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Brewers swing weird trade with Rangers for struggling reliever with unique skillset

Eric Cole
Eric Cole

Reviewing The Brew

New York Yankees v Texas Rangers / Gunnar Word/Texas Rangers/GettyImages

The Milwaukee Brewers have a number of areas that fans would love them to address. The infield is honestly in a decent spot despite the departure of Willy Adames thanks to the versatility that Joey Ortiz and Brice Turang bring, but adding some more offensive upside to the roster overall in addition to reinforcing the rotation and bullpen remain pretty significant priorities.

However, the Brewers don't have a ton of money to throw around even with a new TV deal locked in, so roster improvements have felt more likely to come from the trade market for a while now. That proved to be accurate on Thursday evening as they traded for sidearm reliever Grant Anderson in a deal with the Rangers.

Brewers News: Milwaukee just made an odd trade for Rangers' reliever Grant Anderson

Okay, this isn't going to be a move that is likely to move the needle in 2025 much and it honestly is a weird deal. Anderson has made a total of 49 appearances in the big leagues with Texas and has a combined 6.35 ERA to show for it. He misses bats at a decent rate, but his numbers don't exactly scream 'difference maker' out of the bullpen and Anderson's struggles led to his DFA by Texas earlier this week.

However, Anderson's minors, especially the strikeouts, have been significantly better and despite his big league struggles, he showed real promise when it came to inducing soft contact in 2023. Anderson probably doesn't need to be trusted in high leverage situations, but there is at least something to work with here as a middle relief option with some upside given his funky sidearm delivery providing deception.

It doesn't hurt that the price was right here. The Brewers only had to give up 2024 seventh round pick Mason Molina in exchange for Anderson. Molina did not rank among Milwaukee's top 30 prospects and only had five pro innings under his belt after getting drafted out of Arkansas.

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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.