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NL Central Notes: Reds, Weaver, Cessa, Suzuki, Wesneski, Miller

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Luke Weaver hasn’t pitched since Monday due to a sore forearm, and “I think we’d have to push pretty hard to get him ready for Opening Day,” Reds manager David Bell told the Cincinnati Enquirer’s Bobby Nightengale and other reporters.  Despite the ominous nature of forearm-related injuries, Weaver’s issue seems to be just soreness, and he might throw a bullpen session in a few days’ time.  However, that still doesn’t leave the right-hander with much time to fully build his arm strength in advance of the Reds’ first game on March 30.

Weaver was projected to be Cincinnati’s fourth starter, creating another wrinkle in what was already a battle for the fifth starter’s job.  Connor Overton, Luis Cessa, Brandon Williamson, and non-roster invitee Chase Anderson were all in the running for the final rotation job, and two of those pitchers might now earn jobs if Weaver indeed needs to miss any regular-season time.  Cessa is also a bit of a question mark for workload-related reasons, as he might need to build up his arm since he hasn’t pitched much as a member of Mexico’s World Baseball Classic team.  Even if Cessa doesn’t make the rotation, Bell said the right-hander will still be a member of the Reds’ bullpen.

More from around the NL Central…

  • Cubs manager David Ross provided media (including MLB.com) with an update on Seiya Suzuki, as the outfielder continues to recover from an oblique strain.  Suzuki will likely need to begin the season on the injured list to make up for his lost Spring Training time, but he has been steadily increasing his workouts, and been taking part in some light baseball activities within the last week.
  • Hayden Wesneski has become the favorite for the Cubs’ fifth starter role, The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma writes, which could mean that Adrian Sampson will begin the season as a depth starter at Triple-A.  Wesneski made his MLB debut last season, with an impressive 2.18 ERA, 25% strikeout rate, and 5.3% walk rate over the small sample size of 33 innings.  Besides Sampson, Javier Assad is also still in the competition for a rotation job, though Assad hasn’t been amassing innings in spring camp, but rather with Mexico’s WBC team.  Sharma feels Assad might also have a path to Chicago’s roster as a reliever rather than as a starter, if Keegan Thompson’s velocity continues to be inconsistent.
  • The Brewers have been working Owen Miller out in center field, as the team attempts to give itself another outfield option with Tyrone Taylor injured and top prospect Garrett Mitchell nursing a sore hamstring.  “It’s good to get game reps like that.  I’ll keep working every day to see as many balls out there as I can,” Miller told MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy.  Acquired in a trade from the Guardians over the offseason, Miller has seen action at all four infield positions (but primarily first and second base) over his two MLB seasons with Cleveland, but one Triple-A game in 2021 represents the entirety of his professional experience as an outfielder.  Still, becoming even more versatile can only help Miller’s chances of carving out a spot on Milwaukee’s roster.

Luke Voit Pushes Back Opt-Out Date

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First-baseman/designated hitter Luke Voit has pushed back the opt-out date on his minor league deal with the Brewers until Friday, Adam McCalvy of MLB.com reports. Voit told reporters he likes the fit with Milwaukee, and that the team likes him, but they are trying to maintain maximum 40-man roster flexibility going into the season.

Voit was one of the more high profile players to settle for minor league deals this winter, and it always appeared he had a decent chance to crack the Brewers’ active roster. That he’s agreed to extend the deadline by a week suggests that’s very much still in play, and it may come down to straight decision between Voit and Keston Hiura as to who makes the roster for Opening Day.

With left-handed hitters Rowdy Tellez and Jesse Winker set to occupy a lot of time at the first-base and DH spots, it makes sense for the team to have a right-hander to balance them out, but it may be a stretch for the team to carry both Voit and Hiura, given they’re both defensively-limited right-handed hitters. Of course, they could, in theory, carry both players, but it may leave the bench a little too limited in versatility.

Voit, 32, hit 22 home runs on the way to a .226/.308/.402 over 568 plate appearances for the Padres and Nationals in 2022. That’s a fair drop from the days of him being one of the better right-handed sluggers around. In the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Voit mashed 22 home runs in 56 games and finished ninth in AL MVP voting. That was part of a stretch from 2018-20 where Voit hit .278/.371/.541, largely for the Yankees. Things dropped off in 2021, as injuries restricted Voit to just 68 games that year, before the Yankees flipped him to the Padres ahead of the 2022 season.

While it’s unwise to glean too much from spring training numbers, Voit has hit .357/.379/.643 with two home runs so far, so is certainly doing everything he can to make an impression with the Brewers.

The Brewers’ Keston Hiura Dilemma

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Not long ago, the future looked bright for Keston Hiura and the Brewers. The former No. 9 overall draft pick (2017) had been a universally lauded top-25 prospect in the sport due to a high-probability hit tool that overshadowed concerns about his glovework. He breezed through the minors, torching opponents in Rookie ball, Class-A, High-A, Double-A and Triple-A before reaching the Majors in 2019 and erupting with a .303/.368/.570 batting line and 19 home runs in just 348 plate appearances at 22 years of age.

