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Brewers Place Sal Frelick On Injured List

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The Brewers will open the second half without their starting right fielder. Milwaukee placed Sal Frelick on the 10-day injured list, backdated to July 15, due to a left hamstring strain. Blake Perkins was recalled from Triple-A Nashville to take his spot.

Frelick suffered the injury in Milwaukee’s final game before the All-Star Break. He first showed some discomfort on a stolen base and came out of the game after making a sliding catch in the following half-inning. Isaac Collins finished the game in right field and gets the start tonight against Dodgers righty Emmet Sheehan. The switch-hitting Collins has a solid .259/.363/.389 line with five homers in 228 plate appearances. He’d mostly been playing left field, where Jake Bauers and potentially Perkins could get more playing time.

This interrupts an excellent season for the 25-year-old Frelick. He has seven home runs and is hitting .294/.354/.404 across 385 trips to the plate. Frelick has stolen 17 bases in 21 attempts and is playing his usual plus defense in right field. The Brewers haven’t provided a timetable on his return, though it’s perhaps encouraging that they waited a few days to monitor his progress before making the injured list decision.

Milwaukee concluded the first half on a seven-game win streak. They’re a season-high 16 games above .500 and have pulled within a game and a half of the Cubs in the NL Central. The Brewers hold the first Wild Card spot in the National League and are 4.5 games clear of the Giants, the top non-playoff team in the NL.

Jose Quintana Agrees To Optional Assignment; Jake Bauers Makes Brewers’ Roster

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The Brewers are wrapping up their final decisions on the Opening Day roster. Adam McCalvy of MLB.com reports that veteran lefty Jose Quintana has consented to be optioned to Triple-A Nashville to finish building up. The 36-year-old signed midway through spring training and has thus far only pitched five official spring frames (in addition to side sessions and work on the back fields). It’s a largely procedural move; Quintana will join the big league rotation in early-to-mid April, though it’s not yet clear how many starts the Brewers want him to make in Triple-A.

Beyond that, the Brewers will have to clear at least one 40-man spot. McCalvy further reports that first baseman/outfielder Jake Bauers has made the roster. He’d been in camp as a non-roster invitee and will take a bench spot in Milwaukee. He held a similar role last year. Bauers, 29, appeared in 117 games with the Brewers and hit .199/.301/.361 with a dozen homers. He was far too strikeout-prone, fanning in 34.1% of his plate appearances, but he also drew walks at a stout 11.3% clip, went 13-for-14 in stolen base attempts and played 553 innings of solid defense at first base.

The Brewers non-tendered Bauers rather than pay him a projected $2.3MM salary. He returned on a minor league deal and has mashed his way onto the roster with a big Cactus League performance. In 42 turns at the plate, he’s logged a .263/.333/.605 slash with three homers, four doubles and a pair of stolen bases. He’ll presumably need to outpace last year’s production to stick around for the long haul, but he’s off to a nice start this spring.

Right-handers Chad Patrick and Elvin Rodriguez and utilityman Isaac Collins have all made their first Opening Day rosters as well. All three are already on the 40-man roster. Rule 5 southpaw Connor Thomas is also breaking camp.

Per McCalvy, Milwaukee will open the season with only three true starting pitchers: Freddy Peralta, Nestor Cortes and Aaron Civale. Quintana will be a fourth once he’s ready. Righty Brandon Woodruff is still on the mend from 2023’s shoulder surgery but could be an option in the season’s first month or so as well. In the meantime, the Brewers have Rodriguez, Patrick, Thomas and veteran swingman Tyler Alexander stretched out for multiple innings to piece things together at the back end of the staff.

Patrick, 26, is not only making his first Opening Day roster but will make his MLB debut the first time he takes the mound. Milwaukee acquired him from the A’s in exchange for Abraham Toro in November 2023. Patrick spent the entire 2024 season in the Brewers’ Triple-A rotation, turning heads with 136 1/3 innings of 2.90 ERA ball. He fanned 26.1% of his opponents against a 7% walk rate.

