3 Non-Tender Candidates The Brewers May Cut Loose

The Brewers have a long list of arbitration eligible players this off-season, 13 to be exact. A vast majority of theses players have been key contributors to the teams success over the past few seasons.

It seems likely that the Crew will want to tender most of them contracts, but there are a few who are in danger of being non-tendered at this year’s November 30th deadline.

Here are three Brewers who could potentially be non tendered in the upcoming days.

Brewers Non-Tender Candidate #1: 1B Daniel Vogelbach

This will be Vogelbach‘s second year of arbitration. Last off-season, the Brewers and Vogelbach settled on a $1.4 MM deal to avoid arbitration. MLB trade rumors has his projected value at $1.9MM for the 2022 season.

Last year, the plan was for Vogelbach and Keston Hiura to split time at first base. Hiura’s bat never got going and Vogelbach ended up missing multiple months with hamstring and foot injuries.

This opened the door for Rowdy Tellez, who the Brewers acquired via trade mid-season. Tellez ended up filling in nicely and coming up clutch on multiple occasions. With Tellez and Vogelbach both being left handed batters, it seems unlikely that both will be tendered contracts and Vogelbach is more likely to be non-tendered.

Brewers Non-Tender Candidate #2: INF Jace Peterson

On base Jace has a great reputation among fans and teammates alike and has the ability to play all around the field. Offensively, he went through a few hot streaks last season, but he also had his slumps. The result was a 93 OPS+ and the Brewers electing to trade for Mike Brosseau earlier in November. Brosseau is expected to play a very similar role to what Peterson did in 2021.

This means that Jace Peterson may be non-tendered at the deadline. Even though his salary projection is rather low at $1.3MM, Brosseau is cheaper and has minor league options remaining.  All signs are currently pointing to the end of the “On-Base-Jace” era in Milwaukee.

Brewers Non-Tender Candidate #3: P Jandel Gustave

Back in June, David Stearns struck a deal to exchange minor league players with the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Brewers ended up receiving Jandel Gustave and Troy Stokes Jr. At that time Gustave had last pitched in the major leagues in 2019 but eventually was asked to pitch in the Brewers bullpen due to a COVID-19 outbreak.

He ended up appearing in 14 games for the Crew, covering 18.1 innings, and ended with a 3.44 ERA. The combination of his fastball and slider proved to be effective combination. However, his history shows that he is a rather inconsistent player from year to year. This means the biggest question the Brewers have to determine is if he proved enough to earn a spot in the bullpen next season or not.

In the end, there are not a lot of non-tender candidates this year. However, another thing to keep in mind is the looming lockout. All signs are pointing to a transaction freeze starting December 1st, so teams are currently being aggressive until then.

This could make for a fun and exciting non-tender deadline and it will be interesting to see if the Brewers make any moves prior to then.