Brewers Option Ryon Healy, Three Others To Triple-A

Despite the coronavirus pandemic putting a pause on the baseball season, there are still some transactions going on as the Brewers were working on whittling down their rosters for the start of the season.

Per the MLB Transaction Log, the Brewers have optioned several players to Triple-A after spring training was suspended and before the freeze on transactions began.

Those players include corner infielder Ryon Healy, who was stuck in the backlog of corner infield options the Brewers found themselves with. Fellow infielders Mark Mathias and Ronny Rodriguez were also optioned to Triple-A. With the infield depth the Brewers had acquired, Mathias and Rodriguez got pushed out of the picture.

Finally, David Freitas was also optioned to Triple-A. With Omar Narvaez and Manny Pina making up the top of the catching depth chart, Freitas was going to have an uphill climb to make the roster, needing either an injury or the Brewers to be open to keeping a third catcher on the roster, something they don’t seem keen on doing.

Cutting Down The Roster

The Brewers only had one round of camp cuts before spring training was suspended. Normally there’s at least a couple rounds of it, as teams go from their 40 man roster with a group of non-roster invitees to the 26 man roster they start the season with.

In the first round of cuts, Trey Supak and Corey Ray were optioned to the minors as well as numerous other minor league non-roster invitees who were reassigned to minor league camp.

While spring training was still going on, Mathias and Rodriguez were impressing both with their positional versatility, defensive plays, and offensive success. They opened some eyes and most likely gave themselves a chance to earn a call up in the future, but there are simply too many players ahead of them on the utility depth chart.

There likely won’t be too many more roster changes as everyone waits for the season to start back up, and there’s no telling how long that could be. Decisions on non-roster invitees like Logan Morrison are going to have to wait until MLB is ready to start back up the season and plan out a pre-season.

Details on when the season will start back up are hard to come by at this time. Things are still up in the air, and depending on how quickly this coronavirus goes away. So the more you wash your hands and practice social distancing, the quicker we can get back to baseball.