Milwaukee Brewers: 3 Potential Trade Targets This July

Will Smith, LHP, San Francisco Giants

Back in 2016, the Milwaukee Brewers traded Will Smith to the Giants as the Crew was in rebuild mode and the Giants were going for it. Afew years later, the tables have turned and the Brewers are now contenders and the Giants are rebuilding.

Despite their poor record, the Giants have a strong bullpen and are likely to trade a couple of members of that group at the deadline. One of the top members of that group is Will Smith.

This season, Smith has a 3.29 ERA so far, and has nine saves as the Giants’ designated closer. Smith has a 2.78 FIP, a 1.02 WHIP, and is looking good.

Last year, in his first season back from Tommy John surgery that took out his entire 2017 season, Smith posted a 2.55 ERA in 53 innings.

Smith has always been a reliable bullpen arm, even going back to his days in Milwaukee, posting a 3.28 ERA in three seasons with the Brewers.

With the Brewers having lost Knebel for the entire season, reacquiring Smith would give them that third dominant arm in the bullpen. Not to mention it would reunite Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff aka Jeremy Jeffress. Smith and Jeffress had a close bond they developed during their time in Milwaukee. And both were traded on the same day in 2016. Jeffress is back, and bringing back Smith would put that dynamic duo on center stage once again.

Acquiring Smith makes perfect baseball sense, and it also makes for a great story, with Smith reuniting with Jeffress back in the city where both broke out to be high-quality big league relievers.

Smith would only be a rental, and will become a free agent at season’s end, meaning the acquisition cost will be much lower. With Knebel coming back next season, the Milwaukee Brewers could let Smith walk afterwards. Getting Smith back would be a win-win.

Shane Greene, RHP, Detroit Tigers

Another late inning relief option that will likely be available for trade in July is Shane Greene of the Tigers.

Greene, the Tigers’ closer, has 13 saves so far this season with a 1.69 ERA and a 0.75 WHIP in 16 appearances.

He posted 32 saves a year ago for Detroit, despite finishing with a 5.12 ERA. This year, his overall numbers look much better and hopefully he’s turned a corner. His K/9 ratio has increased to 11.3 so far this season, which would be a career high, and his 2.3 BB/9 is a career low.

The good/bad news about possibly acquiring Greene is that he does have another year of team control remaining through arbitration. If the Milwaukee Brewers were to acquire him, they would control his rights through the 2020 season. He’s making $4 million this year.

That means there would be a higher acquisition cost to pry Greene away from the Tigers in terms of prospects that have to be surrendered. But the extra year of control would make the Brewers bullpen that much more deadly in 2020 with Jeffress, Greene, Knebel, and Josh Hader all under contract and (hopefully) healthy.

His $4 million salary is also not a huge hindrance to the team payroll this year. It’s stretched thin and there may not be much room to add a lot of salary in July, but with probably somewhere around $2 million left on that deal in late July, that’s not going to break the bank for the Brewers.

Greene is just another option to give the Brewers that three-headed bullpen monster they’re looking for.

Marcus Stroman, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays

Marcus Stroman is a guy that many people have had pegged as a Milwaukee Brewers trade target for quite some time. The Blue Jays have gone into rebuild mode, and acquiring him last season would’ve made sense, had Stroman not had a completely awful 2018 season.

In 2017, Stroman posted a 3.09 ERA after dominating in the World Baseball Classic for Team USA that spring. He looked like the next stud, up-and-coming ace in MLB. Stroman was a very hot commodity for teams that saw the Toronto rebuild coming. Instead the Jays held on, and in 2018, Stroman regressed to a 5.54 ERA after dealing with numerous injuries that season.

But in 2019, the Marcus Stroman that we’re seeing is looking a lot like the 2017 version. Through his first eight starts, Stroman has a 2.96 ERA in 45.2 innings with a 1.29 WHIP.

The starting rotation was a mess in the first month of the season. Now with Gio Gonzalez in the fold, it’s solidified a little bit. With Jimmy Nelson on the road back, Corbin Burnes re-establishing himself, as well as Freddy Peralta and Brandon Woodruff settling it, the rotation isn’t as big of a need as it used to be.

Still, it can never hurt to add another front of the rotation type arm to the pitching staff, especially when barreling towards the postseason. If everyone’s healthy, having Stroman, Nelson, Chacin, and some combination of Burnes, Woodruff, Peralta, and Davies in the rotation and the bullpen in October will give the Brewers a more dominant pitching staff than the one they had last year.

Stroman is under control through 2020, so it would come with an increased acquisition cost as opposed to a rental pitcher, but Stroman has the competitive fire that would likely only add to this team’s chemistry and success.

The Milwaukee Brewers have several options they can try to acquire during the July trade season. These are just three potential fits, but they would make plenty of sense for David Stearns to go out and get.