As Brewers seek pitching help now, they hope to build strong future staff from within

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – As Milwaukee Brewers general manager David Stearns scours the pitching market at baseball’s winter meetings, both in free agency and trades, he certainly is aware of how pricey that commodity has become.

Every free-agent reliever wants a lucrative multi-year deal. Established free-agent starters are looking to break the bank. Teams with pitching available in trades are asking for a cache of highly touted prospects in return.

“The ‘ask’ for good players, in general, is very steep,” said Stearns, who revealed Tuesday he has multiple offers out to free agents while continuing trade talks with other clubs.

“Whether that’s a free agent, whether it’s position players or pitchers, or for trades, the ‘asks’ are equally high out there. It really comes down to players who perform, especially at early stages of their careers, tend to get compensated very well. When teams have those players, they can ask for fairly robust packages in return."

All of which behooves the rebuilding Brewers – who took a big step forward with 86 victories in 2017 – to primarily build a solid pitching staff from within their own ranks. They went into the playoff push last season with three home-grown pitchers in their rotation, though the best one, right-hander Jimmy Nelson, suffered a shoulder injury with three weeks remaining and underwent surgery.

Nelson, 28, a second-round draft pick in 2010 out of Alabama, will not be ready to return to action until some point in 2018, one of the reasons the Brewers are on the hunt for starting pitching this winter.  Rather than making offers to high-priced free agents, such as Jake Arrieta, Yu Darvish and Lance Lynn, Stearns is exploring trade opportunities for younger, less-expensive options such as Tampa Bay’s Chris Archer.

The Brewers also talked Tuesday to the Pittsburgh Pirates, who are listening on ace Gerrit Cole but would want a huge package of prospects to part with him, especially within the National League Central. One big-league player the Brewers are shopping around for pitching is rightfielder Domingo Santana.

Right-hander Brandon Woodruff, who made big strides through the organization after being drafted in the 11th round in 2014 out of Mississippi State, made eight starts for the Brewers, going 2-3 with a 4.81 ERA. Manager Craig Counsell said Woodruff would get a shot to win a rotation spot in the spring.

“He’s certainly in the picture,” Counsell said. “I think he got an appropriate and valuable amount of experience last year. That sets him to springboard into next year.”

The surprise of the rotation last season was soft-tossing Brent Suter, a 28-year-old left-hander who overachieved to get to the majors after being drafted in the 31st round in 2012 out of Harvard. Given chances to make 14 starts because of injuries to others, he went 3-2 with a 3.45 ERA, helping to keep the Brewers in the playoff race.

“Nobody wants to talk about him but he keeps getting people out,” Counsell said. “He has pitched very well in big games. We gave him the ball in some big, big games and he pitched very well.”

Two key returning starters to the rotation, right-handers Chase Anderson and Zach Davies, were obtained via trades. Davies, 24, acquired from Baltimore in July 2015 by former GM Doug Melvin in a trade for outfielder Gerardo Parra, went 17-9 with a 3.90 ERA last season and is 31-18 with a 3.91 ERA in 67 starts overall for the Brewers.

Anderson, 30, was acquired by Stearns in January 2016 in a five-player trade with Arizona. He had a breakthrough season in 2017, going 12-4 with a 2.74 ERA in 25 starts, and was rewarded with a two-year contract extension afterward.

Left-hander Josh Hader, who may or may not return to starting in 2018 after a brilliant rookie debut (2.08 ERA in 35 games, 68 strikeouts in 47 2/3 innings) out of the bullpen, was acquired by Melvin in a blockbuster trade with Houston one day before the Davies deal. In exchange for centerfielder Carlos Gomez and right-hander Mike Fiers, neither of whom are still with the Astros, the Brewers received Hader, Santana, outfielder Brett Phillips and right-hander Adrian Houser, who is on the comeback trail from Tommy John surgery.

Beyond Woodruff, the most highly touted pitching prospects in the farm system are right-handers Corbin Burnes and Luis Ortiz. Much like Woodruff, Burnes has skyrocketed through the farm system since being taken in the fourth round of the 2016 draft out of St. Mary’s College (Calif.). He made it all the way to Class AA Biloxi last season while going 8-3, 1.67 in two stops, and could be in the big-league picture at some point in 2018.

Ortiz was acquired from Texas with outfielder Lewis Brinson, now considered the Brewers’ top prospect, and outfielder Ryan Cordell, traded last season for reliever Anthony Swarzak, at the trade deadline in 2016 for catcher Jonathan Lucroy and reliever Jeremy Jeffress. The Brewers reacquired Jeffress in a deadline deal last season.

Ortiz is only 22 and needs more development but was pushed in 2017 to Biloxi, where he struggled a bit (4-7, 4.01) in 22 games. The Brewers also have right-hander Aaron Wilkerson, who is older at 28 but made the final start of last season in St. Louis and showed potential.

“The good news is we have a lot of (future) options,” Stearns said. “We have a number of young pitchers, both at the major-league level who can be here for multiple years, and coming up through Double A and Triple A. We're in a position where we're always going to be counting on our younger guys to mature and contribute at the major-league level.

“We still have other pieces such as Taylor Jungmann and Junior Guerra, with major-league experience who we believe can compete at that level. I think we have about as much young, controllable pitching depth as anyone in baseball right now. Not all of it is at the major-league level quite yet but we just rattled off 10 or 12 names who we expect to pitch to contribute at a high level.”

Which is a good thing because the more pitching you have, the less often you must look elsewhere to find it. And pay dearly.