2017 bullpen

[And That]

Think the bullpen has been more lucky than good to this point. They have the second-worst bullpen BB/9 in baseball, and the fifth-worst K/9. Doubt either of those continue to be as bad going forward, but are warning signs all the same. It does help that they are inducing a lot of ground balls.

 

I have been impressed by Knebel. Look like he could be the next great bullpen trade piece if he can continue to locate his curve.

[MrTPlush]

Also I know I'm a little late to the game but holy crap did Jungmann look terrible before getting sent down. His fastball looked super straight and very hittable, I was amazed he almost got out of that inning.

 

His fastball has always been straight like that and sadly I think hitters are very aware. He just does have the arsenal to be good.

[djoctagone]

it should be noted that unlike the bench, many of the bullpen spots will likely be filled by players with minor league options remaining (number remaining listed in parentheses after his name). it's been a while since the brewers have had that kind of roster flexibility in their bullpen.

the brewers have lost a degree of flexibility with relievers on the 40-man with their transactions this month. the only relievers currently on the 25-man that can be optioned are two players who have yet to allow an earned run.

 

jacob barnes (2)

oliver drake (0)

neftali feliz (2, but with service time, able to refuse optional assignment)

jared hughes (0)

corey knebel (1)

jhan marinez (0)

tommy milone (0, currently in the starting rotation)

carlos torres (0)

 

already optioned, but can be recalled at any point during the season (requires a 10-day minimum stay in the minors unless replacing an injured player):

 

tyler cravy

taylor jungmann (is now being stretched out as a starter)

brent suter

 

all other optioned pitchers on the 40-man are either starters or recovering from an injury.

[JohnBriggs12]

it should be noted that unlike the bench, many of the bullpen spots will likely be filled by players with minor league options remaining (number remaining listed in parentheses after his name). it's been a while since the brewers have had that kind of roster flexibility in their bullpen.

the brewers have lost a degree of flexibility with relievers on the 40-man with their transactions this month. the only relievers currently on the 25-man that can be optioned are two players who have yet to allow an earned run.

 

jacob barnes (2)

oliver drake (0)

neftali feliz (2, but with service time, able to refuse optional assignment)

jared hughes (0)

corey knebel (1)

jhan marinez (0)

tommy milone (0, currently in the starting rotation)

carlos torres (0)

 

already optioned, but can be recalled at any point during the season (requires a 10-day minimum stay in the minors unless replacing an injured player):

 

tyler cravy

taylor jungmann (is now being stretched out as a starter)

brent suter

 

all other optioned pitchers on the 40-man are either starters or recovering from an injury.

 

I don't see a serious issue. Both Marinez and Drake have to perform or they'll get DFA'd making room for a AAA arm not currently on the 40 man. The other 5 look pretty solid right now and Counsel has confidence of in any of those 5 to hold a lead.

[bork]

I am curious what they will do now that it seems Garza is ready to rejoin the Brewers. I assume he will take Milone's spot in the rotation, so they have a week to decide what to do in the bullpen. I know we all want Milone to get released, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

 

They haven't seen much of Drake. Marinez has been shaky, but was solid last year. Barnes is the only one with options, but he has become the 7th inning guy.

[JohnBriggs12]

I am curious what they will do now that it seems Garza is ready to rejoin the Brewers. I assume he will take Milone's spot in the rotation, so they have a week to decide what to do in the bullpen. I know we all want Milone to get released, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

 

They haven't seen much of Drake. Marinez has been shaky, but was solid last year. Barnes is the only one with options, but he has become the 7th inning guy.

 

They could go back to 13 pitchers temporarily and DFA Nieuwenhuis. If they thought he'd clear waivers and they could get him back, then you DFA Marinez.

[djoctagone]

Barnes is the only one with options, but he has become the 7th inning guy.

there's another reliever besides barnes who can be optioned (number of remaining options listed in parentheses below). however, both of these relievers still have earned run averages of 0.00.

 

barring an injury to another player, a dfa or a trade is indeed looming when garza returns.

the brewers have lost a degree of flexibility with relievers on the 40-man with their transactions this month. the only relievers currently on the 25-man that can be optioned are two players who have yet to allow an earned run.

