Milwaukee Brewers What to Expect: Rymer Liriano

Yesterday The Brewers traded for Rymer Liriano from The Padres trading away left hander reliever Trevor Seidenberger. Liriano was once considered to be on the best prospects for San Diego (3^rd in 2013), but was DFA’d last week after a .292, 14 HR. 64 RBI, .383 OBS season with Double-A El Paso last season. So, what does this acquisition mean for the Brewers?

Firstly, to make room for Liriano the Brewers DFA’d outfielder Shane Peterson, and per Tom Haudricourt

If Peterson does clear waivers and remain with the Brewers, then the Brewers will have both Liriano and Peterson (who is four years younger) both viable prospect options.

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Secondly, Liriano is out of minor league options so he’ll have to compete for and make the Brewers roster or he’ll be DFA’d and have to clear waivers to stay in the organization. The Brewers outfield crowd is pretty heavy as it is, so it’ll be interesting to see if he makes the 40 man roster or not. In seven seasons in the minors Liriano has posted a career .784 OPS, he definitely has the pieces to compete on multiple levels.

His 38 game sample in the Bigs isn’t all the great, but as it was aptly pointed out to me, small samples don’t mean much, and he’s posted good numbers in his minor league career. With Matt Kemp, Jon Jay, Jabari Blash, Travis Jankowski, and Alex Dickerson Liriano didn’t have much of a chance to flourish with the Padres (plenty of talent on his part, but like the Brewers the OF in San Diego is crowded).

Certainly working for Liriano is Brewers bench Coach Pat Murphy who was Liriano’s manager last season in El Paso and as pointed out by Stearns, Murphy highly believes in Liriano and has the parts of the puzzle to come together and that is the high reward the Brewers are looking for in acquiring him