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Offseason In Review: Milwaukee Brewers

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The Brewers lost their manager and traded their ace. They also focused on big league talent in their trade returns and added several win-now veterans as they look to stay relevant in a wide-open National League Central division.

Major League Signings

2024 Spending: $39.75MM
Total Spending: $72.75MM

Option Decisions

Trades and Waiver Claims

Extensions

Minor League Signings

Notable Losses

The manager’s chair hasn’t been a question for the Brewers in nearly a decade. Craig Counsell helmed the Brew Crew from 2015-23, guiding the club to a 707-625 record (.531) and five postseason appearances in nine seasons. His status as a managerial free agent was a major storyline early in the offseason not only for the Brewers but for several clubs around the sport. The Mets, Astros and Guardians were all connected to Counsell after his contract expired on Nov. 1, but the Cubs made a surprise push to bring in their longtime division foe, dismissing David Ross and signing Counsell to a record-setting five-year deal that’s worth a reported $40MM.

The Brewers not only lost their longtime skipper but also their longtime president of baseball operations. David Stearns stepped down following the 2022 season but stuck with Milwaukee in an advisory role for the 2023 season. After his own contract expired, perhaps baseball’s worst-kept secret quickly came to fruition; Stearns accepted the job as president of baseball operations for his hometown Mets, departing the Milwaukee organization entirely one year after ceding baseball operations autonomy to current GM Matt Arnold.

Arnold’s presence gave the Brewers’ front office some continuity even as Stearns departed, and Milwaukee opted for continuity in the dugout as well. Although they were tied to a host of external candidates (e.g. Toronto’s Don Mattingly, Houston’s Joe Espada, L.A.’s Clayton McCullough), the Brewers stayed in-house and elevated bench coach Pat Murphy to the skipper’s chair. Murphy, who previously coached Counsell in his college days at Notre Dame, had served as Counsell’s bench coach since 2015. He lacks big league managing experience but has two decades of NCAA experience and is quite familiar with the Brewers organization, their current talent and the upcoming wave of prospects.

As for the roster itself, starting pitching has been the hallmark of the Brewers for several years, with co-aces Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff atop the rotation and the underrated Freddy Peralta standing as an overqualified “third” starter. That all changed in a back-and-forth offseason that at times left fans wondering whether the Brewers were rebuilding or whether they were fully committed to winning in 2024. Toeing that line is nothing new for the Brewers, who regularly make hard roster decisions and trade players with dwindling control for MLB-ready prospects.

Setting aside the turnover with regard to some of the team’s key decision-making personnel, the offseason was in many was bookended by a pair of seismic transactions regarding their longtime one-two punch. Woodruff was non-tendered in November after undergoing shoulder surgery that’s expected to wipe out the majority of his 2024 season. And while it took Arnold & Co. most of the offseason to make it happen, they traded Burnes for a pair of immediate, controllable big leaguers and the Orioles’ Competitive Balance pick (No. 34) in this summer’s draft.

Joey Ortiz stepped right into the Brewers’ infield, and they’ll hope he can hold down a role there for six or more years. He’s controllable through at least the 2029 season and is a premium defensive player with modest power, above-average speed and a plus hit tool that gives him a chance to hit for average. He’ll play second base and third base in 2024, but if impending free agent Willy Adames departs either at the trade deadline or in free agency this winter, Ortiz has the defensive chops to step right in at shortstop.

Left-hander DL Hall, the other player to come over from the O’s in the Burnes swap, jumped right into the rotation spot vacated by the former NL Cy Young winner. Like Ortiz, he’s a touted prospect who’s drawn his share of top-100 fanfare in recent years. Scouts question whether the 2017 first-rounder (No. 21 overall) has the command to stick in a big league rotation, but even if he doesn’t, Hall’s velocity and quality secondary pitches give him a good chance at being a high-end leverage reliever.

Burnes was one of four notable veterans whom the Brewers traded away this offseason — and the returns on the others weren’t as impactful. Mark Canha was flipped to the Tigers in exchange for minor league righty Blake Holub — a 25-year-old relief prospect who’d yet to pitch in Triple-A at the time of the swap.