 

jacob barnes (2)

oliver drake (0)

neftali feliz (2, but with service time, able to refuse optional assignment)

jared hughes (0)

corey knebel (1)

jhan marinez (0)

tommy milone (0, currently in the starting rotation)

carlos torres (0)

[pacopete4]

If Barnes is optioned and we keep Milone, I'll lose my mind.

[SandyTolan]

If Barnes is optioned and we keep Milone, I'll lose my mind.

 

No way will they option Barnes, who has become a very reliable 7th inning guy. They are not tanking, and they won't do this.

 

Maybe, just maybe, they'll release Garza. Doubt it, since Stearns will want to try to get at least some value in return, but it wouldn't shock me.

[dacbrewers]

It wouldn't surprise me if they let Garza get his 10 years of service time in and then just dump him.

[adambr2]

It wouldn't surprise me if they let Garza get his 10 years of service time in and then just dump him.

 

Why? Does he get a gold rolex for the occasion?

 

Can't imagine we'd make roster decisions based on service time milestones.

[pacopete4]

It wouldn't surprise me if they let Garza get his 10 years of service time in and then just dump him.

 

Why? Does he get a gold rolex for the occasion?

 

Can't imagine we'd make roster decisions based on service time milestones.

 

 

Hmm, talk about condescending.

 

 

No gold watch, but he becomes fully invested in his pension from the MLB at 10 years. So I could see a MLB team doing that for a player, sure.

[adambr2]

It wouldn't surprise me if they let Garza get his 10 years of service time in and then just dump him.

 

Why? Does he get a gold rolex for the occasion?

 

Can't imagine we'd make roster decisions based on service time milestones.

 

 

Hmm, talk about condescending.

 

 

No gold watch, but he becomes fully invested in his pension from the MLB at 10 years. So I could see a MLB team doing that for a player, sure.

 

 

This coming from the guy who is constantly telling me he was just joking and to lighten up, oh the irony. Dacbrewers, I do apologize if it came off that way, it wasn't intended to be. More just my annoyance at the idea of keeping Garza a day longer than we have to, if he isn't productive when he comes back up, along with a lame attempt at humor on my part.

 

Seriously though, I didn't know that, good to know. As shown when he optioned Davies last year, Stearns is pretty much all business. Can't see him really caring about what is probably the difference between a player's $97K annual pension and $100K annual pension. Who knows, though .

[tmwiese55]

Didn't Stearn more do that move with Davies in order to help whoever the minor leaguer was get a few more days of service time to get him to a certain milestone to help out the career minor leaguer? If anything it shows he's aware of these things and tries to do right by guys.

[pacopete4]

This coming from the guy who is constantly telling me he was just joking and to lighten up, oh the irony.

 

 

The irony was you falling off your high horse.

[And That]

Didn't Stearn more do that move with Davies in order to help whoever the minor leaguer was get a few more days of service time to get him to a certain milestone to help out the career minor leaguer? If anything it shows he's aware of these things and tries to do right by guys.

I'm pretty sure the Brewers kept Andy Wilkins longer than they would have, had he not been so close to getting 52 (?) days of service time, the minimum needed for a partial MLB pension.

[adambr2]

Didn't Stearn more do that move with Davies in order to help whoever the minor leaguer was get a few more days of service time to get him to a certain milestone to help out the career minor leaguer? If anything it shows he's aware of these things and tries to do right by guys.

 

From what was said at the time they just wanted an extra bench bat. It cost Davies money and service time. It did help Andy Wilkins, who did make the 43 days up total to get a minimum pension.

 

Wilkins still needed about a month's worth of service at the time he was called up to get it. I really don't think the plan was ever to keep Wilkins on the 25 man for a month to get him his pension -- there are loads of AAAA players I'm sure they would like to help out every year if they really care about that, and it would be much easier to do in September. If you want to option or outright a guy and you realize he is at 41 or 42 games, I can see them waiting a game or two as a courtesy, but I doubt it goes much beyond that.

[adambr2]

Didn't Stearn more do that move with Davies in order to help whoever the minor leaguer was get a few more days of service time to get him to a certain milestone to help out the career minor leaguer? If anything it shows he's aware of these things and tries to do right by guys.

