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Brewers Place Kolten Wong On 10-Day Injured List

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The Brewers have placed Kolten Wong on the 10-day injured list with a right calf strain, retroactive to June 8th, per the team. Right-hander Luke Barker was also optioned to Triple-A. To fill the active roster, Mark Mathias and Peter Strzelecki were recalled from Triple-A. The Brewers have been sliding, losers of seven straight coming into today’s game against the Nationals.

Barker and Strzelecki are swapping places after doing the same back on June 3rd. The 27-year-old Strzelecki made just one appearance for the club, a two-inning outing back on June 2nd in which he surrendered one earned run. He gave his roster spot to Barker the following day. Barker, 30, made three appearances for the Brew Crew, yielding five earned runs across four innings of work.

Wong has been the leadoff man for most of the year, with Christian Yelich taking over atop the lineup in the past three games while Wong has been out. Defensively Luis Urias has continued in his role as a swingman, moving to the keystone from shortstop, where he had been filling in for Willy Adames before his return from the injured list. Wong has been exactly league-average with the bat (100 wRC+), slashing .228/.321/.389 in 209 plate appearances.

Mathias, 27, can step into Mike Brosseau’s role as a right-handed infield option. Jace Peterson has been seeing most of the playing time at third base, but against a lefty starter, Milwaukee is likely to turn to Mathias or Keston Hiura.

Brewers Outright Alex Hall

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  • Brewers catcher Alex Hall cleared waivers and has been assigned outright to the team’s Class-A Advanced affiliate, as indicated on their transactions log at MLB.com. The 22-year-old Hall signed out of Australia as an amateur back in 2017 and has spent the bulk of his Brewers tenure in the lower levels of the team’s system. Hall was selected to the big leagues in emergency fashion when catcher Omar Narvaez was scratched from the Brewers’ lineup following a positive Covid-19 test. Backup Victor Caratini got the start that day, but the Brewers didn’t have time to summon Alex Jackson or another catcher from their Triple-A club in Nashville. The proximity of their High-A club — located in Appleton, Wisc. — wound up getting Hall his first few days of big league service time. He’ll head back to that level, where he has a .275/.333/.451 slash in 15 games, and continue working toward a more permanent addition to the 40-man roster.

Have The Brewers Developed Another Ace?

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The Brewers’ rotation has been its primary strength for the past several seasons. Entering the year the club looked like the favorite in the NL Central (or at least a co-favorite) on the strength of the three-headed monster of Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta and 2021 National League Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes. Brewers starters have indeed been excellent both in the eyes of traditional and newer metrics, ranking fifth in the Majors with a collective 3.36 ERA, fourth with a 3.43 FIP and third with a 3.44 SIERA.

Eric Lauer | Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

The route the Brewers have taken to get there, however, isn’t the one any would’ve forecast heading into the season. Burnes has been predictably excellent, working to a 2.50 ERA on the back of a dominant K-BB% and thus far making a strong bid for a repeat win in the Cy Young balloting. Woodruff, however, is struggling through his worst full season as a starter thanks to an alarming spike in home-run rate, and he recently hit the IL with a high ankle sprain. Peralta, meanwhile, pitched just 38 2/3 innings of 4.42 ERA ball before a lat strain sent him to the injured list. He’s not expected back anytime soon.

So, how have the Brewers continued on as one of the game’s best starting staffs? They’ve received solid if unspectacular work from fifth starter Adrian Houser and some intriguing work from rookie Aaron Ashby, but the biggest driving factor that’s allowed them to weather the Woodruff struggles and Peralta injury has been Eric Lauer’s transformation from back-of-the-rotation arm to what looks like the next great Brewers starter.

Acquired from the Padres alongside Luis Urias in a deal that sent outfielder Trent Grisham and righty Zach Davies to San Diego, Lauer was seen as a back-of-the-rotation option for the Brewers at the time of the swap. That’s understandable, as from 2018-19, he’d been just that with the Padres. Between those two seasons, Lauer tallied 261 2/3 innings of 4.40 ERA ball with a below-average strikeout rate (20.6%), a solid walk rate (8.4%) and below-average ground-ball tendencies (38.9%). Generally speaking, he fit the soft-tossing-lefty mold with which most baseball fans are familiar: strike-thrower who doesn’t overpower opponents but has good command of the zone and keeps his team in the game more often than not.

