Milwaukee Brewers: 5 Transactions We Wish Were April Fools Jokes

3. The Jonathan Schoop Trade

This one never made sense from the start. Heading into the 2018 July Trade Deadline, the Milwaukee Brewers had two big needs: Middle infield, and the starting rotation. GM David Stearns filled the first need when he acquired Mike Moustakas from the Royals and pushed Travis Shaw to second base. It was an odd idea to most of us, but we rolled with it.

Then came Deadline Day. Rumors had it the Brewers were in the market for Chris Archer and Kevin Gausman, exhaustively searching for a frontline starting pitcher for their rotation. Archer then got sent to Pittsburgh and Gausman went to Atlanta. The deadline was in just a few minutes and Stearns was left empty-handed.

But he needed to do something, so he got back on the phone with Baltimore and sent Luis Ortiz, Jonathan Villar, and Jean Carmona to the Orioles for second baseman Jonathan Schoop.

But the team just got Moustakas, there was no need for Schoop. What would they do now? They settled on a plan for some kind of rotation between the three guys at third base and second base. That was ditched after Schoop couldn’t find his footing in Milwaukee.

The dude was hot in July, hitting .360 with nine home runs. But he struggled in August and did even worse in September, hitting just .202 during the regular season with the Crew, getting benched along the way. He struck out over 30% of the time.

Schoop was also hitless in eight at-bats in the postseason, and was just overall useless during his time in Milwaukee. He never seemed to mesh with the clubhouse culture that was warm and inviting and a big part of the team’s winning ways.

Stearns decided to non-tender Schoop last winter instead of paying nearly $10 million in arbitration for him after his poor season. The original plan was for Schoop to be the bridge to top prospect Keston Hiura at the position, but Schoop just couldn’t do it. Stearns had no choice but to cut him loose and even admitted he made “a bad deal” which is something you never hear a GM admit.

The Brewers gave up those players with the plan of solidifying the second base position until Hiura was ready. After the Moose trade, the Schoop addition was just redundant and unnecessary. It’s almost laughable how bad that trade turned out to be, and the Brewers were probably close to not keeping Schoop on the postseason rosters.