Brewers: 3 Candidates To Take The Final 40 Man Roster Spot

As we close in on the beginning of the 2022 regular season, the Milwaukee Brewers have one open spot on their 40 man roster. Who might take it?

Recently, the Brewers had two open 40 man roster spots, but they signed veteran Jose Ureña to a minor league deal and then selected him to the roster Wednesday morning. That brought the roster to 39 players.

Free agency has mostly run its course, and the Brewers have been whittling down the number of players in big league camp, so the options to take the final spot are coming into focus.

The Milwaukee Brewers have one open 40 man roster spot available, and here are the candidates to earn that final spot.

Brewers 40 man roster candidate: Luis Perdomo

Prior to the 2021 season, the Milwaukee Brewers signed Luis Perdomo to a two year, minor league deal. Perdomo had just undergone Tommy John surgery late in 2020 so the Brewers brought him into the organization to rehab and now he’s finally healthy and pitching on the mound again as a non-roster-invitee.

The 28 year old Perdomo has been in the big leagues since 2016, all with the Padres. He started off in the rotation but has transitioned to a bullpen role over the past few seasons. All told, he has 444.1 IP of big league experience.

Perdomo gets a lot of ground balls but hasn’t put up great numbers overall. He has a career 5.19 ERA and gets soft contact just 16.5% of the time.

Still, he’s looked good so far in spring training. In 5.1 IP in the Cactus League, Perdomo has allowed just two hits and one run with two strikeouts and a 1.69 ERA. His innings have been efficient and he’s been sharp.

The Brewers are likely going to carry eight relievers in the bullpen to start the season and Perdomo has a chance to crack that group.

Brewers 40 man roster candidate: Outside addition

What kind of weird name is Outside Addition, right? Rather than trying to guess which free agent the Brewers might sign to potentially fill out the 40 man roster, I’ll just stick with the generic “outside addition”. After all, Jose Ureña wasn’t on many people’s radars as a potential pickup for the Crew and yet here he is.

There’s still a couple of potential options on the Brewers could sign. Veteran southpaw Tony Watson is still on the market. Other options are Richard Rodriguez, old friends John Curtiss and Oliver Drake, among many more.

With the Ureña addition, the Brewers may be done with their free agent signings, but David Stearns never officially closes the door on making more moves. He’s always scouring the market for a deal and if one pops up that he likes, he could pull the trigger.

Brewers 40 man roster candidate: No one

Another weird name, right? And no, this “No one” is not Arya Stark from Game of Thrones (if you know, you know). But as much as there’s a chance the Brewers sign another outside player to a 40 man spot, they could also simply not add anyone before Opening Day.

The Brewers have solid depth on their roster already and several non-roster invitees coming into spring training have already been reassigned to minor league camp, officially ending their chances of making the big league club to start the season.

By keeping a 40 man roster spot open to start the season, that allows the Brewers some flexibility. If they need to select someone from the minor leagues, like Ethan Small, or Luke Barker, or Mark Mathias, or David Dahl, or Brice Turang, or anyone else from Triple-A not already on the 40 man and they can do so without having to DFA someone and potentially lose them.

Given these options, Luis Perdomo is a likely in-house candidate to take a spot when the season begins. If the Brewers decide not to put him on the roster right away, then option number three is likely the path they’ll go, keeping a spot open for whenever they decide to bring someone up to fill a need on the big league club.