As recently as the 2020-21 offseason, the trade to acquire Lauer and Urias looked quite lopsided in San Diego’s favor. Lauer tossed just 11 innings for the Brewers in 2020, while Urias provided no real offensive value through 120 plate appearances that season. Grisham, meanwhile, was excellent while playing 59 of 60 games for the Padres that summer, and Davies had the best year of his career by a wide margin (which helped the Padres subsequently include him in the trade to acquire Yu Darvish from the Cubs). Recent play from Urias and especially Lauer has flipped the narrative, though.

Lauer opened the 2021 season with the Brewers’ Triple-A club and spent the first month of the year there before being recalled to the Majors on April 29. Over his first nine appearances (seven starts, two from the bullpen), he posted a nondescript 4.50 ERA/5.08 FIP and garnered little attention. At that point, few would’ve pegged Lauer as a critical cog to the Brewers’ immediate rotation plans.

On July 3 of last season, however, something changed. Lauer threw a slider. It wasn’t the first of his career, but it was his first of the season. He wound up throwing the pitch just under 20% of the time that day, taking his retooled breaking ball for a test drive against a hapless Pirates lineup with good success. Lauer has featured the pitch regularly since, and it’s difficult to overstate just how important it has been to his arsenal.

Since re-debuting the pitch on July 3 last season, FanGraphs ranks Lauer sixth among all Major League starting pitchers in slider runs above average. His slider trails only Dylan Cease, Shohei Ohtani, Max Scherzer, Tarik Skubal and, ever-so-slightly, Brad Keller. That’s a bit misleading, though, as all of those pitchers other than Scherzer throw their slider more often than Lauer. Keller has thrown his slider at a 38.7% clip in that time, while Cease has used his exactly a third of the time. Ohtani is at 28.8% and Skubal at 26.8%. Lauer’s 19.9% usage rate from 2021-22 comes in at exactly half that of Keller. In other words, on a per-pitch basis, Lauer’s slider has been substantially move valuable than all of Cease, Ohtani, Skubal and Keller.

In fact, when shifting to look at slider value per 100 pitches thrown, Scherzer is the only starter in baseball (min. 50 innings) whose slider has generated more value. (Notably, had the beginning of Lauer’s slider usage not coincided almost perfectly with Jacob deGrom’s 2021 season-ending injury, he’d have ranked above Lauer as well, given that deGrom unsurprisingly had the best per-pitch slider in MLB last year.)

Lauer wound up throwing 224 sliders from July 3 onward last season, and in the 73 plate appearances that culminated with that pitch, his opponents batted just .123/.219/.215. He’s thrown 201 sliders this season, finished off 61 plate appearances with the pitch, and yielded just a .140/.180/.193 output to opponents. This season, Statcast ranks Lauer sixth among big league pitchers (min. 50 PAs) with a .221 expected wOBA against his slider. Given the pitch’s success, it’s little surprise that Lauer is throwing it at a career-high 21.9% clip so far in 2022, and you could argue he ought to feature it even more heavily.

All told, since Lauer reincorporated the slider into his arsenal, he’s made 23 starts and pitched to a 2.40 ERA with a 25.2% strikeout rate and a 7.9% walk rate. He’s had some good fortune, evidenced by a .247 average on balls in play and an 83.6% strand rate, but even accounting for some likely regression in those areas, Lauer looks like a completely different pitcher. That’s especially true because the addition of a slider doesn’t appear to be the only meaningful change that’s led to his breakout.

Entering the 2022 season, Lauer had averaged 91.9 mph on his four-seam fastball. He saw a slight uptick from 91.7 mph (2018-20) to 92.5 mph in 2021, however, and he’s sitting at a career-high 93.7 mph so far in 2022. The left-hander told Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel near the end of Spring Training (where he’d also shown a noticeable jump in velocity readings) that his strong finish in 2021 allowed him to shift his offseason focus from searching for flaws in his delivery and refining his mechanics to building strength. Said Lauer at the time:

“It was more a focus on strength training and finally getting used to my body being synched up like it is now. I spent a lot of time this offseason focusing on upper body movement and strength so I think we’re finally seeing everything line up.”

Lauer’s fastball hasn’t morphed into a dominant offering with the newfound velocity, but it’s performed much better — as one would expect upon jumping nearly two miles per hour in a two-year span. The 2020-21 version of Lauer’s heater was a decidedly below-average offering, according to run values from both FanGraphs and Statcast. Both now rate it as a roughly average pitch. Lauer has posted a career-best 12.9% swinging-strike rate (swings-and-misses per total pitches thrown) on his four-seamer in 2022. His 33.3% whiff rate (swings-and-misses per swing) on the four-seamer is up from 26.5% in 2021 and way up from the 21.5% he posted in 2018-19 with San Diego.