Hiura’s long-term position was something of an open question due to an elbow injury that required surgery in college and left questions about his arm strength even at second base. However, his bat was so advanced and his professional track record was so strong that it didn’t seem to matter much. That rookie production and his minor league track record suggested a player whose offensive profile would fit at any position on the diamond.

Granted, Hiura’s 30.7% strikeout rate as a rookie was a red flag, but strikeouts weren’t an issue at all until he reached Triple-A and the big leagues. There was reason to believe that with more experience, he could pare back on the swing-and-miss in his game. Further, given the 91.4 mph average exit velocity and 48.1% hard-hit rate he boasted that season, the impact when he did make contact was substantial. Even with a .402 BABIP pointing to some regression in the batting average department, Hiura looked the part of a slugger who could turn in an average or better batting average with plenty of power.

That now feels like a distant memory. In the three seasons since that time, Hiura hasn’t improved upon his strikeouts but rather seen the problem worsen. He fanned at a 34.6% clip in his sophomore season while posting a disappointing .212/.297/.410 line. Optimists could perhaps chalk that up to a relatively small sample (59 games) and the strangeness of the Covid-shortened 2020 season, but Hiura hit just .168/.256/.301 with an even worse 39.1% strikeout rate in 2021. His bottom-line results were better in 2022 — .226/.316/.449, 14 homers in 266 plate appearances — but Hiura punched out at a career-worst 41.7% rate last year.

Along the way, defensive metrics have regularly panned his abilities in the field. Defensive Runs Saved (-16), Ultimate Zone Rating (-14.1) and Outs Above Average (-12) all offer resoundingly negative reviews of his 1204 career innings at second base. Those metrics grade him as an average defender in 603 innings at first base. He’s also logged 40 innings in left field, but those days are likely behind him, given the number of interesting outfield prospects on the horizon in Milwaukee. Garrett Mitchell, Sal Frelick and Joey Wiemer could all join Christian Yelich and the currently injured Tyrone Taylor in the 2023 outfield (as could third baseman/outfielder Brian Anderson). Uber-prospect Jackson Chourio is also rapidly approaching the Majors.

With Hiura’s struggles at second base and both Brice Turang and Luis Urias presenting options at the position, he’s unlikely to spend much more time there. A move to third base seems out of the question, given concerns about his arm strength. Both Urias and Anderson are more seasoned options at the hot corner anyhow. At first base, Hiura’s right-handed bat would seem like a natural pairing with lefty-swinging Rowdy Tellez … except for the fact that Hiura has pronounced reverse splits in his big league career. He’s batted .253/.332/.508 against righties but just .201/.283/.323 against lefties. Even that stout production against righties comes with a 34.5% punchout rate and .342 BABIP, suggesting regression could be in order.

As things stand, Hiura looks like a right-handed bench bat who’ll primarily work at first base and designated hitter, perhaps with very occasional appearances at second base and in left field. It’s a limited role to begin with, and it’s one that’s further complicated by a dismal showing this spring. Obviously, spring results don’t carry much weight, but hitting .174/.269/.217 with nine strikeouts in 26 plate appearances (34.6%) on the heels of a difficult three-year stretch in the big leagues doesn’t inspire much confidence in a rebound.

Furthermore, the Brewers have multiple right-handed first base options in camp who are simply outproducing Hiura this spring. Again, we’re dealing with the smallest of samples, so it’s all to be taken with a grain of salt, but each of Mike Brosseau, Owen Miller and non-roster invitee Luke Voit have posted better numbers thus far.

Brosseau hit .255/.344/.418 last season — comparable overall production to that of Hiura. He’s having a monster spring showing and can play first base, second base, third base and the outfield corners. Unlike Hiura, he’s a right-handed bat who has more traditional platoon splits: .276/.338/.485 versus lefties (127 wRC+), .207/.295/.356 versus righties (84 wRC+).

Miller, acquired from Cleveland over the winter, had a big start with the Guardians in 2022 before wilting and finishing out the year with a .243/.301/.351 showing. Hiura’s 115 wRC+ from last season handily tops Miller’s mark of 85, but Miller’s 19.8% strikeout rate is less than half that of Hiura’s 41.7%. Miller is more capable at second base and has even been working out in center field this spring.

Voit was also outproduced by Hiura at the big league level last year, but his 31.5% punchout rate — while still unsightly — still clocked in 10 percentage points lower. Voit has the bigger track record of MLB success, having led the Majors with a 22-homer showing back in 2020. Injuries have sapped his production since 2021.

Perhaps the biggest thing working in Hiura’s favor is that he’s out of minor league options. The Brewers can’t send him down without first exposing him to waivers. It’s possible that the $2.2MM salary to which he agreed when avoiding arbitration over the winter might allow him to pass through waivers unclaimed, but Milwaukee may not want to risk waiving a former top-10 pick and top-25 prospect only to watch him break out elsewhere. Brosseau and Miller both have a pair of minor league options remaining. Voit isn’t on the 40-man roster after signing a minor league deal, although he’ll reportedly have the chance to opt out of his deal tomorrow if he’s not added to the roster.

