As pitchers and catchers report to spring training, news is filtering out about injuries. Brewers manager Pat Murphy passed along a discouraging update about left-hander DL Hall, per Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. The lefty has a lat strain and is going to be shut down for about the next two weeks before being re-evaluated.
That’s an uncertain path forward but it seems distinctly possible that Hall won’t be ready by Opening Day. Even if he gets some good news after this shutdown period, he will be weeks behind his fellow pitchers and might then be brought along slowly, if he and the club decide to proceed cautiously.
Murphy also recently said that Brandon Woodruff probably won’t be ready by Opening Day, as he works his way back from a shoulder surgery that wiped out his entire 2024 season. Robert Gasser had Tommy John surgery in June and will miss at least the first half of the 2025 season.
When discussing the Woodruff situation, Murphy identified Freddy Peralta, Tobias Myers, Nestor Cortes and Aaron Civale as the club’s likely front four in the rotation. MLBTR recently took a detailed look at the club’s rotation option behind those four, with Hall being one of the top candidates to fill a role in the short term.
If Hall ends up needing to miss time, Aaron Ashby could get an Opening Day nod, though there are some question marks there. Arthroscopic shoulder surgery wiped out his 2023 season. He returned last year but the results were mixed. In Triple-A, he worked mostly as a starter but didn’t fare well. He had an 8.24 ERA at the end of July when the club moved him to the bullpen. He had better results there, including a 1.37 ERA in 19 2/3 major league innings to finish the year. The club still wants to give him another chance to start but there’s plenty of uncertainty after his uneven 2024 and lost 2023.
He’ll have some competition, as Logan Henderson, Carlos Rodríguez, Chad Patrick and Elvin Rodríguez are also on the 40-man roster. However, Henderson and Patrick haven’t made their major league debuts yet, while the two Rodríguezes have less than 50 big league innings between them. Jacob Misiorowski is not on the roster but is one of the top prospects in baseball and has reached Triple-A. However, he walked 14.4% of batters he faced last year and still hasn’t hit 100 innings in a season.
Even if Hall were healthy, he would come with his own question marks. A knee sprain limited him to 84 innings last year, between the majors and minors. With the Orioles in 2022 and 2023, he was moved between the rotation and bullpen, as well as being sent to the minors and back. His workload stayed beneath 100 innings in each of those seasons as well.
As a former top 100 prospect, Hall would ideally take a step forward this year, both in terms of the quality and quantity of his results. He certainly still could, but this lat strain isn’t an ideal start to a key season for him. He is down to one option year and would be out of options going into 2026 if he gets sent to the minors for 20 days this year.
Adding an external arm to the mix could be an option but it doesn’t seem as though the Brewers are operating with a ton of payroll flexibility. RosterResource estimates them for a $116MM payroll this year. That’s already well beyond the $104MM figure they ran on Opening Day last year, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. The only major league deals they’ve given out this winter have been for inexperienced arms like Elvin Rodríguez and Grant Wolfram.
Pitchers like Nick Pivetta, Andrew Heaney, Jose Quintana and others are still available on the open market. MLBTR recently took a look at some clubs that made sense for the remaining free agent pitchers, highlighting the Brewers even before this news about Hall’s setback, though the budgetary concerns were mentioned as an obstacle. Moving Rhys Hoskins and the $22MM he’s still owed would probably help, though that will be tough after he hit .214/.303/.419 for a wRC+ of 100 last year.
Man D.L. Hall is filthy but pls just stay healthy. Cause if he does one of the best pitchers in the NL Central
Bummer, he looks like he could be an absolute monster out of the pen but they keep trying to use him as a starter, despite the fact that he has only ever really stayed healthy as a reliever. Even in the minors with the Orioles, he couldn’t stay healthy as a starter.
He’s never even approached a starter’s workload.
Make him a reliever and let him mow guys down. I’ve been on this train for years.
Like Dustin May, a “starting” pitcher who will be a free agent next winter. May has thrown less than 200 innings in his MLB career.
Which is crazy. But May’s 134 and 132 innings in single seasons as a prospect look like prime Pedro length compared to DL.
He’s never cracked 100 innings. He was drafted in 2017. The guy is a reliever.
This is tangentially related but May throws a nasty 100 mph sinker with movement… but hasn’t really been much of a strikeout guy. Make it make sense.
He can be another huge weapon out of the Dodgers’ bullpen. With free agency looming, that’s how he should view himself.
May will probably get a shot to start for a team in free agency. I bet a team will give him a pretty nice AAV and hope the Dodgers absorbed the injured years. Hard to see him starting too many games for LA this year though.
With the sinker, he doesn’t have to strike guys out. In that way, he’s similar to Graterol, who also can’t stay healthy. It’s related because these guys are ideally relief pitchers, although that also doesn’t guarantee health.
To swing this back to Milwaukee, the Dodgers have pitchers who would make sense for the Brewers. Landon Knack can hold down a rotation spot for someone. He would probably cost a lower-level prospect. Casperius and Wrobleski are also worth a look.
Shoot, tell that to Astros fans. We’ve said that about McCullers for the last 4 seasons. They refuse to move him to the pen, so he can’t hold up one bit. Figure they’d learn by now, but nope.
This has to be the end of the Starter experiment.
He clearly doesn’t have the control or ability to be a starter, he could be their closer. I agree.
Remember, boys and girls, best to stretch and get loose before participating in any activity. That includes if you’re playing chess or reading a book. Don’t want to strain something and be on the DL for 10-12 weeks.
If anybody can do it Aaron Ashby sure can. Let’s go!
Some names just foreshadow their future
Like Duffy Dyer (who is still alive).
Billy burns anyone?
Has a World Series ring, Ernie Banks and Yaz do not!
Unlike Razor Shines. Who never shone.
Why not just go by Dayton?
Maybe he thinks “Dayton Hall” sounds too much like a place where you hold weddings and bar mitzvahs?
Or college basketball team.
Or just call himself “Chip” or “Biff”.
Remember when they traded a top 3 MLB SP for an infielder without a high ceiling and this guy that has no idea where the ball is going?
Remember when you had such a bone to pick on MLBTR posting the Luka Doncic trade, RyanD44?
You still got the better of the deal.
Reliable Carlos Quintana would be a nice pickup if the Brewers could pound out a deal.
Absolutely. It’s a bit of a surprise he’s still unsigned.
Although it is “Jose” Quintana.
Jacob Junis resign fixed
I wonder if he will start going by Dayton Lane instead of DL if he keeps having injury issues. Pitchers are known to be superstitious.
Or he could double down and change his name to I.L. Hall.
Brewers finding out what Baltimore new here. Per this article, if the option to Hall is “adding an external arm”, add an external arm.
IL Hall at it again
But the P.C. police will demand he change his first name to Isaiah.
Here we go again, just like Groundhog day!