Arcia, Phillips, Lopez Among First Roster Cuts

This morning at around 10 A.M. the Brewers announced a series of roster cuts trimming the Spring Training roster from 59 to 49. The team sent ten players to minor league camp including top prospects Orlando Arcia, Brett Phillips and Jorge Lopez.

Before acquiring Chase Anderson, there was a chance Jorge Lopez was going to compete with Zach Davies for the fifth spot in the rotation. However, since the acquisition of Anderson, Counsell has said Chase Anderson will be in the rotation. So sending down Lopez is not a surprise; he will get a lot of innings on the minor league side of camp, and before the end of the season it will not be surprising if Lopez joined the major league rotation.

Phillips had no chance of breaking camp with the team this year. Although he projects as the centerfielder of the future, he needs more seasoning having never played above AA.  Although fans wanted to see shortstop Orlando Arcia break camp with the team, General Manager David Stearns has said repeatedly; the shortstop will start the year in AAA.  Barring injury, we will definitely see Orlando Arcia in the batter’s box at Miller Park at some point in 2016.

The other players that the team cut were pitchers Adrian Houser, Jacob Barnes, Damien Magnifico and Josh Hader.  On the position player side Jacob Nottingham, Michael Reed and Rene Garcia were optioned to minor league camp.

None of the players above had a realistic shot at making the 25 man roster. Sending these ten players down will be beneficial so they can get regular at-bats, regular innings to prepare for their minor league seasons. I expect that when the next roster cuts are announced we will have a clearer picture of who will be in Milwaukee on April 4^th.