To Hiura’s credit, he’s a career .299/.400/.600 hitter in 508 Triple-A plate appearances. Even last year while striking out a nearly 42% clip, he averaged a whopping 91.7 mph off the bat and put 45.2% of the balls he hit into play at 95 mph or better. The quality of his contact is elite. The frequency of contact is among the worst in MLB. Hiura’s strikeout rate was the worst of the 317 batters who had at least 250 plate appearances. His 62.3% overall contact rate and 71.2% contact rate on pitches within the strike zone both ranked third-worst among that same group.

It all presents the Brewers with a quandary. They have at least three right-handed-hitting alternatives in camp who are capable of filling that first base/designated hitter spot. Brosseau has more defensive versatility, comparable recent production and is a more natural complement to lefties like Tellez and DH candidate Jesse Winker. Voit has similar power upside, although he’s limited to first base/DH and is two years removed from being a legitimate middle-of-the-order threat. Miller doesn’t have the same offensive upside but might have the most defensive versatility and definitely has the best bat-to-ball skills of this bunch.

Milwaukee has several alternatives to Hiura, whose trade value is minimal at this juncture in his career. There’s understandable risk in parting ways with him and allowing for the possibility of another club claiming him on waivers. But, at the same time, hanging onto him leaves the Brewers with limited roster flexibility while simply hoping for him to finally hone his approach at the plate after years of being unable to do so. And since he can’t be optioned to Triple-A, he’ll likely be left to do so in sparse playing opportunities since he currently projects as a bench piece in the event that he does crack the Opening Day roster.

It’s a tough spot for the Brewers to find themselves, and there’s likely no solution that’ll make them feel truly comfortable. Opening Day is just over two weeks away, however, so one way or another this will culminate in the team making a difficult choice.

Rays Acquire Victor Castaneda As PTBNL From Javy Guerra Trade

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The Rays have acquired right-hander Victor Castaneda from the Brewers as the player to be named later from the November trade that sent fellow righty Javy Guerra to the Brewers, per Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Castaneda, 24, was an international amateur signed by the Brewers out of Mexico in 2017. He’s worked his way up the minor league ladder since then, serving primarily as a starter. Last year, he split his time between Double-A and Triple-A, tossing 120 2/3 innings with a 4.10 ERA. He struck out 22.5% of batters faced in that time while walking 9.9%. Based on his strong work in the minors, Castaneda was considered one of the top 30 prospects in the Brewers’ system in the past two years by both Baseball America and FanGraphs.

If the Rays continue to deploy Castaneda as a starter, he’ll provide some depth to a rotation that’s dealing with a few injuries. Shane Baz underwent Tommy John surgery late last year and might miss the entire season, while Tyler Glasnow has a strained oblique that will force him to miss the start of the campaign. The rotation is still in good shape overall with Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen, Zach Eflin and Jeffrey Springs taking four spots. They also have Luis Patiño, Yonny Chirinos, Josh Fleming and Taj Bradley on the 40-man roster as options to fill in. Castaneda isn’t currently on the 40-man and would need to earn a spot in order to make an impact.

Diamond Sports Planning To File For Bankruptcy; MLB Planning To Stream Games For Free Temporarily

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Diamond Sports Group, the corporation that owns 14 Bally Sports regional sports networks, is expected to file for bankruptcy March 17, according to a report from Josh Kosman of The New York Post. The timeline will be awkward for Major League Baseball since the 2023 season opens on March 30, but the league plans to step in and broadcast the games themselves.

It had been reported for some time that Diamond is in financial trouble and they forewent interest payments worth roughly $140MM to creditors last month. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said at that time that the league was monitoring the situation, hoping that Diamond would make its payments but also drawing up contingency plans. It was subsequently reported that the league had hired multiple former RSN executives for a newly-created Local Media department, seemingly to get in position to take over broadcasting duties where necessary.

The problem stems from continued cord-cutting as fewer customers are paying for cable bundles these days, opting instead to use streaming services. That leads to decreased revenue from ad sales and cable contracts, creating situations where RSNs are paying teams more for rights fees than they are able to make back from those revenue streams. Per Kosman’s report, there are at least four teams where Diamond plans to reject the contracts via the bankruptcy proceedings. The teams in question are the Reds, Diamondbacks, Guardians and Padres, with the San Diego deal currently $20MM in the red on an annual basis.

The report goes on to state that MLB’s plan is to take over the local TV broadcasts of those teams, as well as streaming them for free in those local markets as they negotiate lower deals with cable companies. It’s not yet clear if fans in blacked-out markets would be able to access those streams in the short-term. If deals are reached, the league plans to offer over-the-top service for around $15 per month. As Kosman notes, that’s lower than some other streaming deals, with the Red Sox charging $29.99 per month. The league also already tried to acquire the rights to all 14 teams currently controlled by Diamond but were turned down. Those clubs are the Angels, Braves, Brewers, Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Guardians, Marlins, Padres, Rangers, Rays, Reds, Royals, Tigers, and Twins.