Lauer is far from a two-pitch starter, as he’ll also work in a cutter, curveball and more occasional changeup (which also rates excellently on a per-pitch basis). But the improvements he’s made to his four-seamer and especially to his slider have vaulted him from a fairly run-of-the-mill back-end starter to a legitimate weapon who’s helped the Brewers offset downturns in production from Woodruff and Peralta.

Barring an extension, the Brewers control Lauer for two years beyond the current campaign. That timeframe lines up directly with all three of Burnes, Woodruff and Houser. Peralta is signed through 2024, and his contract contains affordable 2025 and 2026 club options for Milwaukee. The aforementioned Ashby, who perhaps merits a deep dive of his own, is controllable all the way through 2027.

Suffice it to say, the long-term outlook for the Brewers’ staff is quite bright. And, if Milwaukee can get Woodruff and Peralta healthy and closer to 2021 form by the season’s final month, their top four starters — paired with Josh Hader and Devin Williams — will again give them the type of formidable staff that can carry a deep postseason run, provided the Brewers’ bats speak louder than they did last October (six total runs in four NLDS games against the Braves).

Brewers Make Series Of Roster Moves

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JUNE 3: Milwaukee recalled Alex Jackson to serve as Caratini’s backup today. Hall has been designated for assignment. The Brewers also recalled Luke Barker and Pablo Reyes, optioned Peter Strzelecki and placed Mike Brosseau on the 10-day injured list due to a right ankle sprain.

JUNE 2: The Brewers placed catcher Omar Narváez on the COVID-19 injured list, just a half-hour before tonight’s contest with the Padres. That’ll force them to start Víctor Caratini behind the dish today, and the time constraints have led to an atypical corresponding roster move. To take Narváez’s place on the active and 40-man rosters, the Brew Crew selected backstop Alex Hall from High-A Wisconsin.

That decision was pressed upon them by geographic constraints as the Brewers scramble to get a second catcher to Milwaukee. Hall will make the trek from Appleton, where the Timber Rattlers are based — a far easier commute than it would’ve been to get help from Durham, where the club’s Triple-A affiliate is playing on the road.

Hall, 23 next week, was an amateur signee out of Australia in December 2017. He had a nine-game stint in Triple-A in 2019 but has otherwise played in the low minors for his entire career. He’s only played six games with Wisconsin this season, as he’s been a backup option for the Timber Rattlers. This stay on the 40-man roster will surely be brief, but the unique situation affords Hall an opportunity to join the big league club and possibly get some MLB action were Caratini to suffer an injury during tonight’s game.

16 Impending Free Agents Off To Slow Starts At The Plate

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The Padres cut ties with Robinson Cano this morning, just as the Mets did before them. It was a tougher decision for the Mets, given the financial obligation they have toward Cano through the 2023 season. However, his lack of production and the presence of younger, better options forced the hand of both parties.

We’re coming up on a third of the way through the 2022 season, and it’ll become increasingly difficult for teams with struggling veterans in the Cano mold to continue trotting them out there. That’s especially true of players who are impending free agents. While fans can (and do) disagree with the thinking, a player like Aaron Hicks, whom the Yankees owe $30.5MM from 2023-25, will get a longer leash than an impending free agent due to that multi-year commitment. So while there are plenty of struggling veterans on long-term deals, those with the thinnest grasp on their current roster spots are those who’ll be off the books at season’s end anyhow.

With that in mind, here’s a look at some names to watch and, when applicable, some of the names behind them who could aid in pushing them out the door (all stats entering Thursday’s play):

Carlos Santana, Royals: I’m not sure anyone other than the Royals’ front office understands the thinking behind continuing to trot Santana out to the field at this point. The 36-year-old is hitting .161/.293/.250 through 147 plate appearances, and it’s not as though that enormous slump is an entirely new development. Santana hit just .214/.319/.342 while playing in 158 of 162 games for the Royals last year and .199/.340/.350 in Cleveland during the shortened 2020 season.

Santana’s very presence on the Royals is due to the team’s effort to return to win-now mode after a rebuild focused on drafting college arms. He signed a two-year, $17.5MM contract heading into the 2021 season but hasn’t been able to bounce back to the form that long made him one of the game’s biggest on-base threats and most underrated offensive performers.

