Brewers: 3 Free Agent Starting Pitchers the Team Should Target

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.