Free Agent Relievers for 2019

[Eye Black]

With the Brewers having a couple of bullpen arms they relied on down the stretch that are candidates to move to the rotation in 2019 (i.e. Woodruff and Burnes) I don’t think it is crazy to think they may look to add 1-2 more impact bullpen arms this off-season. Below is a list of free agent relievers taken from Cot’s Baseball Contracts. I removed the guys that have team/player options that could potentially be free agents. I don’t know if the list is complete, I did add at least a couple of players that I noticed were missing from the Cot’s list (Jesse Chavez and Craig Kimbrel). If anyone notices others let me know.

 

Some are not all that appealing, but there are actually a decent number of solid bullpen arms available this off-season.

 

 

Cody Allen

 

Brad Brach

 

Zach Britton

 

Carter Capps

 

Santiago Casilla

 

Jesse Chavez

 

Randall Delgado

 

Jake Diekman

 

Sean Doolittle

 

Jeurys Familia

 

Casey Fien

 

Kelvin Herrera

 

J.P. Howell

 

Daniel Hudson

 

Jared Hughes

 

Jim Johnson

 

Shawn Kelley

 

Joe Kelly

 

Craig Kimbrel

 

Ryan Madson

 

Zach McAllister

 

Andrew Miller

 

Adam Ottavino

 

David Phelps

 

A.J. Ramos

 

David Robertson

 

Hector Rondon

 

Trevor Rosenthal

 

Robbie Ross

 

Marc Rzepczynski

 

Tanner Scheppers

 

Tony Sipp

 

Joakim Soria

 

Junichi Tazawa

 

Shawn Tolleson

 

Carlos Torres

 

Adam Warren

 

Justin Wilson

 

Blake Wood

 

Brad Ziegler - Retired

 

EDIT: Unfortunately that Cot’s list appears to be more out of date than I realized so I put it inside the “spoiler” window above for now. I will try to do a better job updating it later, but in the mean time here is an MLB.com list that seems more up to date.

 

MLB.com Free Agent Relievers List

 

Adam Ottavino (33 years old)

Jeurys Familia (29)

David Robertson (34)

Craig Kimbrel (31)

Jesse Chavez (35)

Oliver Perez (37)

Tony Sipp (35)

Zach Duke (36)

Brad Brach (33)

Joe Kelly (31)

Sergio Romo (36)

Jake Diekman (32)

Justin Wilson (31)

Tyler Clippard (34)

Shawn Kelley (35)

Andrew Miller (34)

Kelvin Herrera (29)

Mark Melancon (34) -- Can opt out of the two years and $28 million remaining on his contract.

Greg Holland (33)

Tony Barnette (35)

Aaron Loup (31)

Jonny Venters (34)

Adam Warren (31)

John Axford (36)

Bud Norris (34)

Ryan Madson (38)

Jeanmar Gomez (31)

Zach Britton (31)

Santiago Casilla (38)

Cody Allen (30)

Jorge De La Rosa (38)

Fernando Salas (34)

Zach McAllister (31)

Blake Wood (33)

Daniel Hudson (32)

Jerry Blevins (35)

Matt Belisle (39)

AJ Ramos (32)

Hector Santiago (31)

Jim Johnson (36)

Randall Delgado (29)

Boone Logan (34)

Peter Moylan (40)

Junichi Tazawa (33)

Blaine Boyer (37)

Josh Tomlin (34)

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Pretty sure Ziegler announced his retirement.

[Eye Black]

Pretty sure Ziegler announced his retirement.

Well cross him off then.

 

Thanks for the heads up, I’ll try to update the list as we go through the off-season for signings and retirements.

[adambr2]

I'm interested to see what the market is going to be like for Andrew Miller coming off such a down year after being dominant for so long. I wonder if he will take a 1 year prove it deal like Holland and try to cash in next year or just try to get as many years as he still can.

[3and2Fastball]

If I was going to spend money on relief pitching, without studying everything in depth, I sure like Familia.

 

I think Stearns might be able to trade for Treinen from the A's....

[MrTPlush]

I'm interested to see what the market is going to be like for Andrew Miller coming off such a down year after being dominant for so long. I wonder if he will take a 1 year prove it deal like Holland and try to cash in next year or just try to get as many years as he still can.

