Milwaukee Brewers: Now In July, Plenty Of Moves To Be Made

The Milwaukee Brewers enter the month of July, and with one month to go until the hard trade deadline, there’s plenty of areas to address on this roster.

Right now, the Milwaukee Brewers are tied for first place in the NL Central with the Chicago Cubs, but you wouldn’t have guessed that based on the way the team has played recently.

Now entering the fourth full month of the season, the Brewers have a pretty good idea of what they have and what they don’t have on their roster right now. GM David Stearns has shuffled some things up, sending down Travis Shaw, calling up Keston Hiura and Tyler Saladino, and DFAing Hernan Perez.

While the Brewers have a strong roster, they’re going to need a little more help before they’re ready to win a World Series.

What They Need To Figure Out

The Brewers starting rotation has a month to figure itself out until the deadline arrives. Trades could be made at any time, but given the quantity of available starters, Stearns may be willing to wait and see with his in-house guys.

The thing is, the rotation has enough talent that, when they’re all performing, they have more than enough to get this team to, and win, the World Series. Unfortunately, not all of them are performing up to their talent level. Jimmy Nelson still has a lot of rust to shake off, Freddy Peralta has struggled to find consistency, Gio Gonzalez is hurt, Jhoulys Chacin is underperforming, and Corbin Burnes has just not been himself.

If all those guys can find success in the next month, hell, if even two of them find success in the month of July and perform at the level the Milwaukee Brewers know they can perform at, the Crew won’t need to add a starting pitcher at the deadline. But if they don’t figure it out soon, does Stearns have to add another starting pitcher to the mix? Will the large group of controllable starters they already have make him desire a rental asset? Or will Stearns still search for a controllable starter?

That’s an important question that only Stearns can answer, and I don’t think he even knows the answer to it just yet. He’s got less than a month to figure out an answer though.

The Bullpen

It is almost a virtual certainty that the Milwaukee Brewers will add at least one bullpen pitcher during the month of July. The only question is which pitcher(s) will they end up with.

Giants lefty Will Smith seems like an obvious fit, but there are other options out there. Plus, Stearns has been known to make deals out of the blue with some of the non-obvious targets that no one has projected to go to Milwaukee. Who had the Brewers getting Mike Moustakas last year? Exactly.

The Offense

The pitching staff is the part of this roster that needs the most work. The offense is pretty much World Series caliber, despite slumps from Travis Shaw and Jesus Aguilar to start the season. It’s extremely unlikely that Stearns would get a starting corner infielder to replace either one of those two this July. Shaw is getting the 2018 Orlando Arcia treatment, and hopefully it’ll work with similar success.

Eric Thames is quietly having a strong season and could be a serviceable starting first baseman for the Brewers down the stretch and in the playoffs.

The bench could maybe use an upgrade, but any one they get would be a minimal upgrade at best. The primary focus is on the pitching staff this July. If the starters can figure it out, that’s one less need, but if they can’t, then Stearns is going to have to pull the trigger.

The Milwaukee Brewers have a great chance to win a championship this year, and who they acquire in July can either sink them, or help them swim.