4 Brewers who are playing their way out of the team's 2024 plans

After no one seemed particularly interested in winning the National League Central for the entire first half of 2023, the Milwaukee Brewers have finally started to assert themselves as the class of the division. They are currently 11 games above .500 and hold a 3.5 game lead over the surging Cubs thanks to playing really well since the trade deadline.

However, that doesn't mean everything smells like roses for Milwaukee right now. The pitching and defense has been quite good especially now that Brandon Woodruff has returned, but this is still a roster with real flaws and players who have been underperforming. While the Brewers can probably make what they have work for the rest of the season, they have some serious roster questions they are going to have to sort out this coming offseason.

Here are 4 Brewers who are playing their way out of the team's 2024 plans

The goal here isn't to identify pending free agents that they Brewers aren't going to re-sign as that seems a bit too easy. Instead, this is going to be looking at guys who are still going to be under team control for 2024 and whose play has brought into question whether or not Milwaukee needs to trade them away or cut bait altogether. It is unlikely that the Brewers will slash all of these guys from their roster after this season as they just don't have the payroll flexibility to do that, but all of these guys should be at least candidates to move on.

Anyways, let's get into the players that are playing their way out of town for the Brewers.

Rowdy Tellez

Rowdy Tellez seems like a pretty easy guy to pick on here. In fairness to Rowdy, he has had some pretty crummy injury luck in 2023. He went on the injured list with a forearm injury and then right before he was supposed to return, Rowdy got his finger stuck in a wall shagging fly balls that resulted in a broken finger and a bunch of stitches in mid-July. It will still be a bit before he returns, but he has gotten the stitches taken out at least and hopefully he doesn't hurt himself again.

However, the fact remains that Tellez has been a colossal disappointment for Milwaukee this season even before the injuries. In 288 plate appearances in 2023, Tellez has slashed .213/.285/.388 with 12 homers. If Tellez had a consistent track record before this season, one down season could be written off. However, this is a guy that has consistently struggled with his hit tool in his career and that is problematic for a team with playoff aspirations. When Tellez is good, he is really good. However, he just isn't good enough of the time and now he seems like a non-tender candidate this offseason instead of Milwaukee's first base/designated hitter of the future.

Joey Wiemer

This is a really tough one just because of Joey Wiemer's value with his glove. In 927.2 innings in the outfield in 2023, Wiemer has been one of the game's better defensive outfielders with 9 Outs Above Average out there. That does have some real value and the team's overall defense has been a big reason why they have hung around at all this season. No one is arguing otherwise here.

The problem is that Wiemer just can't hit. With a .214/.293/.394 line with 13 homers this season, all of Wiemer's defensive value has essentially been cancelled out by that 84 wRC+ of his at the plate. Wiemer's value with his glove is unimpeachable, but Milwaukee needs offensive production and may be better served by moving Wiemer to a team who has the time to try and fix him offensively especially with Jackson Chourio moving up the minor league ranks in a hurry.