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COVID Notes: Brewers, Diamondbacks, Protocols

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The latest on COVID-19 around the league:

  • The Brewers have been dealing with virus spread throughout the clubhouse in recent days, and another pair of players has tested positive. Starter Adrian Houser and reliever Jandel Gustave tested positive and were placed on the COVID IL, manager Craig Counsell told reporters (including Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel). They join Josh Hader, Hunter Strickland, Eric Lauer, Jake Cousins, Keston Hiura and Christian Yelich on the COVID list. Yelich was cleared to return to the club today, but Milwaukee has elected to hold off on activating him for now as the star outfielder works his way back into game shape following a ten-day absence.
  • The Diamondbacks have also been hit by COVID spread recently, but they got one of their players back today. Reliever Joe Mantiply, who had been out as a close contact of a player(s) who tested positive, was reinstated from the IL before this evening’s game against the Padres. Fellow southpaw Ryan Buchter, who was selected last week, was removed from the 40-man roster and returned to Triple-A Reno. As a COVID replacement, Buchter could be reassigned to the minor leagues without needing to pass through waivers.
  • The recent uptick in viral spread (the Rockies and Yankees have each had similar issues recently) in both the league and the United States as a whole has caught the attention of MLB and the Players Association. After relaxing restrictions for vaccinated players and staff in mid-June, MLB is considering tightening protocols, reports Evan Drellich of the Athletic. The league updated its mask policy at Spring Training facilities this week, requiring those working at the facilities to wear masks in indoor areas regardless of vaccination status, Drellich writes. It seems MLB would prefer to tighten mask and distancing protocols rather than “aggressively” incentivize further vaccination among players and staff. Drellich writes that 85.5% of Tier 1 personnel leaguewide (players, coaches and other staff members in direct contact with the team) have been vaccinated.

Brewers Notes: Shaw, Fisher, Houser, Cain, Black

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Travis Shaw can opt out of his minor league contract with the Brewers tomorrow but it seems very likely that the team will include Shaw on its Opening Day roster, according to Tom Haudricourt and Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  Officially selecting Shaw’s contract would guarantee the veteran a $1.5MM salary for the coming season, and the Brewers would have to make another corresponding move to open up a 40-man roster spot.  The left-handed hitting Shaw is expected to get the bulk of playing time at third base when a right-hander is on the mound, with Orlando Arcia, Daniel Robertson, and (if not at shortstop) Luis Urias all getting at-bats against southpaws.

More from the city of Giannis, Liberace, Laverne and Shirley…

  • Today’s Cactus League game with the Mariners saw both Derek Fisher and Adrian Houser leave early due to injury. According to the Brewers’ official announcement, “left hamstring discomfort” forced Fisher from the game after he scored from first base on a double, and manager Craig Counsell told Haudricourt and other reporters that Fisher will be out of action for a while.  The out-of-options Fisher was already facing some tough competition to win a roster job, and this injury setback could further hamper if not ruin his chances.  As for Houser, he left the game with right thumb discomfort, but both the hurler and Counsell felt it was a minor issue that shouldn’t much interrupt Houser’s preseason preparations.
  • In other injury news, Lorenzo Cain is expected to make his Spring Training debut by the weekend, Counsell told The Athletic’s Will Sammon and other reporters.  After opting out of much of the 2020 season, Cain’s return to the field has been slowed by a quad injury.  It remains to be seen how much time Cain will need to ramp up for the season, so an injured list placement probably still isn’t out of the question for at least the first week of the schedule.
  • Right-hander Ray Black will begin throwing off a mound by the end of the week, Counsell said, as Black will return to work after being shut down due to elbow inflammation.  The hard-throwing Black tossed only three innings over three games in 2020, missing much of the season due to a strain in his right rotator cuff.  Given his recent injury history, Black could very well be an IL candidate for Opening Day.

An Under-The-Radar Brewers Hurler

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For the sake of this discussion, let’s say a 2020 Major League Baseball season will occur. If it does, the Brewers will enter the campaign with a relatively anonymous group of starters. That’s nothing new for Milwaukee, though, as the team and its ace-less staffs managed to clinch playoff berths in each of the previous two seasons. However, just because the Brewers may not have a Cy Young-type starter on their roster, that doesn’t mean they’re devoid of capable options.

Brandon Woodruff had a terrific 2019 and seemed to be turning into a front-line type before injuries cut him down. The hope is that offseason pickups Brett Anderson and Josh Lindblom (the latter dominated in Korea before returning stateside in the winter) should at least be able to competently eat innings. Eric Lauer, who joined the Brewers in a November trade with the Padres, has shown himself to be a passable big league starter. And then there’s Adrian Houser, who has demonstrated rather promising signs of late.

