Brewers’ southpaw is quietly enjoying a necessary breakout season in 2026

In recent years, the Milwaukee Brewers have grown a reputation for trading away their All-Stars just before their final year of team control. It's a strategy born out of necessity for the small-market club, who can't afford to stock their roster with free agents, and therefore must use the trade market to their advantage.

The strategy stunningly began at the 2022 trade deadline, while the Brewers were in the midst of a division race. Milwaukee controversially traded away All-Star closer Josh Hader, collapsed during the final two months of the season, and ultimately missed out on the postseason altogether. Following that trade, the Brewers' front office, which saw a change in leadership during the subsequent offseason, elected to modify this strategy, choosing only to deal away their soon-to-be-departing stars during the offseason.

The first such offseason blockbuster took place on February 1, 2024, when the Matt Arnold and the Brewers' front office elected to deal 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes to the Baltimore Orioles prior to his final year of team control before reaching free agency. That trade netted the Brewers two controllable players and the 33rd overall pick in the 2024 MLB Draft. The pair of MLB-ready players were infielder Joey Ortiz and left-handed pitcher DL Hall, while the draft pick was used to select slugging first baseman Blake Burke, who is now knocking on the door of the big leagues.

Ortiz's tenure in Milwaukee has been highly publicized. An encouraging rookie campaign in 2024, during which Ortiz won NL Rookie of the Month in May and went on to post 2.8 bWAR, was followed by a brutal 2025 season. After that slump continued through the first three months of the 2026 campaign, Ortiz has since turned things around, recently resembling the player he was back in 2024.

The less talked-about aspect of the Burnes' trade return is Hall, whose three-year tenure in Milwaukee has been mired by injuries. In part due to those injuries, as well as some significant changes to his arsenal, Hall has since been converted into a relief pitcher. That change yielded better results for Hall during the 2025 season, but his numbers this year have been on another level, and it couldn't have come at a better time for the 27-year-old southpaw.

With salary arbitration eligibility looming, DL Hall is enjoying a timely breakout season

Hall pitched mostly in relief during his brief stints with the Orioles in 2023 and 2024, but the Brewers believed he could flip back to a starting pitcher -- a role he covered throughout his minor league career. As a result, Hall was a member of the Opening Day starting rotation in 2024, but turned in a shaky four starts through the first month of the season before going down with a knee injury in late April. That knee injury kept him out until mid-August, and when he returned, the Brewers had a bigger need for him in their bullpen rather than the starting rotation.

Hall showed some promise in the Brewers' bullpen down the stretch in 2024 and ultimately made Milwaukee's postseason roster as a reliever, but didn't appear in any of their three playoff games against the New York Mets. The Brewers planned on stretching Hall out into a starting pitcher again in 2025, but a Spring Training lat strain changed those plans and kept him out until late May. Hall posted a solid 3.49 ERA between that late start and an oblique injury he suffered in mid-August, but the jury was still out on Milwaukee's left-hander.

Therefore, the 2026 season became an important one for Hall, who will hit his first year of arbitration this upcoming offseason. Hall has responded with something of a breakout season, despite doing so in an odd way.

Hall's surface-level numbers are excellent this year. He boasts a 2.38 ERA in 32 appearances and has more strikeouts (43) than innings pitched (41.2). However, it's his underlying metrics where oddities arise. Hall is finding success despite maintaining a 17.0% walk rate that ranks in the 1st percentile of qualified relievers and a 25.8% chase rate that ranks in the 17th percentile. He's missing barrels and inducing soft contact at an elite rate, while maintaining above-average whiff and strikeout rates, but it's nevertheless shocking to see a pitcher who issues so many free passes have so much success in the big leagues.

Regardless of the process, the results speak for themselves, and they've alleviated any doubts that may or may not have existed about the Brewers tendering Hall a contract this upcoming offseason. For Hall, the emphasis this offseason will certainly be on limiting his walks, so long as that isn't accompanied by an increase in his hard-hit rate, and if the results continue to look as they have this year, the Burnes blockbuster from two years ago may need some re-evaluating.

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