A similar situation has arisen with Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns AT&T SportsNet and is a minority owner of Root Sports. It was reported last month that Warner was planning to get out of the RSN business, which would have implications for the Rockies, Astros and Pirates, though not the Mariners. Warner only owns 40% of Root Sports Seattle with the Mariners owning the other 60%. Kosman’s report indicates the league plans to take over those broadcasts eventually as well, though not by Opening Day.

This is a fluid situation and many of the details are still being worked out, but it’s possible there is a sea change approaching in how Major League Baseball delivers its broadcasts to its fans. Most out-of-market games are available to paying subscribers via MLB TV, though these RSN deals have always taken precedent, leading to blackouts that prevent fans from watching their local club on the platform. Many fans have been critical of the way these blackouts are applied, with some subscribers saying that their home is covered by various overlapping blackout areas. The people of Iowa, for instance, have often complained that they can’t watch games featuring the Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, Twins, Royals or Brewers. That’s an extreme example but highlights the sorts of issues with the current system. Manfred has expressed a desire to move to a new system that would allow customers to purchase broadcasts regardless of where they are, though it’s unclear how long it would take to get such a model in place.

Whenever that new system is in place, it will also have implications for the finances for teams. These RSN deals have long been a significant source of club revenue that seems to now be drying up. Streaming will present new revenues sources, of course, and already has. The league has previously agreed to lucrative deals with streaming platforms like Apple and NBC and may strike other deals in the future.

For now, it seems the immediate concern is making sure that the broadcasts for the 2023 season are maintained. Kosman reports that the league plans to retain current local announcers for any broadcasts that it takes over and it doesn’t seem as though there are any current concerns of games being missed. Assuming the league is successful in all of these plans, it’s possible that fans won’t notice much difference in their baseball consumption here this year, but the field may be wide open for changes down the line.

Jordan Yamamoto Announces Retirement

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Right-hander Jordan Yamamoto took to Twitter today to announce his retirement. “I have decided to walk away from the game I love,” his post reads. “It’s definitely bittersweet. As I sit on my flight back home, there are so many emotions I’m feeling but none is regret. This has been an amazing journey and nothing short of unbelievable. A little kid from Hawaii with a dream. A dream to play in the MLB. If you would have told me at 10 years old that I would go on to be a big league pitcher and hold a franchise record, I would have never believed you. It is crazy and only right that I end my career the same way it started. On a back field game in Arizona. It’s poetry if you ask me.” He then goes on to thank all of the many people who have been a part of his journey, including his family, agents, teammates, coaches, staff members and fans.

Yamamoto, who turns 27 in May, was a 12th round draft pick of the Brewers in 2014. Despite that modest draft stock, he impressed in his first professional seasons, including a 2017 season where he posted a 2.51 ERA in 111 innings at Class-A Advanced. That performance was strong enough to get the attention of the Marlins, as Yamamoto was one of four players they acquired in the trade that sent Christian Yelich to Milwaukee.

Things continued to go well for Yamamoto in 2018, despite a few trips to the injured list. He made 13 starts with a 1.83 ERA at three different levels, finishing the year in Double-A. He then made another six starts in the Arizona Fall League with a 2.08 ERA in that time. The Marlins added him to their 40-man roster in November to protect him from being selected in the Rule 5 draft and Baseball America ranked him as the club’s #18 prospect going into 2019.

He was able to make his major league debut in 2019, making 15 starts with a 4.46 ERA, as well as 12 more Double-A starts with a 3.58 ERA. He seemed to be part of a wave of young rotation talent in Miami, alongside guys like Sandy Alcantara, Pablo López and others. Unfortunately, things wouldn’t continue on that trajectory in the seasons to come, largely due to injury. Yamamoto landed on the injured list late in 2019 and had diminished velocity in 2020, getting tattooed for an ERA of 18.26 in 11 1/3 innings that year.

Prior to the 2021 campaign, the Marlins designated him for assignment and then flipped him to the Mets. That would go on to be another frustrating season for Yamamoto, as he spent the beginning of the year being shuttled between Triple-A and the majors before a shoulder injury sent him to the IL from May until September. He was designated for assignment in April of 2022 and cleared waivers, sticking with the Mets but without a roster spot. He made 24 appearances in the minors last year with an ERA of 6.00. He reached free agency at season’s end and signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers in January but was recently reassigned to minor league camp.

Yamamoto has now decided it’s time to hang up his cleats and start the next phase of his life. He appeared in 21 major league games, tossing 96 2/3 innings in that time with a 6.05 ERA. He struck out 98 batters and earned five wins. The franchise record that he referenced in his statement was that he started his career with 14 scoreless frames for the Marlins. We at MLB Trade Rumors salute Yamamoto on achieving his dream of making it to the majors and wish him the best in his post-playing endeavors.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Offseason In Review: Milwaukee Brewers

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In conjunction with this entry in our annual Offseason in Review series, MLBTR will be hosting a Brewers-centric chat on March 10 at 10am CT. Click here to submit a question in advance.