 

Probably not, at his age he would probably take the multi-year if given the option. I think a team will gamble on a rebound of some sort over multiple years. He struggled, but not a total disaster...still had some nice looking numbers. Holland was a lot younger when he did it.

[nate82]

Britton and Delgado are the ones I would be interested in. Trevor Rosenthal could be a good buy low candidate.

[MrTPlush]

Hopefully Melvin helps us find some good garbage bin finds before he leaves us (if he does). We can't afford expensive bullpen guys and Stearns has been horrible at finding good value for the bullpen.

 

So far some of the names David Stearns has brought us:

Neftali Feliz

Matt Albers

Oliver Drake

Boone Logan

Dan Jennings

 

He has got to do better than that in the future. He has been really lacking trying to build a bullpen. Thank gosh we were loaded in the minors to come save the bullpen when half the guys we had flopped like hot garbage. While the depth in the minors helped us this year with some of them moving to the rotation in 2019 he will need to find more reliable true bullpen arms.

[pacopete4]

Well to be fair to Stearns, we have tried to be as cheap as possible with the position and so you get what you pay for sometimes.

[reillymcshane]

I'd rather go with our young arms than spend on a high dollar veteran.

 

However, if someone falls to the team at a good price - sure. I'm all for it.

[And That]

There are a number of free agent relievers I really like, namely Joe Kelly, but two thoughts on why I kind of hope the Brewers stay away from FA relievers:

 

1) Based on $/WAR, relievers are by far the highest paid group of players. Good relievers are usually, though not exclusively, overpaid. If the Brewers are looking for value, it probably won't be at the top end of the reliever class.

 

2) The Brewers are, I believe, fully aware of thought #1 and have tried to catch some relievers whose value has fallen over the past few offseasons, but you know what they say about trying to catch a falling knife:

 

2017-2018 MLB deals given to relievers by the Brewers:

Matt Albers ($5 million)

Boone Logan ($2.5 million)

Yovanni Gallardo ($500k partial guarantee)

Dan Jennings ($750K)

Neftali Feliz ($5.35 million - and still waiting for the Brewers to flip him "for a haul")

Tommy Milone ($1.25 million)

 

That's $15 million+ blown on... not much.

 

So maybe you do go after a top end reliever and mitigate the risk of spending $10 mil between Albers and Feliz? I don't know. I do think the better idea is going after starters and then sorting out who winds up in the bullpen as you go.

[Roderick]

I'd rather go with our young arms than spend on a high dollar veteran.

 

We already have a ton of pitchers even if we trade Anderson, and don't re-sign Jennings and Soria, and Peralta starts the year in AAA (and Albers is still toast).

 

I would like to see how this pen works before spending FA dollars. Save those dollars when you bring in the guy at the trading deadline that you always do if you are in the race.

 

5: Burnes, Chacin, Davies, Nelson, Woodruff

10: Albers, Barnes, Cedeno, Guerra, Hader, JJ, Knebel, Lyles, Houser, T.Williams

[Austin Tatious]

The mode of those ages is strikingly high. Lot of risk fooling around at that level as seen with, e.g., Albers.

 

My wish list would be a lefty arm who is not limited to loogy status. Wish we had that Will Smith trade back.

[Eye Black]

If they do look for a LOOGY type I think Jerry Blevins could be a candidate that could be signed relatively inexpensively on a short-term deal. He struggled this year with the Mets for whatever reason (including against the Brewers), but throughout his career has been very good against lefty batters.

[Oxy]

The mode of those ages is strikingly high. Lot of risk fooling around at that level as seen with, e.g., Albers.

 

My wish list would be a lefty arm who is not limited to loogy status. Wish we had that Will Smith trade back.

 

Kinda. Nobody is getting a long term contract from that group...or even a 3 year contract outside of perhaps 2 or 3 names. I think it makes sense to budget 10-12 million each year to bring in 2-5 veteran bullpen arms in Spring Training and hope to catch lightning in a bottle from one or two of them. Obviously it depends on what kind of AAAA depth/quality that you've got lurking around.