Signing Santana might’ve been a “win-now” move, but it’s hard to argue that continuing to run him out there is in the Royals’ best interest. That’s doubly true with top prospects Nick Pratto and Vinnie Pasquantino mashing in Triple-A Omaha. Both are in the same first base/designated hitter mold as Santana, and both Pratto (55) and Pasquantino (61) rank prominently in Baseball America’s updated Top 100 prospect rankings. Pratto got off to a slow start but is hitting .246/.392/.483 over his past 148 plate appearances. Pasquantino burst out of the gates and hasn’t slowed down; he’s hitting .298/.392/.667 with 15 home runs in 204 plate appearances.

The Royals owe Santana the balance of his $10.5MM salary whether he’s on the roster or not, but he’ll start racking up incentives when he reaches 300 plate appearances.

Joey Gallo, Yankees: Gallo was one of the Yankees’ biggest trade-deadline additions in recent years, but he’s never found his footing in the Bronx. His status as a three-true-outcomes player is well-documented, but he’s trended more aggressively toward the least-desirable of those outcomes since donning pinstripes. Gallo has fanned in 38% of his plate appearances as a Yankee while seeing both his power and his walk rate dip. Since the Yankees acquired him, he’s batting .167/.295/.370.

Even with the short porch in right field, Gallo has only five home runs through 141 plate appearances this season. He’s also seen his average exit velocity, launch angle and barrel rate drop in 2022. Gallo is still making loads of hard contact when he hits the ball in the air, per Statcast, and perhaps that’s helping to keep him both in the lineup and on the roster. New York isn’t getting any real offense from Hicks, Isiah Kiner-Falefa or Kyle Higashioka, however. Giancarlo Stanton and Josh Donaldson are once again on the injured list. Anthony Rizzo had a massive April but is batting just .162/.274/.303 in his past 117 plate appearances. The Yankees’ AL East lead has begun to shrink, as the Jays have rattled off eight straight wins, and they can’t realistically count on Aaron Judge to carry the offense all season long.

Gallo doesn’t have a high-end outfield prospect breathing down his neck, but if he can’t get things going at the plate, the calls for change are only going to grow louder. He’s earning $10.275MM in his final arbitration season before free agency, and another club might view him as a change-of-scenery candidate with the hopes that he’ll be the position-player equivalent of Sonny Gray and thrive following a rocky stint in the Bronx.

Adam Duvall, Braves: Like Gallo, Duvall’s skill set and offensive profile were well established when the Braves opted to retain him via arbitration. He was coming off a 38-homer campaign, so there was never much doubt he’d be tendered a contract, but Duvall’s brand of huge power/bottom-of-the-scale OBP always left him with a pretty low floor should the power ever evaporate.

That’s been the case in 2022, as Duvall still isn’t walking or hitting for average, and he’s only slugged two homers on the season. Paired with a career-worst 31.9% strikeout rate, those troubling trends have resulted in a .191/.257/.272 slash for Duvall, who has also already been tasked with playing more center field in 2022 than he had in his entire career to date.

Atlanta has already called up Michael Harris II, one of the sport’s fastest-rising outfield talents, and former top prospect Drew Waters is at least putting together respectable, if unexciting results in Triple-A. The Braves have also tinkered with catcher William Contreras in the outfield. Duvall has been MLB’s second-worst qualified hitter, by measure of wRC+, and it’s fair to wonder how long the leash will be.

Miguel Sano, Twins: Sano isn’t technically a free agent at season’s end, but barring a Herculean push to finish the season, it’s nearly impossible to fathom the Twins picking up a $14MM option on him. To Sano’s credit, he hit quite well from June through season’s end (.251/.330/.503, 21 homers, 21 doubles in 373 plate appearances), but he looked absolutely lost at the plate in 2022 before landing on the injured list due to a torn meniscus. Sano hit just .093/.231/.148 in 65 plate appearances.

When Sano does return, he’ll come back to a retooled roster that has seen versatile Luis Arraez rake while picking up regular at-bats at first base. Former No. 1 pick Royce Lewis is getting looks at third base and in left field — though Lewis is on the 10-day IL himself now — and top outfield/first base prospect Alex Kirilloff is hitting well in Triple-A following his return from a wrist injury.

The Twins can keep Sano in Triple-A for 20 days on rehab assignment when he’s ready, and they may want to do just that to give him a chance to show he can recapture some of his late 2021 form. But the clock on Sano’s three-year, $30MM deal is running out, and the first-place Twins have plenty of options to fill out the lineup. None of them have Sano’s raw power — almost no one in MLB does — but the big man’s ongoing contact issues tend to lead to protracted slumps like the one he slogged through earlier this year. If he can’t turn it around quickly upon his return, it’d be difficult to justify playing him over Arraez, Kirilloff and others.

