The Top 5 Roster Moves The Milwaukee Brewers Made In 2021

Brewers #3 Best Move Of 2021: Let’s Get Rowdy Tellez

The Brewers needed help at first base. Badly. Keston Hiura was floundering and Daniel Vogelbach, who had been holding down the fort, just suffered a hamstring strain. On July 6th, David Stearns swung a trade with the Blue Jays for first baseman Rowdy Tellez.

Earlier in the big league season with Toronto, Tellez was hitting just .209 with a .610 OPS in 50 games. He was demoted to Triple-A to get some regular playing time.

With Tellez being stuck in Triple-A and blocked at first base by AL MVP runner-up Vlad Guerrero Jr, he became an obvious trade candidate. His stock improved as he began to tear it up at the plate in the minors.

Stearns couldn’t wait to get closer to the July 30th Trade Deadline with the injury to Vogelbach and Hiura’s struggles, so he pulled the trigger. He sent minor league pitcher Bowden Francis and reliever Trevor Richards to the Blue Jays to complete the deal.

After all those struggles at the big league level, Tellez then comes over to Milwaukee and in 56 games, he hits .272 with an .814 OPS and seven homers.

Tellez had numerous clutch moments and became a fan favorite pretty quickly. His big-bodied teddy bear demeanor along with his fun and easily chant-able first name of ‘Rowdy’, made him the perfect addition to the Milwaukee Brewers family.

He had a 116 OPS+ with Milwaukee, by far the best mark among the Brewers many first basemen they had in 2021.

Again, the Brewers were able to solve a major need on their roster without having to surrender a top prospect and Tellez is under team control for a number of years. Stearns struck early and made a great move to help solidify a position that was a problem area all season long.

Also, Tellez was basically the sole source of offense for Milwaukee in the NLDS and one of the two key reasons they didn’t get swept in that series (the other being Corbin Burnes).