Brewers' pitching woes evidence that off-season penny pinching was a mistake

The Milwaukee Brewers, who used 17 different starting pitchers a season ago, are currently trying to navigate being without six pitchers who are all capable of starting games for them.

Aaron Civale, Aaron Ashby, DL Hall, Tobias Myers, Jose Quintana, and Brandon Woodruff are all the unavailable players, which has led to guys like Elvin Rodriguez, Tyler Alexander, and rookie Chad Patrick being thrust into the starting rotation. Rule-5 pick Connor Thomas has also been stretched out to cover multiple innings.

While there have been some good performances by this makeshift starting rotation, such as Patrick tossing 4.2 scoreless innings during his home debut against the Royals and Alexander contributing 5.2 no-hit innings against the Reds, the team has also gotten burned by Rodriguez and Thomas struggling.

Both Rodriguez and Thomas have appeared in two games so far, with 23 of the teams league leading 57 earned runs coming against the two. Most recently, this duo gave up 11 earned runs to the Reds, who entered the contest in a massive slump at the plate.

For Milwaukee, an organization that prides itself on turning pitchers careers around, they have also seen newcomer Nestor Cortes get blown up by his former team and off-season signee Grant Anderson surrender three earned runs in his lone appearance of the season.

With all of these terrible outings, some questions have been raised towards the teams off-season approach towards pitching.

Brewers' pitching issues are a problem of their own making

This winter, Milwaukee let Frankie Montas, Wade Miley, Joe Ross, and Colin Rea go while trading away closer Devin Williams. They countered these losses by acquiring Cortes in the Williams trade, signing unfamiliar names like Rodriguez, Anderson, and Grant Wolfram, plus selecting Thomas in the Rule-5 Draft.

These transactions did end up saving the organization millions. Montas had a $20 million mutual option for 2025, Miley $12 million, and Rea a $5.5 million option. Ross went on to sign a $4 million deal with the Phillies and around $2 million in cash was thrown into the Williams-Cortes deal. Altogether, the additions of Rodriguez, Anderson, Wolfram, and Thomas cost Milwaukee at best a few million.

Unfortunately, it’s becoming clear that the Brewers' penny-pinching moves are costing them wins. It's rare for an organization like Milwaukee to find themselves leading the league in earned runs, even if it's only nine games into the season. While the pitching staff has the potential to turn things around, and internal help is available with Jacob Misiorowski and Craig Yoho waiting for calls to the big leagues, every game counts, and so far, the Brewers are paying the price in the form of losses.

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