2 Brewers players from the 2024 roster who will be missed, 2 who won't be

There are few teams who experienced less roster turnover this past offseason than the Milwaukee Brewers. The Crew is typically on the quieter side of things while they cry poor, but this past offseason was especially quiet.

The Brewers saw eight notable players from last year's team depart via free agency, while reliever Devin Williams was traded to the New York Yankees for a pair of players that should be big contributors to the 2025 Brewers.

Fresh off of a 93-win season, the Brewers have a lot of pressure on their shoulders as they look to win the NL Central for the third straight year and fourth time in five seasons. That kind of consistent success hasn't ever been experienced before throughout the franchise's long history.

As spring training gets underway and the Crew prepares to do battle, there are a handful of players from last year's team that will be dearly missed as they look to keep their winning ways alive. Alternatively, some of those previously mentioned players that departed in free agency will not be missed at all.

Let's dive in and see which players will and will not be missed from the 2024 roster.

2 Brewers players from the 2024 team who will be missed, 2 who won't be

Gary Sanchez will not be missed

It's obvious why the Brewers brought Sanchez aboard after watching him put together a really solid 72-game showing on the 2023 Padres. However, he never really experienced much of that success on last year's Brewers.

In 89 games, the most he's appeared in since 2022, Sanchez hit 11 home runs with 37 RBI but he also hit .220 with a .699 OPS and a 93 OPS+ which puts his overall production at seven percent under league-average.

Sanchez latched on with the Orioles, where he should back-up Adley Rutschman on the AL East hopefuls. The Brewers, meanwhile, elected to re-up with Eric Haase, who should remain on hand until Jeferson Quero is ready to make his long-awaited big league debut.

Sanchez looked "just okay" in Milwaukee, but Haase's steady presence and the looming debut from Quero simply means that there was no spot for Sanchez. There's no ill will from Brewers fans, but he's a player that simply won't be missed.

Willy Adames will be missed

There was no shot Adames wouldn't make the cut here. Across a four-year stretch in Milwaukee, he turned himself into one of the most popular players in Brewers history and cemented himself in the conversation of "best shortstop in baseball" in the process. Sure, he falls short of the Seagers, Lindors, De La Cruzs, Witts and Hendersons of the world, but Adames is rock solid and will be sorely missed.

Now that he's signed a long-term contract with the Giants, the book has closed on Adames' tenure in Milwaukee. This past season, he put together an outstanding walk-year performance, recording 33 doubles while hitting 32 home runs, driving in 112, going 21-for-25 in stolen base attempts and posting a 118 OPS+. This performance didn't quite earn him an All-Star nod, but he did finish 10th in NL MVP voting.

The Brewers will be in decent hands with Joey Ortiz at shortstop (probably) in 2025, but there's no denying that he's not Adames. The latter was such a wildly popular player amongst fans and players that his absence will be easily noticeable for years to come.

Wade Miley will not be missed

All throughout the offseason, it felt like Miley was a lock to re-up with the Brewers for what feels like the 10th time of his career. In fact, he had even expressed interest in a reunion multiple times during the winter, but nothing came to be. Instead, he signed with the Cincinnati Reds, whom he played for in the 2020 and 2021 campaigns.

Outside of that ghastly seven-inning showing he put together this past year, Miley had been excellent throughout his tenure(s) on the Brewers. All told, he had a sparkling 3.03 ERA and 140 ERA+ across 41 starts and 208 innings in Milwaukee. He was a great pitcher for the vast majority of his time on the club, but he's also inching near 40 years old and has plenty of question marks surrounding his durability.

In fact, the 14-year veteran has not started 30 or more games since back in 2019 and has only done it twice since 2016. One of the biggest abilities nowadays is availability and Miley has fallen short in that department in recent years. Most of the memories he made on the Brewers are good ones, but the fact of the matter is that he didn't appear in enough games last year to even be missed. Best of luck to him in Cincy, but the Brewers should be able to easily replace his production with Nestor Cortes or a healthy Aaron Ashby.

Joe Ross will be missed

There were a few candidates in the running for this spot (especially Williams), and admittedly it feels weird to land on Ross, but he looked great on last year's pitching staff and could very likely be a steal for the Philadelphia Phillies, who scooped him up on a single-year pact this past offseason.

Ross, a seven-year veteran, was flexible and willing to fill a variety of different roles on last year's Brewers. That kind of versatility out of a pitcher is extremely valuable, especially for a team like the Brewers who have recently encountered quite a bit of poorly-timed injuries to their pitching staff over the past year or so.

In 25 total outings (10 of them being starts), Ross went 3-6 with a 3.77 ERA, 3.83 FIP and 111 ERA+. So frequently do we see pitchers with respectable ERAs come to the table with a high FIP and/or SIERA, which often points to most of the pitcher's low ERA coming from luck. That was not the case with Ross.

During his time on the Nationals pre-Brewers, Ross had occasionally ran into troubles preventing runners from getting on base and coming around to score. He had an 8.8 H/9 this past year while sporting an HR/9 of 0.9, both being right in line from his best days on the Nats.

While Ross was a flexible pitcher, it wasn't until he began to see more time as a relief pitcher that he began to blossom. In those 15 relief outings, he had a dazzling 1.67 ERA, surrendering just five earned runs across 27 innings. He can fill more than one role on a staff, but he showed the Brewers that he had what it took to convert to relief pitching for the one of the first times in his career.

Again, Ross is a not a household name, but he would've been a cheap and reliable option for the Brewers to bring back on a one-year contract. He may surprise people on the Phillies this year.

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