Enrique Hernandez & Jackie Bradley Jr., Red Sox: Hernandez was a revelation in 2021 when he smacked 20 homers, hit .250/.337/.449, and delivered all-world defense in center field. But as good as year one of his $14MM contract was, the second and final campaign of that deal has been nightmarish. Hernandez is hitting .203/.269/.340 with a career-low hard-hit rate and exit velocity. He’s still playing great defense in center and helping shoulder the second base workload, but the offensive deficiency is glaring.

That’s also somewhat true of Bradley Jr., who returned to Boston after one ill-fated season in Milwaukee. To Bradley’s credit, he has actually picked up the pace quite a bit, hitting .291/.328/.491 since mid-May, but that surge still only brings his overall season line to .227/.284/.353. If Bradley can sustain some of this production, he’ll surely hang onto his roster spot, but it’s hard not to look at young Jarren Duran’s .309/.391/.523 output in Triple-A and start thinking of ways to insert him into the big league lineup. Duran struggled in his debut last year but is still a touted young prospect whom the Sox envision as a long-term building block.

Hernandez is earning $8MM this season. Bradley is on a $9.5MM salary and is still owed an $8MM buyout on a mutual option for the 2023 season.

Yuli Gurriel, Martin Maldonado & Jason Castro, Astros: Gurriel won a batting title and looked like one of the game’s best pure hitters in 2021, but he’s started his 2022 season with a woeful .223/.261/.361 performance through 176 plate appearances. His strikeout rate is up about four percentage points, while his walk rate has halved and his hard-contact numbers have plummeted. Gurriel is also chasing more pitches off the plate (36.4% in 2022, 29.8% in 2021) and making contact on pitches out of the zone at a far lower rate (74.5% in 2022, 81.9% in 2021).

Houston’s catchers, meanwhile, have been the least-productive in baseball. Maldonado has never been much of a hitter but is batting only .133/.208/.239 this season. Castro hasn’t even been able to match that, batting .104/.228/.146. If catching prospect Korey Lee weren’t enduring immense struggles of his own in Triple-A, a change might’ve already been made.

It seems unlikely that the Astros would cut bait on Gurriel, who’s been a prominent presence and one of the team’s most productive hitters since signing more than a half-decade ago. A reduced role is something they’ll have to consider if he can’t right the ship, however. The catchers seem far more vulnerable, and there figure to be some prominent names available on the trade market (Willson Contreras, most notably). That Houston is leading the AL West by 5.5 games despite having the least-productive catchers (29 wRC+) and 29th-ranked offensive output from its first basemen (74 wRC+) is both a testament to their pitching and indictment on the play of their divisional opponents thus far.

Gurriel is being paid $8MM in 2022, while Maldonado is earning a $5MM salary and Castro is at $3.5MM.

Andrew McCutchen, Brewers: Milwaukee added McCutchen on a one-year, $8MM contract this offseason with the idea of installing him as their primary designated hitter. McCutchen tormented the Brewers during his early years with the Pirates, which included an NL MVP win, but he’s hitting .214/.263/.312 to begin his tenure in Milwaukee. Even McCutchen’s typically outstanding production against lefties has gone up in smoke this year, as he’s managed a .196/.224/.391 slash against them.

Despite McCutchen’s ineffectiveness, the Brewers are leading the Majors in homers (70) and sit fifth in total runs scored (238). But if McCutchen, who’s hitless in six straight and has been 73% worse than average at the plate since a return from the Covid list (27 wRC+ in 57 plate appearances), can’t begin to show some signs of life, the Brewers could be on the lookout for some offensive help as the Aug. 2 trade deadline draws nearer.

Robbie Grossman & Tucker Barnhart, Tigers: Between Grossman, Austin Meadows and Victor Reyes, the Tigers have an entire outfield on the injured list. Underwhelming play from young options like Daz Cameron, Akil Baddoo and Derek Hill will probably extend Grossman’s leash, but he was hitting a career-worst .199/.311/.241 in 167 plate appearances prior to landing on the IL due to ongoing neck soreness. Grossman has a solid track record, but the Tigers will also want to get a look at top prospect Riley Greene soon, and they’re giving Kody Clemens an opportunity after a nice start down in Toledo.