Thomas, also 26, will also make his debut the first time he throws a pitch for the Brewers. Milwaukee plucked him from the Cardinals’ system in December’s Rule 5 Draft, and he posted 11 1/3 frames with just three runs on nine hits and five walks against 11 punchouts this spring. He spent 2024 as a multi-inning reliever in Triple-A Memphis and logged 90 1/3 innings with a tidy 2.89 earned run average. Thomas logged a below-average 20.6% strikeout rate but notched plus walk and grounder rates of 6.3% and 53.5%, respectively.

The 26-year-old Rodriguez is a former Angels and Tigers prospect who very briefly pitched with Detroit earlier in his career. He drew a big league deal from Milwaukee after spending the past season and a half pitching with Japan’s Yakult Swallows. In 78 NPB innings, Rodriguez recorded a sharp 2.77 ERA, albeit with a sub-par 20.4% strikeout rate. He was tagged for nine runs in 10 2/3 innings this spring, but his 15-to-2 K/BB ratio offers more encouragement.

Collins, 27, made his MLB debut last year and went 2-for-17 in a quick cup of coffee. The Brewers claimed him off waivers from the Rockies back in 2022. He spent the majority of the 2024 season in Triple-A Nashville, where he hit .273/.386/.475 with 14 homers, 24 steals and a gaudy 14.2% walk rate. He has significant experience at second base, in left field and in center field in his pro career, in addition to more sparse work at third base and in right field. He’s a switch-hitter with good speed who can back up at nearly any position on the diamond.

Brewers Select Isaac Collins

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The Brewers announced this morning that they’ve selected the contract of infielder/outfielder Isaac Collins. In corresponding moves, outfielder Brewer Hicklen was optioned to Triple-A and outfielder Christian Yelich was transferred to the 60-day injured list.

Collins, 27, was a ninth-round pick by the Rockies back in 2019 and has yet to make his major league debut. The Brewers plucked him from Colorado in the minor league phase of the 2022 Rule 5 Draft, and he’s spent the past two seasons in the upper levels of Milwaukee’s minor league system. He’s performed well in his first full season at Triple-A this year, with a .273/.386/.475 slash line in 500 trips to the plate. He’s supplemented that solid production at the plate with impressive baserunning (24 steals in 29 attempts) and the versatility to play second base, third base, and all over the outfield.

He’ll now get the opportunity to prove himself at the big league level with the Brewers as the regular season winds down. Milwaukee has little to worry about in terms of making the playoffs, as their ten-game lead over the Cubs and Cardinals is all but insurmountable at this point, though the club still does have something to play for as they’re three games back of both the Phillies and Dodgers for a bye through the Wild Card round of the playoffs. Even so, the Brewers’ cushion in the NL Central race and September’s expanded 28-man rosters provides the club with an opportunity to get potential future contributors exposure at the big league level while also shoring up their overall depth.

Making way for Collins on the club’s roster is Hicklen. The 28-year-old outfielder had a brief cup of coffee with the Royals in the majors back in 2022 but his time with the Brewers this year has been his second foray into major league action. Hicklen’s .247/.364/.484 slash line at the Triple-A level isn’t too dissimilar from that of Collins, and his slightly less valuable offense is more or less outweighed by a fantastic 42-for-47 record on the basepaths this year at Triple-A. That said, replacing Hicklen on the roster with Collins offers the Brewers the opportunity to roster a hitter with a similar skillset who can back up the infield alongside Andruw Monasterio as well as filling in around the outfield when necessary.

As for Yelich, his placement on the 60-day IL is hardly a surprise given the fact that his season came to an end when he underwent back surgery last month. The 32-year-old enjoyed his best offensive season in years when healthy enough to take the field this year, slashing .315/.406/.504 in 73 games while stealing 21 bases in 22 attempts. He’s currently expected to be ready to return to the middle of the club’s lineup in time for the 2025 season.

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