman, and corner outfielder.  A right-handed hitter, Brosseau can serve as a complement to lefty swingers Kolten Wong at second base or Rowdy Tellez at first base.  With Brosseau now in the fold, it could increase the chances that Milwaukee parts ways with at least one of Daniel Vogelbach or Jace Peterson prior to November 19, or the December 2 non-tender deadline.

Reifert is also technically an undrafted player, as though he was a 30th-round pick for the Rangers in 2018, he opted to attend college rather than begin his pro career at that stage.  He instead signed with the Brewers in 2020, as Reifert wasn’t selected in the shortened five-round 2020 draft.

The 22-year-old righty looked good in his first season, posting a 2.10 ERA with a stunning 40.23% strikeout rate over 60 combined relief innings with the Brewers’ high-A and A-ball affiliates.  Those missed bats came with some shaky control, however, as Reifert’s walk rate was a concerning 14.06%.  Reifert possesses an upper-90s fastball, so if the Rays can improve his command, the team will have yet another hard-throwing bullpen weapon at their disposal in the next season or two.

Brewers Hire Ozzie Timmons, Connor Dawson As Hitting Coaches

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The Brewers announced this afternoon that they’ve hired Ozzie Timmons and Connor Dawson as co-hitting coaches. They’re also planning to hire an assistant hitting coach to work underneath Timmons and Dawson, tweets Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. They’ll replace Andy Haines, whose contract was not renewed last month.

Timmons has spent the past four seasons on the Rays’ coaching staff. He’d split his time between base coaching and serving as Tampa Bay’s assistant hitting coach before getting a bump to full-time assistant hitting coach last month. Just a few weeks later, he’ll land a more significant role in Milwaukee. An outfielder in his playing days, the 51-year-old Timmons appeared in parts of five big league seasons from 1995-2000.

Dawson comes over from the Mariners, where he’d been Seattle’s minor league hitting coordinator. The 28-year-old had previously spent a couple seasons coaching in the M’s system and now gets his first job on a big league staff.

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