The Brewers’ offseason began with a changing of the guard in the front office, as longtime president of baseball operations David Stearns stepped into an advisory role and handed the keys over to general manager Matt Arnold.

Major League Signings

Total spend: $9.72MM

Option Decisions

Trades and Waiver Claims

Extensions

  • None

Notable Minor League Signings

Notable Losses

Early in the offseason, there was some belief that between Stearns stepping down and some of the early transactions under Arnold, the Brewers were shifting into a rebuilding mode. After all, they’d traded Josh Hader at the deadline, missed the playoffs and opened the winter by dealing away both Hunter Renfroe and Kolten Wong.

However, moves of that ilk have become par for the course in Milwaukee as players approach the end of their club control. The Brewers are not and never have been a large-payroll club, and though they’ve made some big-scale splashes (e.g. extending Christian Yelich, signing Lorenzo Cain), Milwaukee generally operates on the margins and makes extreme value-driven decisions that often look a bit befuddling.

This is the same club that non-tendered Chris Carter after he led the league in home runs and the same club that has regularly declined affordable options on role players like Brad Boxberger, Jedd Gyorko and Eric Thames over the years, believing (often correctly so) that slightly better values will surface late in the offseason.

In the case of Renfroe, he was only acquired in the first place as a means of Milwaukee jettisoning the remainder of their ill-fated contract with Jackie Bradley Jr. The Brewers parted with a pair of prospects in order to shed that contract, but the Renfroe swap was a financially motivated one to begin with. Moving one year of control over Renfroe on the heels of a nice season for three near-MLB righties feels like an on-brand move for this team, given Renfroe’s OBP and $11.9MM salary. It’s a reasonable price, but the Brewers probably didn’t consider there to be much surplus value.

The decision on Wong was somewhat similar. The Brewers have depth in the middle infield, headlined by prospect Brice Turang — the favorite for to succeed Wong at second base. Wong’s $10MM salary was effectively market value for a player of his age and skill set — perhaps a bit over — and the Brewers flipped him for a buy-low DH/corner outfield candidate who could help cover for Renfroe’s departure (Jesse Winker) and a controllable infielder who has had his share of struggles but was once a well-regarded prospect (Abraham Toro). Winker, in particular, is an interesting rebound candidate after he played through knee and neck injuries last year, both of which required offseason surgery. Prior to that, he was one of the game’s most productive bats against right-handed pitching.

The trades of Renfroe and Wong weren’t as much about shedding payroll — though that was surely a piece of it — as converting one year of control over a near-market-value asset into several years of control over a handful of largely big league-ready players, even if they’re seen as projects with limited ceilings.

Many fans and pundits braced for subsequent trades of stars like Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff and Willy Adames, but the Brewers instead told other clubs they planned to hang onto that trio of core players. It’s fair to wonder just how long that’ll last. Woodruff and Burnes are both controlled two more seasons, both owed over $10MM in 2023 and will both likely top $15MM in salary for the 2024 season. Neither seems likely to take a discount on an extension at this point — certainly not Burnes, after voicing frustration regarding the Brewers’ tactics in arbitration. Adames is more affordable, but only slightly so ($8.7MM). He’s also the youngest of the bunch and recently commented on how this offseason’s class of free-agent shortstops “set the bar” for future free agents at the position.

All three of those All-Star-caliber talents will be Brewers to begin the season, but by this summer, there’ll be increased focus on them. If the Brewers are out of contention or even on the cusp of it, they could be forced into decisions that rival last summer’s Hader dilemma: either ride out a star player’s penultimate year of club control in hopes of reaching the postseason (and in doing so lessen his trade value in the offseason), or make a trade that’s unpopular in the clubhouse and among fans in the name of restocking the system with near-MLB pieces.

It’s an unenviable spot, but that’s life for many small- and mid-market clubs with payrolls in the bottom half of MLB. Unpopular as the Hader trade was, the Brewers secured Esteury Ruiz in that swap — in addition to a near-MLB-ready rotation piece in Robert Gasser — and just months later flipped Ruiz to acquire five years of control over slugging catcher William Contreras.

The acquisition of Contreras (and righties Joel Payamps and Justin Yeager) pushed back on any notion that the Brewers were rebuilding. Contreras was a win-now piece with less team control (albeit by just one year) than the prospect surrendered to add him. He’ll step right into the heart of the lineup. The younger brother of Willson Contreras, William slashed .278/.354/.506 with 20 round-trippers in 376 plate appearances last season. His defense is a work in questionable at best, but Milwaukee has developed a reputation as one of the better clubs at improving catchers’ defense (as Omar Narvaez can attest). If Contreras can even be just slightly below-average in terms of framing and overall defense, he could rate among the game’s best all-around backstops.

The rest of Milwaukee’s whopping eight trades were more minor — depth moves that came at little expense to the farm or MLB roster. Out-of-options righties Bryse Wilson and Javy Guerra give Milwaukee a seventh/eighth rotation candidate and a flamethrowing bullpen wild card, respectively. Neither is guaranteed to make it through spring training, but the cost was cash and a PTBNL, so there’s little harm in rolling the dice on a pair of somewhat interesting right-handers.