Behind the plate, the Tigers are probably content with Barnhart’s glovework and leadership. There was talk of a potential extension after he was acquired, but a .229/.263/.257 start might have tempered that. Backup Eric Haase isn’t hitting enough to force a change, and the Tigers’ Triple-A catchers are journeymen Dustin Garneau and Ryan Lavarnway. They have a well-regarded prospect at Double-A in Dillon Dingler, but Barnhart shouldn’t be in imminent danger of losing his spot at this time.

Maikel Franco, Nationals: Franco is probably only in this everyday role because Carter Kieboom suffered an elbow injury that eventually required Tommy John surgery, but he hasn’t done much with his latest opportunity. The former Phillies, Royals and Orioles third baseman is hitting .258/.284/.374 (82 wRC+) through 208 plate appearances. The Nats have an ultra-thin farm system without much in the way of third base options in the upper minors, and they’re clearly not winning anything this year anyhow. That might keep Franco safe, but if an even semi-interesting option presents itself on the waiver wire, there’s little reason not to take a look.

Corey Dickerson, Cardinals: Prior to the 2022 season, Dickerson had never been worse than five percent below-average with the bat in any full year (by wRC+). That’s all but certain to change now, as the typically steady lefty has posted an uncharacteristic .183/.238/.215 slash in 101 plate appearances. For a lifetime .283/.327/.488 hitter who was coming off a solid 2021 campaign, it’s a rather astonishing swoon.

Dickerson has been in a platoon with Albert Pujols at DH for the most part, logging only 110 innings on defense in the outfield corners recently due to injuries elsewhere on the roster. He’s also only on a one-year, $5MM contract, so if he can’t find his swing in the near future, it’s easy to see the Cards giving more at-bats to Pujols’ long-shot chase for 700 home runs and to young standout Juan Yepez. Dickerson is safe for now with both Tyler O’Neill and Dylan Carlson on the injured list, but he needs a hot streak sooner than later.

Mike Zunino, Rays: Zunino’s career-high 33 home runs from a year ago feel like a distant memory, as he’s off to a .147/.193/.294 start in 109 plate appearances in 2022. He’s still drawing excellent marks for his defensive contributions, which the Rays value heavily, but Zunino isn’t even hitting against lefties, whom he’s handled well throughout his career — particularly in recent seasons.

Backup Francisco Mejia isn’t hitting much himself, going just 6-for-42 without a walk over the past month or so. Were he producing at the plate, it’d be more tempting for Tampa Bay to significantly reduce Zunino’s playing time. The Rays do have 25-year-old Rene Pinto mashing in Triple-A, and he’s made his big league debut already this year. As with the Astros, however, the Rays are in firm win-now mode and entered the season with World Series aspirations. If the in-house options aren’t performing up to par, the trade market beckons.

Austin Hedges, Guardians: Hedges has never hit and has always been one of the game’s premier defensive players, so his 2022 season is nothing new. Still, a .155/.223/.282 output from your primary catcher is just difficult to stomach, no matter how strong the defense is. Veteran backup Luke Maile has hit well in a tiny sample of 35 plate appearances, but he’s a career .208/.264/.317 hitter himself.

Prospect Bryan Lavastida got a brief MLB cup of coffee in April and is hitting .225/.330/.360 so far in Triple-A. His performance will bear monitoring, because if the Guardians are intent on pulling into the playoff picture, Hedges’ production might be too light to overlook. And if they end up selling at the deadline, Hedges could draw interest from a team seeking a glove-first backup option — which could open a door for Lavastida.

Brewers Select Jason Alexander

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JUNE 1: Milwaukee has officially selected Alexander’s contract, optioning Luke Barker to Triple-A Nashville in a corresponding move. To create 40-man roster space, they’ve transferred reliever Jake Cousins from the 10-day to the 60-day injured list.

Cousins went on the IL on May 1 with an elbow effusion, and he’ll now be out of action through at least the end of July. It seems unlikely he’ll be back when first eligible anyhow, as he recently told Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (Twitter link) he received a platelet-rich plasma injection and would be shut down from throwing entirely for at least a month.

MAY 31: The Brewers are planning to start right-hander Jason Alexander tomorrow night against the Cubs, tweets Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. He is not yet on the club’s 40-man roster, so the Brew Crew will have to make a corresponding move.

Alexander, 29, is set to make his MLB debut. The younger brother of former Dodgers reliever Scott Alexander, Jason Alexander went undrafted in 2017. He signed with the Angels as a free agent, working his way as high as Triple-A but never getting onto the 40-man roster. Los Angeles released him in 2020, and he hooked on with the Marlins the following April.

