The Brewers have placed right-hander Colin Rea on waivers, MLBTR has learned. He’s available for any club to claim. Rea has a $5.5MM club option for the upcoming season with a $1MM buyout.
It’s a surprising move, given the affordable nature of Rea’s option and the solid work he’s given to them over the past two seasons. The veteran righty has given Milwaukee 292 1/3 innings of 4.40 ERA ball since 2023, taking the ball 58 times and starting 49 games. Rea hasn’t been a top-of-the-rotation arm but has been a stabilizing presence amid myriad injuries and considerable turnover in the Brewers’ rotation. He’d have become a free agent if Milwaukee declined his buyout, but they’ll instead make a rather glaring cost-cutting move of waiving him to try to save that $1MM buyout in the event that another team claims him.
Any team in need of rotation help or perhaps an affordable swingman will now have the opportunity to claim Rea at the $5.5MM price point of his 2025 option. If he goes unclaimed, Milwaukee will seemingly pay that $1MM buyout, at which point Rea will become a free agent who’s able to sign with any club.
Given that he’s coming off a season that saw him pitch 167 2/3 innings with a 4.29 ERA, 18.9% strikeout rate and 6% walk rate, Rea should hold appeal to clubs seeking help at the back of the rotation — particularly lower-payroll clubs that have doubts over their ability to buy a comparable arm in free agency. One way or another, Rea will likely land on his feet, but it’s a tough pill to swallow for the righty, as he now has no say over choosing his next destination unless he surprisingly goes unclaimed and is subsequently bought out.
As a reminder, offseason waiver priority is based on the reverse standings from the 2024 season and is not league-specific. The White Sox will have first crack at claiming Rea, followed by the Rockies, Marlins, Angels, A’s, etc.
This is actually surprising. Did he do something for the club to sour on him? Was it bad attitude? They’re giving him the boot like when Iron Maiden gave Paul Di’Anno the boot after Killers.
The Brewers have alot of backend type guys, and Rea really struggled down the stretch. He was pushed to the pen by years end.
5 mil isn’t nothing for the Brewers. Surprised they couldn’t find someone willing to give up a lottery ticket though
Sure, but the Brewers’ rotation isn’t what it used to be, and almost every team needs back end depth, anyway.
For a small market team in a window of contention like the Brewers, they can’t beat that kind of value for a decent #5 starter in free agency, and they probably don’t have the money to just go out and buy the really good #2 starter in free agency that they will actually need.
Clearly the league doesn’t think Rea is worth much more than 5m, or someone would’ve traded for him.
2nd half Rea did not look like even a #5. He over performed his peripherals all year,and doesn’t have great stuff. This move tells me the Brewers internal numbers aren’t that rosy on him, and I’d bet the Brewers can do better than 2nd half Rea for next to no money
There’s a significant difference between just taking over a $5M contract and trading away talent to get that $5M contract.
Yet Rea was a decent starter in the first half and for multiple years beforehand. It was likely just a half season slump.
@Landriac
That’s why I said “much more than 5m”
If a team thinks they are gaining a few million in surplus value, they’d give up a lottery ticket to skip the waiver line.
His last start against the Mets.
5.2 IP
5 ER
10 hits
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Seems like the Angels will be the first team to jump on this.
This does feel like an Angels move, but I hope not, seeing as they just got rid of a similar pitcher in Canning.
Would love the Mets to pick him up as back of the rotation depth. Could non tender Blackburn with a clear upgrade over him/Megill
Back to his Country Music singing career !!
Is he better than Megill?
I think he’s a better choice than Blackburn given the current health issues.
Whoever brings him in better have a great defence. A lot of hard hit balls were turned into outs behind him all season.
I thought the brewers loved this guy but now he’s too expensive?
Big League chew is too expensive for the Brewers. They’ll be using Tavern League going forward.
Doubt he gets claimed. If someone wanted the contract, he would have got traded.
Right. But something amiss then. Why would no one want that very affordable contract for a SP capable of 150+ innings?