Owen Miller, also picked up for a PTBNL, gives Milwaukee a right-handed-hitting depth piece who faded after a hot start with Cleveland in 2022. Milwaukee knows catcher Payton Henry quite well, having drafted him in 2016 and traded him to the Marlins in 2021 to acquire John Curtiss. He returns as a slugging third or fourth catcher who’s yet to hit above Double-A but cost only a Dominican Summer League lottery ticket (18-year-old Reminton Batista).

On the free-agent front, the Brewers stayed true to form and eschewed big-money deals, instead waiting out some potential bargains who all signed after the new year. A one-year, $4.5MM to bring southpaw Wade Miley back to the organization was a bit of a head-scratcher at the time, with Burnes, Woodruff, Freddy Peralta, Eric Lauer, Adrian Houser, Aaron Ashby and Wilson already on the roster. Just a month later, the Brewers announced that both Ashby and righty Jason Alexander were out at least a month of the regular season due to shoulder troubles. Miley suddenly looked like a more sensible addition, whether the Brewers knew at the time of the deal that their rotation was compromised or whether that proved to be sheer serendipity.

With Miley stepping in behind Burnes, Woodruff, Peralta and Lauer, it seemed as though the out-of-options Houser could find himself moved to another club with a clear rotation vacancy. That could still potentially come to pass, but with Ashby and Alexander ailing, the rotation depth is thinner. Houser’s the next man up in the event of an injury to any of the top five, and with a reasonable $3.6MM salary and two seasons of club control remaining, the Brewers aren’t going to just give him away even if there’s no rotation spot open.

Anderson is a classic buy-low candidate on the heels of a non-tender from the Marlins. Shoulder and back injuries have derailed his once-promising trajectory, as he’s only appeared in 165 games and posted a tepid .233/.321/.359 batting line over the past two seasons. Prior to that, he was one of Miami’s best players. From 2018-20, Anderson split time between third base and right field, batting .266/.350/.436 in Miami’s pitcher-friendly home park. Picking him up at a $3.5MM price point has the potential to prove one of the offseason’s best bargains for any club, if he can recapture that peak form.

The defensive versatility Anderson offers shouldn’t be undersold. It may already be coming into play, in fact. While it looked early on as though he’d handle the bulk of the work at the hot corner, that’s no longer certain. Tyrone Taylor, the Brewers’ lone righty-swinging outfielder, is dealing with an elbow sprain that’ll cost him at least the first month of the season. Anderson can slide into right field, with Luis Urias slotting back in at the hot corner and Turang — assuming he shows well this spring — taking up everyday reps at second base. If Taylor returns as quickly as the Brewers hope, Anderson can either slide back to third base and push Urias into a utility role — or the Brewers can simply deploy Taylor as a traditional fourth outfielder. Even the Milwaukee brass probably doesn’t quite know how it’ll all shake out, but the mere fact that there are multiple courses of action to ponder is a testament to Anderson’s flexibility.

Beyond that group, most of Milwaukee’s offseason transactions exist around the periphery of the roster. Outfielder Blake Perkins landed a 40-man roster spot due to his ability to play all three positions and a .246/.357/.456 showing between Double-A and Triple-A with the Yankees last year. It’s a league-minimum deal if he’s in the Majors, and if not, he gives Milwaukee some depth.

The team inked veteran lefty Justin Wilson to a one-year contract with a 2024 club option as he recovers from Tommy John surgery. He can perhaps help down the stretch, and if he returns to form, a net $2.35MM option on him for 2024 makes this a vintage Brewers type of move.

Minor league deals with veterans are commonplace, but Luke Voit and Tyler Naquin are fairly high-profile names to receive such deals, given Voit’s pre-injury track record and Naquin’s performance in Cincinnati over the past couple seasons. The injury to Taylor thins the outfield and seemingly increases Naquin’s chances of landing a roster spot. If the team instead prefers to push Winker into more of an everyday outfield role, that could help Voit’s chances. Right-handed bats Mike Brosseau and Keston Hiura make Voit perhaps redundant, but Hiura could be in for a make-or-break spring himself. The former first-rounder and top prospect is out of minor league options and has never replicated his huge rookie year, struggling with massive strikeout rates and poor defense at multiple positions in the seasons since.

Just as there’s uncertainty surrounding the final bench spots, there are questions in the bullpen. Milwaukee did little to address the relief corps, adding only a trio of out-of-options righties via trade: Wilson, Guerra and Payamps. Of the bunch, Payamps is coming off the best season and is the likeliest to make the roster. If Milwaukee carries all three, they’ll join Houser and Matt Bush as out-of-options arms in the bullpen, leaving Milwaukee with minimal flexibility.