A second-round pick of the Astros in 2011, Houser joined the Brewers in a blockbuster 2015 trade – one that also delivered star reliever Josh Hader to Milwaukee. In regards to Houser, MLBTR’s Steve Adams wrote at the time: “Houser has a 5.10 ERA split across two levels (Class-A Advanced and Double-A) this season, and he’s worked as both a starter and a reliever. He’s averaged 8.5 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9 this year, and MLB.com rated him 21st among Houston prospects prior to the trade. Their scouting report praises his mid-90s fastball and ability to generate grounders but notes that the 22-year-old’s control has plenty of room for improvement.”

Houser is now 27 years old, and while not a ton has changed about his profile since the deal, he has bettered his control. He walked fewer than two batters per nine across 21 1/3 Triple-A innings last season and posted a respectable 2.99 BB/9 over a major league sample of 111 1/3 frames.

Houser divided his first extensive year in the majors between the Brewers’ rotation and bullpen (35 appearances, 18 starts, including work as an opener), and the results were encouraging. He parlayed a 94 mph-plus fastball into 9.46 K/9, a 3.72 ERA/3.88 FIP and a stellar 53.4 percent groundball rate. Out of 130 pitchers who amassed 100 innings or more, Houser finished eighth in grounder rate, 37th in strikeouts per nine (Clayton Kershaw and Eduardo Rodriguez were in a similar vicinity), and FanGraphs graded his fastball as the 14th-best of its kind, placing him between Max Scherzer and Chris Paddack. Moreover, Statcast was a big fan, ranking Houser at least above average in hard-hit rate, strikeout percentage, mean fastball velo, expected weighted on-base average and average exit velocity, among other categories.

There’s plenty to like about Houser, though concerns exist. Mainly, it’s in question whether he can go deep in games, as he only exceeded the five-inning mark four times last season; plus, his numbers were much better as a reliever. Regardless of role, Houser has at least developed into a useful contributor for the Brewers, and the fact that he has two more pre-arbitration years left and five seasons’ control remaining makes him even more of an asset for the low-budget franchise. Maybe Houser will never make the type of impact Hader has, but he has turned into a nice piece for the Brewers – one who still may have some untapped potential.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Assessing The Brewers’ Rotation

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As seems to be the case every spring, there’s a fair bit of uncertainty surrounding the Brewers’ rotation. Milwaukee eschewed a splashy trade or a potentially cumbersome long-term pact in free agencu, instead opting for lower-cost deals with righty Josh Lindblom (three years, $9.125MM) and Brett Anderson (one year, $5MM) As things currently stand, that duo will likely join holdovers Brandon Woodruff and Adrian Houser in comprising four of the top five spots.

As for the fifth spot in the rotation, Brewers manager Craig Counsell told reporters yesterday that the competition will likely boil down to left-hander Eric Lauer and right-hander Freddy Peralta (Twitter link via Adam McCalvy of MLB.com). Righty Corbin Burnes isn’t entirely out of the race, but Counsell did indicate that veteran right-hander Shelby Miller won’t be considered just yet. While Miller was invited to MLB camp and will presumably get some innings there, he’s working to reestablish himself after several lost seasons.

The competition between Lauer and Peralta will be a key one for Brewers fans to follow this spring. The former, a 24-year-old lefty picked up alongside Luis Urias in the trade that sent Zach Davies and Trent Grisham to San Diego, already has nearly two full seasons of MLB experience under his belt despite his relative youth. Lauer started 29 games for the Padres last season, pitching to a 4.45 ERA with 8.3 K/9, 3.1 BB/9, 1.20 HR/9 and a 39.9 percent ground-ball rate in 149 2/3 innings.

Lauer pitched into the seventh and eighth inning on a few occasions but ultimately averaged about five frames per start — a concept that should be plenty familiar to Brewers fans at this point. Milwaukee regularly limited the aforementioned Davies and right-hander Chase Anderson to two trips through the opponents’ batting order, leveraging a deep bullpen thereafter. If he wins the fifth spot in the rotation, Lauer could be deployed in similar fashion.

Peralta, meanwhile, is still just 23 year of age. Like Lauer, he’s racked up a fair bit of big league experience in his early 20s, pitching to a combined 4.79 ERA in 163 1/3 Major League innings to this point. Peralta spent most of the 2019 season in a multi-inning relief role — showing better in that capacity than he did as a starting pitcher. But Peralta has added a new pitch to his repertoire this winter, as Tom Haudricourt and Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel recently highlighted, which could change his fortunes. A chat with former big league righty and current Brewers special assistant Carlos Villanueva led to Peralta trying out a slider in the Dominican Winter League, and he responded with a 34-to-3 K/BB ratio in 20 innings with los Toros del Este.

The 25-year-old Burnes could be something of a wild card as camp progresses. A consensus top 100 prospect heading into 2018, Burnes debuted in dominant fashion with the ’18 club when he tossed 38 innings of 2.61 ERA ball with a 35-to-11 K/BB ratio. He made 30 total relief appearances, allowing just 27 hits (four homers); of his 11 walks, two were of the intentional variety. Burnes posted elite spin rates on his curve and heater while flashing high-end velocity. He looked like a potential cornerstone for the pitching staff.