Right-hander Adrian Houser and outfielder Tyrone Taylor were both targets of Stearns with the Mets. He acquired his two former players in exchange for an upside play for the Brewers’ development staff: righty Coleman Crow. The former 28th-round pick signed for fifth-round money with the Angels back in 2021. He’s now twice been traded and made only four starts last year before requiring Tommy John surgery.

Mark Chiarelli wrote for Baseball America at the time of the trade why some of Crow’s fastball traits and his curveball movement made him a favorite of analytically inclined clubs. Unlike Ortiz, Hall and Holub, he’s further from MLB readiness. But Houser is a back-end starter entering his final season of club control and Taylor is a fourth outfielder coming off a down year at the plate. Adding some legitimate upside, even if it comes with significant injury concern, surely held appeal.

Subtracting Burnes, Houser, Woodruff, Canha and Taylor was a notable hit for the Brewers — particularly with veterans Carlos Santana, Victor Caratini and Andrew Chafin all hitting free agency. However, the Brewers never seemed interested in any sort of protracted rebuild. That was never Stearns’ M.O. and doesn’t seem to be Arnold’s, either. The Brewers could’ve traded Peralta (signed through 2026), Devin Williams (signed through 2025) and Adames (controlled for this season only), kept payroll in the gutter and made the 2024 season one focused primarily on development.

Instead, they made a slew of short-term free agent investments that helped backfill some rotation depth and add some punch to the lineup. No free agent pickup was larger — either in pure financial terms or in terms of potential 2024 impact — than Rhys Hoskins, who inked a two-year, $34MM deal to step an everyday role between first base and designated hitter. Hoskins is playing his first season since 2022, as a spring ACL tear cost him all of 2023. He can opt out of his contract at season’s end and quite likely will, if he performs anywhere close to his prior standards in Philadelphia. He gives the Brewers a legitimate middle-of-the-order threat at first base — something they’ve lacked in recent years. As a bonus, he didn’t receive a qualifying offer from the Phillies, meaning he’s eligible to receive one at season’s end if he indeed takes that opt-out.

In addition to first base, Milwaukee stocked up on catcher depth and brought in some low-cost bench help. Eric Haase signed a one-year, split big league deal and was set to be the backup catcher — until he very suddenly wasn’t. Gary Sanchez’s price tag dropped to the point where the Brewers opportunistically snagged him as well, inking him to a one-year deal worth $3MM in guaranteed money (restructured from his original $7MM guarantee after some concerns arose on his physical). That pushed the out-of-options Haase, who had a mammoth spring showing, off the 40-man roster. The Brewers succeeded in passing him through waivers, and Haase opened the year in Triple-A to serve as a very nice piece of depth behind the dish.

Other bench pickups included journeyman first baseman/outfielder Jake Bauers and unheralded infield prospect Oliver Dunn, acquired from the Phillies. Bauers hasn’t hit in the big leagues but showed enough power and plate discipline with the Yankees last year that the Brewers traded some low-level prospects for him. Dunn was a squeezed out of the Phillies’ 40-man picture thanks to a crowded infield mix, but he posted huge Triple-A numbers last year and won a roster spot in Milwaukee with a big showing in camp. He’s been excellent so far in his brief MLB debut. Veteran Christian Arroyo joins that bench depth as a minor league signee who opened the year on the Triple-A injured list.

As those bench pieces filtered in, others familiar faces moved out. Abraham Toro and Taylor were traded. Rowdy Tellez was non-tendered. Santana, Caratini and Jesse Winker reached free agency. Fringe 40-man arms Ethan Small and Clayton Andrews were traded for modest returns. Bullpen fliers Taylor Clarke and Bryan Hudson were added via trades that sent a series of low-profile prospects to Kansas City and Los Angeles, respectively.