It’s a big bet on a largely unproven group, but the Brewers seem comfortable with a back-end featuring All-Star Devin Williams, Bush and breakout rookie Peter Strzelecki (2.83 ERA, 27% strikeout rate, 10.1% walk rate in 35 innings). Southpaw Hoby Milner quietly enjoyed a nice 2022 season as well. Milwaukee makes enough moves around the edges of the roster that it shouldn’t surprise anyone if they move on from a less-established, out-of-options arm in the name of greater flexibility, but spring training will serve as a proving grounds for Wilson and Guerra.

In the outfield, the Brewers will hope that even with Renfroe gone, they can get a resurgence from Yelich and lean on a combination of Winker, Anderson, Taylor (once healthy) and perhaps Naquin in the corners. They didn’t add a center fielder, which is likely reflective of the thin market at the position, Taylor’s ability there and the organization’s faith in former first-rounder Garrett Mitchell, who hit .311/.373/.459 in 68 plate appearances as a rookie last year. The 24-year-old whiffed in 41% of those plate appearances and was propped up by a ludicrous .548 BABIP, but Mitchell also batted .287/.377/.426 across three minor league levels with far less concerning strikeout numbers. Behind him are prospects Sal Frelick and Joey Wiemer, both of whom made some top-100 lists in the offseason. Both annihilated Triple-A pitching in 2022 and both have experience at all three outfield slots. Outfielder Jackson Chourio, meanwhile, is one of the top ten prospects in the entire sport. He’ll turn just 19 this weekend but already briefly reached Double-A in 2022. That youth makes him a long shot for 2023, unless the Brewers put him on a Juan Soto-esque fast track.

For all the fretting post-Renfroe/Wong, the Brewers still have a dominant rotation, one of the game’s best relievers, and a lineup with several solid regulars and multiple intriguing youngsters (Mitchell, Turang, with Frelick and Wiemer looming). Neither Pirates nor the Reds are threats in the NL Central, with both at differing stages of their rebuilding processes. The Cubs are improved but still building up and may be another year from truly reemerging. They could beat expectations and find themselves in the race, but right now, the division again looks like a battle between Milwaukee and St. Louis.

The Brewers have a good shot at competing, and if they get to the postseason, the presence of Burnes, Woodruff, Peralta and Williams is so formidable that they can’t be counted out. But if things are more borderline this summer or they’re totally out of it, Burnes, Woodruff and Adames could become some of the most fascinating (and expensive) names on the market.

One way or another, we’re nearing the end of this group’s run together, but the Brewers have proven that they’re willing to make difficult trades in the name of establishing a new core, and they’ve managed to be competitive more often than not under the Stearns/Arnold regime. We’ll see if that changes with Stearns stepping to the side.

How would you grade the Brewers’ offseason?

How would you grade the Brewers' offseason?
C 38.62% (872 votes)
B 37.91% (856 votes)
D 13.02% (294 votes)
A 5.45% (123 votes)
F 5.00% (113 votes)
Total Votes: 2,258

Brewers Notes: Voit, Sanchez, Miley

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Luke Voit has been a member of the Brewers organization for just a few weeks. The former home run leader signed a minor league deal a couple weeks ago, getting an opportunity to audition for a roster spot early in Spring Training.

The Brewers will have to make that call relatively early into exhibition play. Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that Voit would be able to opt out of the deal next Thursday if he’s not added to the big league roster. According to Sherman, Voit’s deal would come with a $2MM base salary if he makes the MLB club.

While that’s far from an exorbitant sum, it remains to be seen whether Milwaukee feels there’ll be sufficient at-bats for Voit to warrant a spot. Keston Hiura is on hand as an in-house option with a similar power-oriented skillset from the right side. Hiura has run exorbitant strikeout tallies over the past few years but he’s flashed impact power upside. The former ninth overall pick connected on 14 home runs with a quality .222 ISO (slugging minus batting average) in just 80 games last season.

Voit and Hiura are seemingly jockeying for reps as a right-handed complement to lefty-swinging first base/DH options Rowdy Tellez and Jesse Winker. Both Hiura and Voit have actually fared worse against left-handed pitching than righties over the course of their careers. Tellez and especially Winker have had more traditional splits, however, with both handling righties better over the years. While neither Voit nor Hiura has functioned as a traditional lefty masher, they each offer some righty pop to help balance the order.

Adding some power from that side of the dish was apparently a goal for Milwaukee. To that end, Sherman writes that the Brew Crew had checked in with free agent catcher Gary Sánchez earlier in the offseason. Milwaukee subsequently acquired their new backstop, William Contreras, from the Braves as part of the three-team Sean Murphy trade. That swap landed the Brewers five seasons of control over a player they hope to be the long-term answer behind the dish at the cost of center field prospect Esteury Ruiz, who went to Oakland.

Sánchez still has yet to put pen to paper despite reports of interest from the likes of the Angels and Giants in recent months. He’s one of the top unsigned hitters available. Milwaukee no longer has a need for MLB catching, as the duo of Contreras and Víctor Caratini will handle the load. Milwaukee brought in Payton Henry from the Marlins in a low-profile trade to serve as the #3 option. There’s no indication Sánchez remains on the radar as a result, though he could be of interest to any number of teams if he’s willing to take a minor league deal at this stage of the winter.

