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This is Part 4 of a series of stories detailing the payroll situation for the Milwaukee Brewers at a back-of-the-napkin level. Previously, we looked at the total salaries of the infielders, outfielders, and rotation, and came up with a $109M commitment for next year. Today we look at the bullpen.
Closer – Josh Hader is gone (and would have made about $15M in arbitration). So is Taylor Rogers, who becomes a free agent. But Devin Williams and his 14K/9 are still around and pretty affordable, given that he is just entering his first year of arbitration. Relievers' arbitration awards are difficult to estimate, and his certainly went up as he racked up saves at the end of the season. Let's expect a boost to $3-4M.
Luis Perdomo and Brent Suter can be offered arbitration for one more year. Suter made $2.7M last year, so he's due about $3M. Perdomo will be due quite a bit less, closer to $1M.
Like almost the entirety of the starting rotation, Matt Bush and Trevor Gott can both be offered arbitration this year and for 2024. Bush will get the more significant raise, about ~$2M, with Gott a half step behind at $1.5M.
Hoby Milner enters arbitration this year for the first time and had a solid year to garner a nice raise. He'll likely land between $1M and $1.5M.
The Brewers have a decision to make regarding Brad Boxberger. The contract he signed with them last year has a team option of $3M with a $750K buyout, meaning they need to decide if he's worth $2.25M. I think that they think he is, but if payroll gets tight, they could pivot away and eat the buyout.
Finally, no matter where Aaron Ashby pitches, whether in the rotation, the bullpen, or Nashville, he's got a guaranteed contract that pays him $1M, so we have to add him to our list. Which, by the way, is complete and looks like this:
That final number is awfully close to what the Brewers spent in 2022. So what will they spend in 2023? We'll look at what the team has spent historically and make educated guesses on how much room they'll have left next time.
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