That just means teams weren’t willing to give up a player in return to get him. A player like Rea is quite a bit more valuable if he only costs money to acquire.
No team would give up a player of significant value if the Brewers’ primary motivation was indeed to save $1mm on the buyout. There is something more to this story.
Hello Arte. Not a bad mid late rotation option given the dearth of talent at a reasonable price.
Hmmm. At $5.5mm for 2025, the Brewers would seemingly have a player with some trade value. It’s almost not believable that no other team would be interested at that price point.
They probably felt it was more important to try and save that extra $1M if they felt they couldn’t trade him during the 5-day window for option decisions.
This isn’t all that surprising to me. MLBTR liked this guy more than anyone. He was a fine innings eater but there’s absolutely nothing special here and he faded down the stretch.
Brewers would probably rather spend $5MM on someone with more upside.
White Sox have first waiver claim all offseason. So they may add a few castoffs like Rea since they will be hard pressed to attract any Free Agents.
That said, they already have a very similar starter to Rea in Chris Flexen, who went 3-15 with roughly the same peripherals for 1/3 of the price. Weirdly, they also share the same birthday. I think the Sox will pass and stick with Flexen or worse, hoping instead for a position player to be waived that could improve them at any number of positions.
He’s the same price as Austin Gomber but cheaper than Quantrill will be in arb. Maybe the Rox prefer Rea to one of those guys.
With the current state of team, it’s not a bad idea to have two Flexens. It’s not like they can rebuild their rotation over a single offseason to where they’ll have 4 starters better than Flexen and Rea next year.
Flexen was only on a 1-year deal, so he’s no longer in the fold for the White Sox. At 5.5M, I’m hoping the Sox take on some established guys like Rea (and not another reunion with Clevinger) to provide some stability to a rotation of largely younger arms.
Until proven otherwise, I’m seeing this as a way to clear some salary to acquire a third baseman. Between Woodruff coming back, Ashby, Hall and Misiorowski, there’s adequate replacement.
Rea’s $5.5 MM, non-tender Milner ($2.7 MM arb-projection) and Payamps ($2.8 MM arb-projection) is $11 MM cleared. Not going to sign Bregman, but a trade for Suarez ($15 MM) or McMahon ($12 MM)?
Why would you non-tender Payamps? He had 1.11 ERA in the 2nd half and was great the year before as well.. $2.8M is not that much for him, I’d be surprised if they moved on from him.
As I said, to create payroll for a third baseman (or a shortstop or second baseman; they have flexibility) Maybe they trade him instead.
Unless they go for a younger, cheaper infielder (Jung/Baty), subtracting just Williams’s money isn’t going to create enough room.
Not a needle mover but there will be worse SPs getting paid mote $$’s than his contract. Someone will either claim him or will sign him for something similar in value. Might get a 2 year deal for 8 or something to lower AAV. As an option.
Could be a rotation piece for the cards when they trade gray, fedde, matz and mikolas
Perhaps this is a hint at how healthy they expect Woodruff to be? One can hope♂️
Young arms will be getting shots with the big club next year.
The league needs to step and control the broadcast revenues to level the playing field for small markets. Small market teams can’t compete the their own talent anymore. It’s a systematic failure and the CBA needs to have a hard cap on the clubs passing out 500 and 700 million dollar deals. Milwaukee should be able to afford to keep a guy they develop, like Burnes, and so many they’ve had to give up in the past. But, this isn’t where the league is. It should be. It’s heading back to what is effectively a 4-5 team league. That’s not a win for anyone in baseball or any fans in baseball.
Economically there needs to be a point where the spending pool of all teams is identical, there’s 120 million baseball fans that don’t give want to see LA and NY in the Classic every year, or every other year. Thats where we’re heading.
Soft caps won’t prevent it. Expanded payoffs won’t prevent it, the current revenue sharing plan won’t prevent it. No team should have its own broadcast revenues, much like the NFL (one of a few good things they’ve gotten right).
There’s no perfect answer to it, but there are better ways than the status quo.
Time for a Chris Fetter pre-free agency tune up! Price seems fair, right Scott?