Brewers 2022 Trade Deadline: Instant Grades Of The Crew’s Deadline Deals

The 2022 MLB Trade Deadline has come and gone. The Milwaukee Brewers made three trades, all of which involved relievers.

It was a disappointing trade deadline to put it mildly. The Brewers entered this deadline needing help on offense and some more bullpen arms, and potentially get some more starting pitching depth.

They certainly addressed the bullpen and to an extent the rotation, but the offense was left pretty much alone.

The Milwaukee Brewers 2022 Trade Deadline grades of each trade they completed.

Brewers Trade LHP Josh Hader to Padres for LHP Taylor Rogers, RHP Dinelson Lamet, OF Esteury Ruiz, LHP Robert Gasser

Grade: B-

In our initial grade of this trade was an A-, and long-term maybe it is. They acquired a rental reliever in Taylor Rogers to backfill Hader‘s spot in the rotation, a talented arm with another year of control in Dinelson Lamet who can help in the bullpen or the rotation, plus two very highly rated prospects.

Esteury Ruiz should be able to help the big league roster quickly, although he’s been assigned to Triple-A so he’s not planned to be an immediate upgrade on the big league club. Robert Gasser is going to Double-A and is now the Crew’s best pitching prospect.

But how much better did the Brewers make their team for 2022? Rogers is an inferior reliever to Hader, although to be fair everyone is an inferior reliever to Hader. Lamet is a project to get back to his old self and unless they can snap him back into that 2020 form immediately, how much help will he provide this season?

Really the 2022 portion of this trade that makes or breaks this is Esteury Ruiz. He probably should be promoted immediately to take over in centerfield and upgrade that position. He’d be an upgrade over Tyrone Taylor and Jonathan Davis. If they don’t plan on him helping soon, this move was more about the future than helping out right now.

While it’s important to look out for the future and these guys can help long-term, how much does this trade improve the 2022 Brewers team? Arguably, it doesn’t. To make matters worse, they didn’t do much to improve the Brewers team after this and that is what contributes to downgrading this trade for Milwaukee.