Perhaps the biggest area in need of an overhaul was the rotation. With Woodruff injured and non-tendered and Burnes (eventually) traded, things would’ve looked unsettled, to say the least, without some form of reinforcements. Milwaukee didn’t break the bank but brokered affordable one-year deals with a returning Wade Miley, a returning Colin Rea, swingman Jakob Junis (who’s pitching in a starting role) and former Nats righty Joe Ross, who’s returning from several injury-ruined years.

Milwaukee also surprised some by ultimately retaining Woodruff on a two-year, $17.5MM deal that’ll pay him just $2.5MM in 2024 and $5MM in 2025. There’s a $10MM buyout on a $20MM mutual option for the 2026 season that is highly unlikely to be exercised but helps Milwaukee kick some of the payments down the road a bit. That move won’t make a big impact for ’24, unless Woodruff returns for a theoretical playoff push, but it’s a big boost to their 2025 outlook when Woodruff can rejoin Peralta and some combination of Hall, Rea, Aaron Ashby, top prospect Robert Gasser and any other external additions in the rotation mix.

Miley and Rea were both with the Brewers last year. Rea technically never reached free agency before signing a new one-year deal with a club option. He can max out at two years and $10MM on the contract and should at the very least eat up some innings near the back of the rotation. Miley, currently nursing a minor shoulder issue, has had a late-career renaissance in the NL Central. Over the past three seasons he’s pitched with the Cubs, Reds and Brewers — combining for a 3.26 ERA in 320 1/3 innings. After signing, he was open about how his priority had been to return to Milwaukee. Ross has shown solid strikeout capabilities and good command at his best, but he’s been beset by injuries. His Brewers debut was his first MLB appearance since the 2021 season.

While the Rea deal technically counts as an extension, given the timing of the deal, that clearly wasn’t the team’s big extension move of the offseason. That came in the form of a record-setting eight-year, $82MM deal for 20-year-old Jackson Chourio, who entered the season as a consensus top-five prospect in the sport. Chourio spent the 2023 season as one of the youngest players in Double-A, though you wouldn’t have known he was 19 by looking at his numbers. The uber-talented Venezuelan outfielder hit .280/.336/.467 with 22 homers, 44 steals, plus defense and just an 18.4% strikeout rate against much older competition. He cracked the Brewers’ Opening Day roster, and the hope is that he can be a foundational piece for the better part of a decade.

There’s clear risk when signing a player who’s never taken a single big league at-bat to this type of contract. The Brewers invested just $2MM more in a then-19-year-old Chourio than they did in Lorenzo Cain when he was one of the market’s top free agents. Milwaukee already controlled Chourio for six, if not seven seasons (depending on when they’d have chosen to call him up sans extension). They’re buying three or four extra years of control with this deal, which would be worth 10 years and $130MM if both options are exercised (with the potential for more based on MVP voting).

It’s a steep bet for a team that tends to operate with a mid-range payroll, but it’s a necessary one of they were to have any real hope at keeping Chourio beyond his initial window of club control. Extensions for young stars like Seattle’s Julio Rodriguez (12 years, $209MM) and Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr. (11 years, $288.7MM) show just how expensive a star player can get after even a year or two of MLB service. Milwaukee, already with Christian Yelich’s nine-year, $215MM contract on the books, surely was none too keen on the notion of dishing out a second $200MM+ contract down the road. The Brewers clearly believe Chourio has star potential, and even if he settles in as “only” an average regular, the contract would hardly be an egregious overpay.

The 2024 Brewers scarcely resemble the 2023 unit — particularly with Williams on the shelf for the next several months due to stress fractures in his back — but there’s a nice crop of young talent bubbling up. If they’re not contending when the deadline rolls around, expect veterans like Adames, Williams (if healthy), Junis, Sanchez and others to hit the trade block. But the NL Central also lacks a clear favorite, and there’s enough promising young talent on the Milwaukee roster (e.g. Ortiz, Hall, Chourio, Sal Frelick) and enough established contributors (e.g. Peralta, Adames, Yelich, Hoskins, William Contreras) that this club could very well be right back in the mix even after subtracting a series of high-profile names.

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