We’re less than a week from baseball games!
The Brewers get their Cactus League slate underway on Saturday afternoon against the Guardians. It won’t be a typical spring training, necessarily — the World Baseball Classic adds a (fun) twist to the proceedings, and several prominent Brewers will be absent from camp for a week or two while they represent their national teams.
We’re also not really looking at any dramatic battles for roster spots: last week’s signing of Luis Rengifo seemingly answered what was the team’s most interesting question heading into spring training, and likewise, Gary Sánchez’s signing seems to have ended discussion on the backup catcher for now.
So who should we watch? What’s interesting? Where are there still questions left to be answered?
Who is in the Opening Day rotation?
With the obvious injuries caveat, it seems all but certain that Brandon Woodruff, Quinn Priester, and Jacob Misiorowski will be in the Brewers’ starting rotation when they open the season on March 26. But they have a whole bunch of intriguing options for who fills those last two positions — or even whether they’ll go with some sort of piggyback system, given the range of options they have among starting pitchers.
Milwaukee’s two shiny new starter toys, Kyle Harrison and Brandon Sproat, are obviously going to be a big part of the rotation going forward, but will either of them pitch right away at the beginning of the season?
The first question is whether or not it’s worth it for the Brewers to start them in the minors in order to delay service clocks. In Harrison’s case, this isn’t much of a question: he’s already accrued more than a year of service time, so holding him back won’t really make a difference. Sproat, though, has thrown only 20 2/3 major league innings, so it seems likely that Milwaukee will try to keep him under a full year of service time this season to delay his free agency by a year.
For this reason alone, I would expect Harrison to be with the team out of spring training and Sproat to spend a little time at Triple-A Nashville. But it’s also worth seeing how both pitchers react to the tweaks that the Brewers’ pitching staff is certain to throw at them; both players have multiple options remaining, so if they think both could use a little more seasoning, they could easily go that route, too.
Another part of the “opening day rotation” question is related to who starts and who relieves. The Brewers have been a bit coy on this question and have repeatedly spoken of being open to stretching out multiple players who’ve pitched primarily in relief the last few years: DL Hall, Aaron Ashby, and Ángel Zerpa. There is also the question of where Chad Patrick is deemed most useful: he seems to have the stuff to be a starter, but he was electric out of the bullpen at the end of last season.
Logan Henderson and Robert Gasser are also involved, and at a certain point, we’re just listing a whole bunch of names — especially if you think Harrison is a foregone conclusion for the rotation, we’re essentially looking at four spots spoken for before we get to any of these other guys.
None of these players is particularly affected by the option question; all have at least one option remaining. With Ashby and Zerpa, you would assume that both will be in the bullpen if they are not starting. Hall is a bit more of a question: there’s a numbers crunch, he’s getting older, and it is becoming time for him to stay healthy and prove something.
What about the bullpen?
Okay, more of these numbers — if we say that Woodruff, Priester, Misiorowski, Harrison, Sproat, Gasser, and Henderson are likely to be either in the rotation or in the minors, then the Brewers have to fill eight bullpen spots with the following 12 guys:
- Ashby
- Hall
- Zerpa
- Patrick
- Grant Anderson
- Jared Koenig
- Easton McGee
- Trevor Megill
- Sammy Peralta
- Abner Uribe
- Craig Yoho
- Rob Zastryzny
If we again apply the option question, we see that it most heavily affects one guy on the 40-man roster: Rob Zastryzny. He — and arguably infielder Eddys Leonard, but not really — are the only players who are truly in play for a major league roster spot who do not have any minor league options remaining. Now, the Brewers have designated Zastryzny for assignment before, and he has cleared waivers and returned to the team, but that was during the season, when rosters weren’t as in flux as they tend to be at the end of spring training. I’m not sure they could sneak him through again if he pitches well and looks healthy all spring.
Everyone else has at least one minor league option remaining, though many of them only have one. If you assume that Koenig, Uribe, Megill, and Ashby are locks for the major league roster (a safe assumption, assuming health), then that leaves four spots for the rest. Patrick has, I would say, a decent chance at being the fifth option in the starting rotation. Zerpa, who the Brewers traded two major league regulars for, feels like he’s probably a lock.
Here’s where we’ll see if the Brewers value flexibility. If they opt to give Zastryzny one of the final spots, that’s another lefty, in addition to Zerpa, Koenig, and Ashby. Putting Hall in the bullpen at that point means more lefties than righties. Is that something Milwaukee is comfortable with?
I’m not making a prediction here—just tossing around some of the possibilities. But we know that the Brewers value flexibility in building their roster, and if they think Zastryzny is a contributor, I’d expect him to make the team, even if it feels like another option might be a little more promising.
Is there anything left to determine on the position player side?
As mentioned at the top, the additions of Rengifo and Sánchez seem, on the surface, to lock the Brewers into 13 position players on the roster, again assuming that everyone is healthy (which is usually not the case). Those 13 would be:
Catchers (2): William Contreras, Gary Sánchez
Infielders (6): Andrew Vaughn, Jake Bauers, Brice Turang, Joey Ortiz, David Hamilton, Luis Rengifo
Outfielders (4): Sal Frelick, Jackson Chourio, Blake Perkins, Garrett Mitchell
Designated Hitter (1): Christian Yelich
It is conceivable that the Brewers could decide that one of Mitchell, Perkins, or Hamilton starts the year in the minors; all three have minor league options remaining and have not accrued five years of service time yet (which would enable them to refuse an option). But it’s difficult for me to imagine what scenario (again, besides injury) would have to play out in order for one of these three to give up a roster spot. In Hamilton’s case, there is no obvious player to take the spot, if we’re assuming that the Brewers are planning to start Jett Williams in the minors to both get him more reps at Triple-A and to delay his service clock. I guess that maybe either Brandon Lockridge or Akil Baddoo could separate themselves from Perkins and/or Mitchell somehow, but teams put very little stock in spring training performance, so unless there was something that looked truly broken, I don’t really see how that could happen.
In any case, unless someone gets hurt, Lockridge and Baddoo are the only players on the outside looking in that I’d say have a legitimate chance to break camp with the team. Maybe they could find a way to sneak Tyler Black into the majors, but I don’t really see that happening unless at least two of the outfielders above him on the depth chart get hurt. If Yelich has to start the season in the IL for any reason, there might be a conversation to be had about Black.
Which young players should we check out?
There are a ton of interesting players the Brewers will have in spring training with them, and given that several regulars will be out for the WBC, we’ll get to see them in action. Obviously, we’re all excited to see Jesús Made get some run against major league pitchers, but I’m also excited to see whether Cooper Pratt, Brock Wilken, and Jett Williams can get the bat on the ball. Luke Adams could hit some. Luis Lara might make some incredible catches.
On the pitching side, it’ll be great to get our teeth into Harrison and Sproat and the other new starter on the 40-man roster, Shane Drohan. Can Coleman Crow build on his excellent season at Double-A Biloxi? Will Sammy Peralta be another out-of-nowhere success story? Can Craig Yoho get his mojo back?
The buildup to spring training tends to be very exciting, and then you wind up watching nine players you’ve never heard of with numbers in the 70s on their backs by the fourth inning of the second game, and it can be easy to lose interest. But the Brewers boast one of the strongest farm systems in the league, if not the very best one, so embrace the guy wearing number 82 or 66 this spring: they might just be a big part of Milwaukee’s future.