The California native made just six appearances in the upper levels of the Miami farm system as he missed some time due to injury. He signed a minor league deal with Milwaukee in December and has spent the first couple months with their top affiliate in Nashville. Over nine outings (seven starts), Alexander has worked to an excellent 2.64 ERA through 47 2/3 innings. His 17.5% strikeout rate is below-average, but he’s posted a hefty 63.3% ground-ball rate and only walked 6.3% of opposing hitters.

Milwaukee has been hit by a couple key rotation injuries of late, forcing them to dip into their starting pitching depth. Both Freddy Peralta and Brandon Woodruff have landed on the injured list, forcing Aaron Ashby into regular action alongside Corbin Burnes, Eric Lauer and Adrian Houser. The fifth spot is uncertain, with well-regarded prospect Ethan Small making a spot start yesterday during a doubleheader. Alexander will now get a chance to audition for a role himself.

Brewers Place Brandon Woodruff On IL With High Ankle Sprain

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The Brewers have placed right-hander Brandon Woodruff on the 15-day IL with a high ankle sprain (retroactive to May 28th), reports Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Twitter link). The severity of the injury is not yet known, but it will come as a blow to a team already dealing with the long-term absence of Freddy Peralta. Right-handed reliever Peter Strzelecki has been selected from Triple-A Nashville to take his place on the active roster.

Woodruff left in the fifth inning Friday’s game against the Cardinals with what was then termed ’right ankle irritation,’ though it now appears the injury is somewhat more serious. In words that will hardly come as comfort to Brewers fans, manager Craig Counsell described the injury (per Hogg) as “very similar” to Peralta’s, but it isn’t clear if he’ll need as long to “calm [the injury] down” as does his teammate.

Among the best pitchers in the National League since becoming a full-time starter in 2019, Woodruff had gotten off to a comparatively weak start to 2022, posting a 4.74 ERA (against a career mark of 3.36) and 3.82 FIP (career 3.23). The underlying metrics disagree a bit as to the cause. He’s allowed a .315 BABIP this season (against .264 in 2021 and .289 for his career) and 3.8% home run rate (2.5% in 2021 and 2.7% career) — both largely explicable via a rise in hard-hit percentage (the percent of batted balls leaving the bat with an exit velocity of 95 mph or greater) from 32.7% in 2021 (33.9% career) to 42.6% — but his strikeout rate of 28.5% (against 29.8% in 2021 and 28.3% for his career) and walk rate of 7.0% (6.1% in 2021, 6.5% career) remain largely unchanged.

Regardless of the cause of Woodruff’s regression, his absence presents an immediate difficulty for the first-place Brewers. With a rotation anchored by Woodruff, Peralta, and 2021 NL Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes alongside the unheralded but consistently solid Eric Lauer and Adrian Houser at the back end, the Brew Crew entered 2022 with a solid case for the best rotation in the game. Former top prospect Aaron Ashby has already shifted from swingman to rotation to take Peralta’s spot, but it’s less clear who’ll take Woodruff’s turns.

Left-hander Ethan Small — the club’s top pitching prospect since Ashby’s graduation — has already been called up and will likely get the first crack, but he’s less of a proven commodity than Ashby. The 25-year-old Mississippi State product is off to a hot start at Triple-A Nashville, posting a 1.88 ERA in 38 1/3 innings across eight starts, but he’s still a bit green (he’s only logged 136 2/3 innings in the minors) and has had some issues with control. While his 32.5% strikeout rate across those minor league innings is top-notch, his 12.1% walk rate isn’t.

Small is set to make his major league debut today, in the first game of Brewers’ double-header against the Cubs. Should he struggle and Woodruff remain out of action for an extended period, the next option may be 35-year-old Josh Lindblom, who struggled to a 6.39 ERA in 62 combined innings with Milwaukee between 2020 and 2021 but is off to a strong start at Nashville, logging a 2.89 ERA and 1.05 WHIP in 46 2/3 innings.

Strzelecki, a 27-year-old former undrafted free agent out of South Florida, has never started a game in the minors and will likely serve back-end cover for the bullpen for the time being. He has, however, been fairly consistent in his minor league career, posting a 3.73 ERA in 156 2/3 innings across all levels, including a 3.80 ERA in 21 1/3 innings at Triple-A. Never a heralded prospect, he’s nonetheless shown the ability to miss bats (with a 31.1% career strikeout rate in the minors) and keep the ball in the zone (7.6% walk rate).

