How The Milwaukee Brewers Are Impacted By These 5 CBA Changes

Finally! Baseball is back as the league and players’ union have agreed to a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Brewers baseball is back in our lives.

Opening Day is finally set, 40 man roster players will show up at spring training, free agents can sign, trades can be made, and baseball is moving again after a 99 day lockout.

The players came into these CBA negotiations looking to make major changes, and they succeeded on several fronts. Here’s how five of these changes impact the Milwaukee Brewers.

New CBA Rule: Players optioned max of 5 times per year

One of the rules put in place in the CBA that will have the most impact on how the Brewers construct their roster is the new limit on player options mid-season.

Previously, players had three option years where they could be optioned an unlimited number of times during that season and only one “option” would be used. Teams could have players go up and down like a rollercoaster and there was nothing the player could do about it.

Now, players can only be optioned back down to the minor leagues from the 40 man roster a maximum of five times per season before being exposed to waivers. If a player has already been optioned five times in a season when they get called back up they have to either remain on the team the rest of the season or, be exposed to waivers if the team wants to option them again.

On waivers, any other team could claim that player and the Brewers would get nothing in return.

Over the past few years, the Brewers have utilized what has essentially amounted to a shuttle between Milwaukee and Triple-A involving several members of their bullpen. They rotated through arms making sure they had someone fresh for that bullpen to keep it fully stocked. Now, if they continue that with some of those low leverage bullpen arms like Angel Perdomo or Jandel Gustave, they could end up losing them.

David Stearns is going to have to build his bullpen and build his roster with this now in mind. His constant and unlimited shuttling of relievers is coming to an end.

New CBA Rule: The International Draft

First, let’s make an important distinction: This change isn’t official yet.

MLB pushed for the implementation of an International Draft as a way to clean up the heavy corruption and abuses that plague the current international free agent system. The players, while they want to clean up the major problems, did not want to rush into agreeing to an International Draft.

There’s a lot more that needs to be discussed and laid out and talked about regarding implementing this before they do it. Rather than continue to delay the regular season while they figured that out, the two sides agreed to push the decision off for a few months.

Tied to the Draft is the Qualifying Offer system. The league will drop the direct draft pick compensation for free agents, meaning teams that sign big time free agents will not lose draft picks anymore. Teams that lose their free agents will still be able to get draft pick compensation, though.

The deadline to agree to the Draft is July 25th. If they cannot find a path forward on it, the Qualifying Offer will return this next offseason and throughout the rest of the CBA. The deadline is placed a week ahead of the July Trade Deadline, which means teams that might trade players who are free agents at the end of the year will know whether they have the QO as a backup if they keep their player as a way to get compensation still.

Now, here’s how this impacts the Brewers.

Over the past few years, the Brewers have had some solid international free agent classes, with a very strong presence in Venezuela. Yet, they still routinely don’t land Top 10 rated prospects from the international market. They opt to spread their bonus money around and bet on a larger number of players rather than putting most of their eggs in one basket.

The draft order would have teams placed randomly into four or five groups and rotate through the top spots in the order. That means that once every four or five years, the Brewers would pretty much be guaranteed a Top 10 prospect from the international market.

The Brewers have had a lot of success on the international market recently, but now their access to that talent is going to change. This last international signing day, the Brewers signed 33 players. Under the draft, there are 20 rounds, and undrafted players can sign for a max of a $20k bonus.

They cannot lock down verbal agreements years in advance like they do now, and they will have to scout a larger number of players in order to prepare for this going forward, if it gets implemented.

New CBA Rule: Universal DH

At long last, the Designated Hitter is officially coming to baseball. After a one year experiment with the DH in both leagues in 2020, both the players and league decided they wanted to keep it and they did. It was one of the few things both sides agreed with during this whole process.

That ends the days of Brandon Woodruff hitting home runs off Clayton Kershaw. No more shall we see Adrian Houser hit a home run each time he sees the Marlins’ Daniel Castano.

But also, no more shall we see our pitchers struggle to lay down a sacrifice bunt.

No more shall we see our pitchers strike out on three pitches without even swinging a bat.

No more shall we see our pitchers get injured swinging a bat.

No more shall we see our pitchers get injured running the bases.

No more shall we see our pitchers get injured diving into a base.

No more shall we see our pitchers get thrown at by a Cubs reliever that got offended.

No more shall we see teams intentionally walk the eight-hole hitter to get to the pitcher.

No more shall one spot in the lineup be an automatic black hole.

Considering how important the starting rotation is to this Brewers team, and really all teams, implementing the DH is a good move to make, and a necessary one.

This also will provide massive help to the Brewers offense. This allows the Brewers room in the lineup to make another free agent or trade acquisition without taking playing time from guys who also deserve spots. It provides a chance to boost this offense that really needs one.

The DH will allow Craig Counsell to give his hitters days off from the field but still keep them in the lineup. Christian Yelich can get off his legs but still get his ABs and that will allow Tyrone Taylor to get more time out there as well. The same goes for Lorenzo Cain.

This will give Craig Counsell a lot of flexibility with his lineup to get guys their playing time and their rest while also keeping them in the lineup. It will also allow him to keep his starting pitchers in the game longer because he won’t have to remove them for a pinch hitter.

New CBA Rule: Expanded postseason

The postseason has expanded yet again, going from 10 teams up to 12. This is leading to a whole new format.

With six teams from each league making the postseason, that means there are the three division winners and then three Wild Cards. The team with the top two records will receive what essentially amounts to a bye.

The division winner with the lowest record and the three wild cards will play a Best-Of-3 series in the Wild Card round. The winners of those series will move on to the LDS to face one of the top two seeds. There is no re-seeding to ensure the top seed will face the lowest remaining seed.

How this impacts the Brewers is simple: It makes it that much easier to make the postseason. The Brewers are the reigning NL Central champions and they won it pretty convincingly last year, but the Cardinals are still full of talent and the Cubs aren’t looking for another long teardown and rebuild. If the Brewers are unable to win the division, the third wild card spot will help give them more of an opportunity to reach October baseball.

If the Brewers are not one of the top two seeds and they have to play in the Wild Card round, they are well positioned for a three game series. Between Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, and Freddy Peralta, the Brewers will have the upper hand in the rotation against any team in baseball.

As we saw in October 2021, the best pitching in the world doesn’t matter if your offense can’t score, but the aforementioned Universal DH should also help the Brewers be better on that front as well.

There were rumors of a 14 team postseason plan, but thankfully that was not agreed to. That would muddy the postseason waters a lot, and even though it would give the Brewers an even better chance of making the postseason, that just makes it that much harder to achieve the ultimate goal of a World Series.

A best-of-3 Wild Card eliminates some of that tough luck you see in the win-or-go-home Wild Card we’ve had over the last decade. That 2019 Brewers squad might’ve been a World Series caliber club if not for the unfortunate luck late in that game against the Nationals.

There are other aspects of the new CBA that makes some changes, but not all of them impact the Brewers or how they operate. The league minimum salary has increased, plus there’s the addition of a bonus pool for pre-arbitration players who perform well.