Brewers promote Craig Yoho to major league roster

Milwaukee Brewers fans, your calls have been answered! After missing out on a late-season promotion in 2024 and being passed up for veteran relievers on the 2025 Opening Day roster, Craig Yoho, the Brewers No. 18 prospect, has finally been promoted to the major leagues. The news comes just hours before the Brewers are set to open their four-game series at Oracle Park against the San Francisco Giants.

Although the Brewers' rotation has been stellar in the month of April, rising above the ridiculous amount of injuries that they have endured, the bullpen has been less stable. Concerning losses to the Arizona Diamondbacks that saw the team falter in the later innings due to uninspiring performances from the back end of their bullpen, prompted fans to strengthen their campaign for Yoho's promotion. Now, with the team set to embark on a three-city road trip, the Brewers have decided to add the noteworthy prospect to their bullpen in hopes of finding the late-inning stability that Milwaukee has enjoyed for the last few seasons.

Brewers insider reveals Craig Yoho promotion

As noted by Curt Hogg, the Brewers beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Yoho's claim to fame is his filthy changeup, that might remind Brewers fans of their former closer. This changeup, which plays nicely off of his low-90s fastball, led Yoho to strike out an insane 42.4% of the batters he faced last season. His continued success propelled him from High-A, where he started the season, all the way up to Triple-A, with many fans advocating for him to get the call to the majors before the end of the 2024 season, that ultimately never came.

While his walk rate does pose a slight concern, having the ability to strike batters out in any situation neutralizes the threat of runners on base. Furthermore, when opposing batters do make contact, which is rare, it is generally of the ground-ball variety, as evidenced by Yoho's 54.5% ground-ball rate in 2024.

Today's promotion caps off an impressive rise to the majors for Yoho, who was drafted less than two years ago. It remains to be seen what Yoho's role will be in the Brewers' bullpen, but he certainly has the ability to evolve into a late-innings, high-leverage reliever by season’s end, even if that isn't the role he is given to start his major-league tenure. Regardless, Brewers fans have an exciting new pitcher to root for and a new pitch to embrace, the same way that they did with Devin Williams' Airbender.

In the corresponding roster move, the Brewers have moved Nestor Cortés to the 60-day IL in order to free up a spot on the 40-man roster, and have optioned Logan Henderson back to the minor leagues to free up a spot on the active 26-man roster.

The Cortes news comes after early reports suggested his elbow injury, the same flexor strain injury he suffered a year ago, was not too severe. The fact that the injury is familiar and warranted a spot on the 60-day IL is very concerning for the Brewers, whose pitching depth has continuously been tested early in the season.

For Henderson, the demotion must be tough to swallow, after pitching a stellar game in his MLB debut on Sunday. Henderson's demotion is in part due to the reports that Tobias Myers will be ready to re-join the team for Thursday's finale with the Giants. With Myers back, Henderson didn't have a spot in the rotation when his spot would come up again. Instead, he'll wait in Nashville until the Brewers inevitably require his services once more.