I'm pretty sure the Brewers kept Andy Wilkins longer than they would have, had he not been so close to getting 52 (?) days of service time, the minimum needed for a partial MLB pension.

 

I'm not saying you're wrong but I don't understand why if that's actually the case that they wouldn't have just optioned him down when they wanted to and then called him back up in September to hit his mark, when it didn't affect the 25 man. He was pretty bad and they never did call him back up when rosters expanded.

[dacbrewers]

This coming from the guy who is constantly telling me he was just joking and to lighten up, oh the irony.

 

 

The irony was you falling off your high horse.

 

Garza will get $180,000 annual pension.

[adambr2]

This coming from the guy who is constantly telling me he was just joking and to lighten up, oh the irony.

 

 

The irony was you falling off your high horse.

 

Ok!

[pacopete4]

 

Garza will get $180,000 annual pension.

 

 

Jeez, must be nice. I guess [sarcasm]I chose[/sarcasm] the wrong career choice.

[adambr2]

This coming from the guy who is constantly telling me he was just joking and to lighten up, oh the irony.

 

 

The irony was you falling off your high horse.

 

Garza will get $180,000 annual pension.

 

Sad thing is a lot of these guys will be in desperate need of this by the time they collect on it.

[dacbrewers]

That's probably true. He could always sell off a couple of his exotic cars.

[adambr2]

Back on topic, I don't really have a ton of confidence in the pen long -term, because it's mainly made up of roster churn guys. Barnes and Knebel look like keepers, and Feliz should be fine, but other than that you've got Milone now probably, and then Hughes, Marinez, and Drake, all of whom were DFA by their respective teams in the last year. Marinez was decent for us last year, and every so often you can get lucky with some of these guys, but to put things bluntly half of our pen is made up of guys that no one really wanted.

 

So certainly there's room for improvement. Frankly, guys like Hader, Woodruff and Lopez could probably come in and help the pen now, but there are service time concerns and you want to give them every chance to stick in the rotation first. Wang has pitched well so far for the Sky Sox, and ultimately I'd still like to take a shot on his upside over Milone and Suter, neither of which I'm particularly confident in.

 

Internally, if Garza pitches well, we could keep him in the rotation when Guerra returns and move Peralta to the pen where his stuff might play very well in short stints. That's of course if Peralta isn't continuing to pitch very well out of the rotation.

[monty57]

Back on topic, I don't really have a ton of confidence in the pen long -term, because it's mainly made up of roster churn guys. Barnes and Knebel look like keepers, and Feliz should be fine, but other than that you've got Milone now probably, and then Hughes, Marinez, and Drake, all of whom were DFA by their respective teams in the last year. Marinez was decent for us last year, and every so often you can get lucky with some of these guys, but to put things bluntly half of our pen is made up of guys that no one really wanted.

 

So certainly there's room for improvement. Frankly, guys like Hader, Woodruff and Lopez could probably come in and help the pen now, but there are service time concerns and you want to give them every chance to stick in the rotation first. Wang has pitched well so far for the Sky Sox, and ultimately I'd still like to take a shot on his upside over Milone and Suter, neither of which I'm particularly confident in.

 

Internally, if Garza pitches well, we could keep him in the rotation when Guerra returns and move Peralta to the pen where his stuff might play very well in short stints. That's of course if Peralta isn't continuing to pitch very well out of the rotation.

 

Yeah, there are a lot of question marks in the pen. At this point, one of the goals of the pen is to gain value for trade, as closers are at a premium right now.

 

Feliz is an obvious flip candidate, and when he goes someone like Knebel will step into the closer role. If he can pitch well there, then he will have trade value like Thornberg did this past offseason if they choose to trade him at that time.

 

The bullpen is the last thing we need to address once the other pieces are in place, so once management feels we're ready to compete long-term, then they will look to stabilize the pen. Most of this will probably come from the load of talented pitchers on the farm. Some will make it as starters, but many of them will likely be our future bullpen. Until then, bring in undervalued guys and hope they have a good year and raise their value. Most relievers' numbers are so erratic this is actually a place you can do this, and naming someone "closer" is the easiest way to instantly build value in baseball.