The 2019 season was an unmitigated disaster for Burnes, however. The hitter-friendly nature of the 2019 ball likely didn’t help matters, nor did a sky-high .414 average on balls in play. But Burnes’ poor showing can’t be solely blamed on a juiced ball or poor luck; he was absolutely torched for 48 runs in 49 innings of work — yielding a stunning 17 home runs in that time. The right-hander showed a clear knack for missing bats (12.9 K/9, 17.2 percent swinging-strike rate) but struggled with location both in and out of the zone far. Burnes’ walk rate increased, and his inability to command the ball within the zone contributed to that barrage of long balls.

Regardless of how it shakes out, the Milwaukee rotation will enter the season facing its share of scrutiny. That’s been the case in both of the past two seasons, however, and the team reached the postseason in both instances. A year ago. The 2019 season saw Jhoulys Chacin, Chase Anderson, Woodruff, Davies, Houser and Gio Gonzalez make the majority of its starts. A year prior, the Brewers entered the season with Chacin, Anderson, Davies, Junior Guerra, Brent Suter and Wade Miley (then on a minor league reclamation deal) heading up its rotation mix.

There may not be a surefire ace among Milwaukee’s starting staff, but both Woodruff and Houser posted sub-4.00 ERAs with strong peripheral marks in more than 100 innings in 2019. Lindblom is an undeniably interesting flier coming off a dominant run in the Korea Baseball Organization, thanks in part to a new splitter. Brett Anderson has a 4.07 ERA and a 55 percent ground-ball rate over the past two seasons (256 1/3 innings). It’s not the most outwardly impressive group of arms, but the Brewers have begun to make a habit of compiling serviceable staffs that are light on name value. They’ll be looking for more of the same in 2020.

NL Notes: Syndergaard, Pollock, Cards, Brewers

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Mets right-hander Noah Syndergaard will begin an injury rehab assignment Tuesday at the Single A-level, according to Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. Syndergaard could return to the majors within five days of that outing, DiComo reports. The Mets placed Syndergaard on the injured list June 16 with a hamstring strain, adding to what has been a surprisingly pedestrian season for the 26-year-old. A front-line starter when he was healthy enough to take the mound from 2015-18, Syndergaard has managed a mediocre-at-best 4.55 ERA in 95 innings this season. However, the flamethrowing Syndergaard’s 2019 peripherals have been more encouraging – albeit not as dominant as they had been in prior years – as he has logged a 3.61 FIP with 8.81 K/9, 2.27 BB/9 and a 47.6 percent groundball rate.

More from the National League…

  • Dodgers center fielder A.J. Pollock is hoping to return when the second half of the season kicks off July 12, Pedro Moura of The Athletic tweets. Pollock’s continuing to work back from the right elbow surgery he underwent at the start of May. Before going under the knife, Pollock got off a tough start in 2019 after emigrating from the Diamondbacks to the rival Dodgers over the winter on a four-year, $60MM contract. The 31-year-old has hit just .233/.287/.330 (64 wRC+) in 115 plate appearances this season, but considering his productive track record and the Dodgers’ goal of having capable depth everywhere, they’ll be glad to get Pollock back.
  • With Cardinals closer Jordan Hicks in danger of missing the rest of the season because of a torn ulnar collateral ligament, it’s “expected” they’ll use Carlos Martinez as their main game-ending option, Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes. That would be a new role for the 27-year-old Martinez, who’s working out of the Cardinals’ bullpen this season largely because spring shoulder issues prevented him from ramping up as a starter entering the campaign. Martinez has totaled nine saves during his career, which began in 2013, and has been one of the Cardinals’ most effective relievers this year. He owns a 3.00 ERA/3.38 FIP with 8.4 K/9, 3.00 BB/9 and a Hicks-like 61.5 percent groundball rate in 15 innings.
  • Righty Jimmy Nelson, now out of the Brewers’ starting rotation, will “likely” function as a long reliever, Robert Murray of The Athletic writes (subscription link). For now, Nelson’s rotation spot will go to righty reliever Adrian Houser.  Nelson’s hopeful he’ll eventually return to Milwaukee’s starting staff, per Murray, who delves into the 30-year-old’s 2019 struggles in his piece. While Nelson was the Brewers’ best starter in 2017, late-season shoulder surgery that year kept him out of major league action until three weeks ago. Nelson then made three subpar starts before the Brewers moved him into a lesser role. Houser, 26, has logged an impressive 2.27 ERA/3.37 FIP with 10.23 K/9 and 3.41 BB/9 this season, but as Murray notes, he won’t work deep into games as a starter. He has averaged just under two innings per appearance across 16 tries this season, having totaled 31 2/3 frames.

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