Brewers: 3 Free Agent Starting Pitchers the Team Should Target

RHP Collin McHugh

Another player who could be looking to rebuild his value in 2020 is right-handed starter Collin McHugh. Unlike Teheran, though, he could be more within Milwaukee’s price range.

McHugh actually didn’t end up pitching at all in the 2020 season. He had signed a one-year contract with the Boston Red Sox prior to the season that guaranteed $600k but could have paid up to $3.625MM with incentives. After offseason surgery didn’t respond the way he’d liked, however, he decided to opt out of the season.

Prior to that, McHugh made a name for himself over six seasons with the Houston Astros. He began as a starter, compiling a 3.70 ERA and 1.253 WHIP with 8.4 K/9 over 102 starts from 2014 to 2017. The span saw him finish 4th in AL ROY voting in 2014 and 8th in Cy Young voting in 2015.

After that, McHugh was converted to a reliever for a couple seasons. The first season went very well, with him putting up a 1.99 ERA, 0.912 WHIP, and 11.7 K/9 over 58 games in 2018.

2019 went less smoothly, though. Elbow issues did cause him to miss some games at two separate points that season, causing his ERA to spike up to 4.70 that season and only allowing him to pitch in 35 games.

Even in a 2019 season that wasn’t up to his standards, there are some encouraging Statcast numbers from that year when it comes to McHugh. His 30.3% hard hit rate finished in the 91st percentile that season, while his average exit velocity (88 mph), strikeout rate (25.9%), and barrel rate (7.0%) all finished in the top half of the league as well.

At 33-years-old, McHugh is a bit farther up there in age than the 29-year-old Teheran. But that could also be what puts him more within the Brewers’ price range for a potential contract.

LHP Brett Anderson

When looking at free agent pitchers within the Brewers’ price range, there are a lot of underwhelming options out there on the market. So why not reunite with a familiar face from the 2020 season?

Left-handed pitcher Brett Anderson came to the Brewers last offseason on a one-year, $5MM contract last offseason. Though he had a rocky start, he ended up putting respectable enough numbers on the board for Milwaukee in 2020.

Anderson finished last season with a 4.21 ERA and 1.277 WHIP over 10 starts for the Crew. Never one to blow anyone away, he had just 6.13 strikeouts per nine. But he also had excellent control with his 1.91 walks per nine placing him tops in the Brewer rotation and in the 90th percentile in MLB.

Generally, Anderson did what the team needed him to do in 2020 and that was keep the game close before he exited the game. He gave up two runs or less in seven of his ten outings last year and never more than four in any of them.

Part of why Anderson signed his one-year contract with the Brewers last offseason was to prove he could stay consistently healthy, seeing as his 31 starts with the A’s in 2019 was the first time he’d started more than 17 games since 2015.

In that sense, he was mostly successful. Anderson’s 10 starts in 2020 tied him for third most on the team behind the 11 from Adrian Houser and 13 from Brandon Woodruff.

But Anderson did still end up seeing a familiar injury from his history affect his season a bit. A blister on his throwing hand caused a delay to the start of his season and caused one of his starts to get pushed late in 2020 as well.

Because of that, as well as his middling numbers and age (33 next season), it’s possible the Brewers could get him at or under his $5MM price tag from last year. If so, bringing back a pitcher already familiar with the organization might not be a bad idea. After all, it was the type of move that worked over recent years with pitchers like Gio Gonzalez and Jordan Lyles.

The starting pitching market is one of the few that has shown some actual activity this offseason. Perhaps that could spur some decent movement in the Brewers offseason some time soon.