How the Brewers can unlock recent trade addition Codi Heuer's true potential

The Milwaukee Brewers began the weekend with a bang, agreeing to a four-player trade with the Cleveland Guardians that involved a surprising amount of major-league talent swapping sides. In return for Blake Perkins and Craig Yoho, Matt Arnold was able to pry Bo Naylor and Codi Heuer out of Cleveland.

Really, we can break this down into two separate one-for-one swaps. The first is the headliner, with the Crew digging into their outfield surplus and shipping out Perkins in exchange for a controllable catcher in Naylor. There's a lot of fallout to address there, including what the future now holds for both Gary Sánchez and Jeferson Quero, but it's clear that the Brewers wanted to realign the depth chart behind William Contreras.

Then, there's the Yoho-for-Heuer part of the deal, which is a fun exchange of pitchers with outlier stuff and subpar command. And though it may prove difficult for the latter to outperform the former over the life of their respective contracts, it's not hard to see why Milwaukee wanted a crack at unlocking Heuer's potential.

Codi Heuer experiment will be a tough, command-focused test for Brewers' pitching lab

Astute fans will remember Heuer from his all-too-brief tenure with the Chicago Cubs, as he (alongside light-hitting top prospect Nick Madrigal) joined the rebuilding club in a crosstown trade involving Craig Kimbrel. The hard-throwing right-hander quickly emerged as a viable late-inning option for the North Siders, logging a 3.14 ERA down the stretch while recording two saves.

Unfortunately for them and him, injuries completely sapped the juice from his career. Tommy John surgery in 2022 and an elbow fracture the following year effectively kept him from pitching in three consecutive seasons, and he only made it back to the big leagues last year after a four-year hiatus between MLB appearances.

That's obviously a lot of baggage to deal with for the now-30-year-old, but there's a really intriguing pitcher buried beneath that history. For one thing, the 6'5" righty still generates elite extension off the mound, even one-upping Yoho in that regard. That helps his mid-90s fastball ride up on hitters more, which is a good place to start building a reliever's arsenal from.

His MLB sample over the past two years is too small (less than 15 combined innings) to draw any firm conclusions from, but he did show a lot of promise with the Guardians' Triple-A affiliate; he had whiff and chase rates above 32% (both above the 80th percentile), while also suppressing a lot of loud contact. Heuer's four-seam fastball was the only one of his four pitches not to grade out above average in Stuff+ models at the level.

And, truthfully, that's the focus of the picture. Even now, after injuries have done their best to diminish him, Heuer still has raw talent, as evidenced by his 97 Stuff+ grading in Cleveland. The problem is that his Location+ was at 84, which effectively neutralizes any advantage he can create with velocity or movement.

Those command issues show up in the obvious places (10.9% walk rate with the Guardians), but also in the fact that the heat map of his slider looks like a Jackson Pollock painting. So, while his changeup has barely been touched this year (.063 xBA), his primary breaking ball is getting hammered (.520 wOBA). That's not sustainable for a guy with a solid but unspectacular fastball.

It'll be on the Brewers to help him locate better, which is harder than it sounds after so many elbow injuries. If they can help him tighten the spread on his offerings, Heuer might be able to emerge as a bullpen weapon as soon as this year.

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