Brewers: Trey Supak, Justin Topa called up amid roster moves

The Milwaukee Brewers have announced a bevy of roster moves in the wake of the Trade Deadline.

After announcing that David Phelps had been traded to the Philadelphia Phillies for three minor league players to be named later, the Brewers made a few more roster changes.

After Brandon Woodruff‘s start on Sunday, everyone was aware that he was heading home to Mississippi to be with his wife, Jonie, who is scheduled to be induced into labor and give birth to the couple’s first child this week. The Brewers officially put Woodruff on the paternity list.

Also, Corey Knebel, who had been on the IL with a hamstring strain has officially been moved to the alternate site on a rehab assignment. It’s not a demotion, he won’t lose big league service time, but he’s on a rehab assignment.

The replacement players are interesting.

To take Woodruff’s spot will be Trey Supak, who is the Crew’s No. 16 prospect on MLB Pipeline. Supak dominated in Double-A in 2019, then was promoted to Triple-A and got absolutely lit up. It was night and day between his performance in Double-A and Triple-A. Those struggles in San Antonio tanked his prospect stock and he’s been working to rebuild it this year.

Taking Phelps’ spot on the roster will be Justin Topa, a relative unknown to most of the Brewers fanbase, but an exciting arm nonetheless. He was added to the 60 man player pool mid-season and has had a wild journey to get to this point. Topa throws gas, hitting 99 MPH on the radar gun and he’s got pretty good command. He hadn’t yet pitched above Double-A and bounced around between organizations and independent ball the last few years.

Topa is 29, and he’s a former 17th round pick in 2013. This is a great opportunity for him and hopefully he can stick around a while. Topa throws some serious heat, the Brewers have been lacking some of that since Ray Black went down with a shoulder injury. Apparently Topa had been pitching quite well in Appleton, so the Brewers might as well see what they have in him at the big league level.

The Brewers are taking a Johnny Wholestaff approach to the game on Monday night, and since both Supak and Topa are coming from Appleton, they’ll be here for gametime and they might even see some action in Monday’s game. Normally when Counsell has guys up that will be making their big league debuts, he gets them in there as soon as he can.

Oddly enough, all of these moves involve right handed pitchers. Phelps, Woodruff, Knebel, Supak, and Topa are all right-handed.