D-Backs sign away potential Brewers' free agent target to kick off Winter Meetings

One of the major questions facing the Milwaukee Brewers as their top executives navigate the Winter Meetings down in Orlando is how just how much money the team has to spend this winter without moving on from any of their rumored trade candidates. Conflicting reports will have Brewers fans either believing that their team is already above their hopeful 2026 Opening Day payroll number or that there's nothing to worry about and no payroll-shedding moves are needed. Reality is likely somewhere in between; Milwaukee probably doesn't have much room for more additions this winter, but could head into the 2026 season with their current payroll as Matt Arnold told MLB.com's Adam McCalvy last week.

As a result, when it comes to free agents who the Brewers could realistically add to their roster this offseason, Milwaukee likely won't be offering four-year deals to Kyle Schwarber, like their division rivals, the Pittsburgh Pirates, reportedly did over the weekend. Rather, the Brewers are searching for players willing to accept inexpensive, one-year deals that don't impact Milwaukee's strategy of building a consistently competitive team year in and year out.

Oftentimes, players willing to accept such contracts are either coming off of an injury and needing a place to re-establish their value as a big leaguer, or they are players whose markets have dried up throughout the offseason. The latter was the case when Milwaukee landed Mike Moustakas and Yasmani Grandal during the 2018-19 offseason -- the last offseason that followed a Brewers' NLCS appearance.

It's not a huge group of players at this moment in the offseason, because many players don't yet know how their markets will unfold. However, on Monday morning, kicking off the Winter Meetings, was a signing by the Arizona Diamondbacks that took a possible Brewers free agent target off the board.

D-Backs sign Mike Soroka to one-year, $7.5 million deal, taking a potential Brewers target off the board

Even with the Brewers already projected to have one of their most expensive Opening Day rosters in franchise history -- a record that should theoretically be broken every year for a competitive team -- the organization could likely stomach a one-year, $7.5 million deal if it was for a player that the entire front office believed in. Such a contract wouldn't impact the organization’s ability to field a competitive team beyond 2026, and would make good use of the added revenue that the organization earned from the team's postseason run.

Soroka may or may not be the player that the front office was willing to stick their necks out for, depending on how high their internal models are on the former first-round pick. With a strong arsenal of pitches, a great deal of still-untapped potential, and a need for a fully healthy season with a strong pitching department, there is certainly an argument that Soroka would have been a good fit for the Brewers. That said, Soroka's stat lines over the past three seasons do not tell a story of a player who Milwaukee would "break the bank" for. Despite a fine showing with the Chicago Cubs at the end of last season, Soroka has yet to post a season ERA south of 4.50 since losing the 2021 and 2022 seasons to injury.

The Brewers no longer have to decide whether Soroka would be a needle-moving addition to their 2026 pitching staff or simply a redundant multi-inning arm, as the D-Backs reportedly agreed to a deal with the 28-year-old right-hander on Monday morning, as initially reported by Jesse Rogers of ESPN.

Not only is a potential Brewers free agent target off the board, but the Cubs also lose another arm who they will have to replace this offseason. Soroka by no means had a major impact on Chicago this past season, joining them at the trade deadline and sustaining an injury that caused him to miss most of August, but there was speculation that Chicago would elect to bring him back this offseason. Now, Chicago is met with yet another departure from their 2025 pitching staff.