Brewers Select Luke Barker, Option Ethan Small To Triple-A

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The Brewers have made some transactions in between games of today’s doubleheader with the Cubs.  Left-hander Ethan Small (the starter in the first game) was optioned to Triple-A, while right-hander Luke Barker had his contract selected.  Righty Justin Topa was moved to the 60-day injured list to make room for Barker on the 40-man roster.

Small allowed two runs on four hits and four walks over 2 2/3 innings in Game One, as Milwaukee earned a 7-6 win over Chicago.  It was Small’s first career MLB game, and he got the call to fill the spot left in the rotation by Brandon Woodruff’s ankle injury.  While not a stellar debut, Small could potentially still be in the running for future starts depending on how long Woodruff is out, and Small’s demotion could just be so the Brewers can free up a roster space while they figure out their next step.

From one Major League debut to another, as the 30-year-old Barker has made it to the Show after being undrafted out of Chico College.  A season of indy ball in 2016 led to a contract with the Brewers, and Barker has a 2.36 ERA, 27.48% strikeout rate, and 6.33% walk rate over 255 1/3 relief innings in Milwaukee’s farm system.  The Brewers have shown a knack for turning unheralded pitchers into viable relievers at the big league level, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if Barker is the latest hurler to come out of seemingly nowhere to help out the relief corps.

Topa was one of those pitchers himself in 2020, as the former 17th-rounder tossed some important innings for the Brewers in the regular season and in the playoffs.  However, Topa has been plagued by elbow problems ever since, and threw only 18 totals innings in the majors and minors in 2021.  The right-hander had recently started facing live batters, and since the clock on the 60-day IL placement begins when Topa was first placed on the shorter IL at the start of the season, he wasn’t going to be back by the first week of June anyway.

Brewers To Promote Ethan Small

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May 30: The Brewers announced the selection of Small’s contract. The 40-man roster had a couple of vacancies, meaning no corresponding move was required in that regard. As for the active roster, Mark Mathias was optioned but then designated as the team’s 27th man for today’s doubleheader.

May 29: The Brewers are set to call up left-hander Ethan Small, ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan reports (Twitter link).  It is the first big league promotion for Small, the 28th overall pick in the 2019 draft.  Small isn’t on the Brewers’ 40-man roster, so multiple other moves will be forthcoming to create a spot for Small before his official call-up.

Now that Aaron Ashby has lost his prospect status, Small is widely considered to be the best pitching prospect in Milwaukee’s farm system — MLB Pipeline ranks Small as the Brewers’ seventh-best minor leaguer overall, while Baseball America ranks him ninth.  Both outlets are particularly fond of Small’s changeup, a 60-grade pitch that nicely complements his lower-velocity (low 90s) but high-spin fastball.  Beyond these two plus offerings, however, Small doesn’t have a primary third pitch, as his curveball and slider are nothing special and thus not prominent parts of his arsenal.

Between the lack of a third pitch and some control problems, it remains an open question about whether Small can make it as a starting pitcher or if the bullpen is his ultimate destination.  That said, Small’s bottom-line results in his brief pro career have been impressive, as he has a 1.78 ERA and 31.95% strikeout rate over 136 2/3 innings in the minors, starting all 33 of his appearances.

This includes a 1.88 ERA over 38 1/3 innings at Triple-A Nashville this year, which was enough to convince the Brew Crew that Small was ready for the majors.  With a doubleheader coming up tomorrow against the Cubs, Small might receive just the one spot start before heading back to Nashville, though Brandon Woodruff is dealing with a bad ankle.

If Woodruff has to miss his next outing or has to be placed on the injured list, it could provide Small with a longer opportunity to show that he can do against MLB hitters.  Since Freddy Peralta is also going to be missing a big piece of the 2022 campaign, Small might now take over that “sixth starter” depth role, since Ashby has moved into the rotation.

Latest On Brandon Woodruff

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  • Brandon Woodruff left Friday’s game prior to the fifth inning due to right ankle irritation, though both Woodruff and Brewers manager Craig Counsell told reporters (including Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) that the problem may not be serious enough to keep the right-hander from making his next start on Wednesday.  With Freddy Peralta already on the injured list and the rotation further stretched by a doubleheader on Monday, losing Woodruff for even one outing would be a setback for the Brewers, though the club obviously isn’t going to risk pushing the right-hander if he isn’t ready.
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