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Brewers' roster purge continues as multiple player departures revealed

Eric Cole
Eric Cole

Reviewing The Brew

Arizona Diamondbacks v Milwaukee Brewers / Patrick McDermott/GettyImages

It was already known that the Milwaukee Brewers were going to see a good bit of roster turnover this offseason. Willy Adames is as good as gone, the Brewers just made Devin Williams more attractive as a trade target after declining his option, and they had already made the expected move earlier to decline Wade Miley's option. The only real question is how far they would go.

There was already a hint that Milwaukee could go for a wider roster purge when they made the decision to put Colin Rea on waivers. Declining Gary Sanchez's option is one thing when you have William Contreras around, but putting the guy who pitched the second-most innings in 2024 on the block basically for free is pretty telling.

There is still time before the 5 PM EST/4 PM CST deadline to exercise options and when free agency opens up for real, but the roster movement continued on Monday as Rea cleared waivers and will have his 2025 option declined and the Brewers also had reliever Kevin Herget claimed off waivers by the Mets.

Brewers clearly clearing 2025 payroll with first round of offseason roster moves

For the most optimistic Brewers fans, perhaps this looks like Milwaukee is trying to clear some payroll to make an offseason splash. Other than Rhys Hoskins exercising his player option, basically every other Brewers move so far has been geared towards getting money off their books or signaling that they want to. Coming off a 2024 season where revenues were described as "as good at they’ve ever been”, some fans may be getting their hopes up just a little bit.

However, the Brewers' payroll picture is more complicated than that. Yes, revenues were in a really good spot last season, but Milwaukee are also poised to see TV revenue go down next season after Diamond Sports dropped them from their portfolio during their ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. Again, there is a reason why Adames and Williams are likely to be playing elsewhere next season and it all comes down to money.

The last decision left in terms of options was Frankie Montas whose $20 million option would almost certainly get declined by the Brewers, but Montas decided to make that decision for them. How the Brewers proceed from here is the real question, although their plans may not make fans happy if history is any indication.

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Eric Cole

Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.