A bat-first catcher for most of his time with the Yankees, Sánchez flipped the script to an extent during his lone season in Minnesota last year. He hit 16 homers but with a fairly modest .205/.282/.377 overall showing through 471 trips to the plate. That was among the worst full-season offensive performances of his career but he received roughly average grades for his pitch framing and ball-blocking from Statcast.

While Sánchez’s destination is still to be determined, there are no such questions with starter Wade Miley. The Brewers brought him back on a one-year, $4.5MM guarantee shortly after the calendar flipped to 2023. It’ll be season number 13 for the 36-year-old southpaw, who acknowledged he thought at points this offseason his career might be over.

“I was so unsure at the end of the year for what was next,” Miley told Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer. “I wanted to get my shoulder healthy. I did a little program right after the season was over and it didn’t feel good at all. I did it for four weeks and it was awful. That’s when I went into – I wouldn’t call it depressed mode, but I was like ’it’s not worth it.’ At that moment, I was like, ’I think we’re done.’ Me and my wife talked, and I said, ‘I think this might be it.’”

Miley is coming off a season in which shoulder issues kept him to only nine appearances with the Cubs. Fortunately, he says his arm feels good after an offseason of rest and he felt comfortable giving things another go. Miley figures to take a back-end rotation role in Milwaukee, offering some veteran depth behind Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta and Eric Lauer. That takes on added importance for the Brew Crew after spring injuries to Aaron Ashby and Jason Alexander have thinned the depth beyond Miley and #6 starter Adrian Houser. As for his long-term outlook, Miley told Nightengale “I guess as long as (teams) keep calling, I’ll keep playing.”

Lorenzo Cain To Officially Retire As A Royal This Summer

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Outfielder Lorenzo Cain was released by the Brewers in June of last year and didn’t sign with another team. He tells Andy McCullough of The Athletic that he got some interest from other clubs but ultimately decided to call it a career. He will return to Kauffman Stadium at some point during the upcoming season to officially retire as a Royal, though the timing and logistics of that are still being worked out.

Cain was certainly struggling last year, as he had a batting line of .179/.231/.234 at the time he was cut loose by the Brewers. But his defensive grades were still good and he had been roughly average at the plate the year before. It seems a few teams thought he still had something left in the tank. Cain says the Dodgers were in touch, as were players on the Phillies and Adam Wainwright of the Cardinals. However, Cain decided to defer to his three young boys.

“I left it in the hands of my boys,” Cain said to McCullough. “I said, ‘Hey, do you guys want Daddy to continue to play ball? Or are you ready for Daddy to be done and go home?’ And they said, ‘Dad, we want you to go home.’ And I said, ‘OK, then.’ So I’ve been done. I just haven’t announced it, I guess.” As mentioned, the details of the upcoming ceremony are still being hashed out, but Cain says they are tentatively targeting the month of May. Once the paperwork is filed, it will officially bring to a close a career that was bookended by time with Milwaukee but had its greatest highlights in Kansas City.

The Brewers selected Cain in the 17th round of the 2004 draft. He worked his way up through the minors and cracked the big leagues in 2010, getting into 43 games that year. Prior to the 2011 campaign, the rebuilding Royals sent Zack Greinke and Yuniesky Betancourt to the Brewers in exchange for Alcides Escobar, Jeremy Jeffress, Jake Odorizzi and Cain.

Lorenzo Cain | Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY SportsHis first year with his new club was primarily spent in the minors and then Cain was hurt for much of 2012. In 2013, he started to show signs of becoming a viable major leaguer, as he got into 115 games, stole 14 bases and provided excellent defense. He took another step forward in 2014, hitting .301 on the year and swiping 28 bags. He helped the club to the World Series that year, winning ALCS MVP along the way.

The Royals lost that World Series but were back the next year, thanks in no small part to Cain. He hit 16 home runs in 2015, effectively doubling his career tally at that time, as he had just 17 coming into the year. He also stole another 28 bases, continued to be great in the field and hit .307. He made the All-Star game that year, the first of two selections for him, and the Royals eventually emerged victorious in that year’s World Series.

Cain would play another couple of seasons in Kansas City before reaching free agency. He returned to the Brewers on a five-year, $80MM deal going into 2018. He continued to be an excellent player in the first few years of that contract, providing his typical blend of speed and defense, along with a few home runs. He was selected to the All-Star game again in 2018 and won a Gold Glove award in 2019.

Cain played five games in 2020 before deciding to opt out due to the pandemic. He was then hampered by injuries in 2021, getting into just 78 games. He struggled out of the gate in 2022 and was ultimately let go by the Brewers. As mentioned up top, Cain seemed to have some chances to continue his playing career but ultimately decided to be with his family instead.

Cain goes into the history books with 1,220 hits, including 225 doubles, 24 triples and 87 home runs. He scored 626 runs, drove 454 of them in and stole 190 bases. He was a two-time All-Star, a Gold Glove winner and a World Series champion. We at MLB Trade Rumors salute him on a fine career and wish him all the best in retirement.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

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