Are The Brewers Done Adding To The Offense Before The 2024 Season?

The Brewers needed to make some changes to their offense from 2023 as they come into 2024, and they knew that. Last year's offense was lacking in power and struggled mightily at times outside of Christian Yelich and William Contreras.

Several names from last year's lineup are gone. Rowdy Tellez, Mark Canha, Carlos Santana, Tyrone Taylor, Victor Caratini, and Jesse Winker will be playing elsewhere in 2024. New names will be taking their place, including Eric Haase, Jake Bauers, Oliver Dunn, Tyler Black, Jackson Chourio, and Rhys Hoskins.

Chourio and Black are the Crew's top hitting prospects. Chourio signed an eight year, $82MM contract extension during the offseason and while Black isn't yet on the 40 man roster, GM Matt Arnold named him as a candidate for the starting third base job. Hoskins is of course the big free agent addition to the lineup.

The question to ask now as we're just about two weeks away from the start of spring training is if the Brewers are done adding to their offense.

They've signed the top free agent first baseman that was available, which is great. There's also a question mark at third base and no obvious everyday DH candidate. The Brewers could sign someone to fill those spots if they so choose, but should fans be expecting that?

Last year, the Brewers began a youth movement. The Freshmen series documented the Crew's top prospects and their journey to the big leagues. Garrett Mitchell, Sal Frelick, Joey Wiemer, and Brice Turang all were included and all four graduated from prospect status as they earned regular playing time at the big league level. The Brewers traded away veterans Kolten Wong and Hunter Renfroe to clear room for those rookies to get playing time.

Now, entering 2024, Tyler Black is the Crew's top corner infield prospect and it looks like the Brewers are content to leave that spot open for him to take. Right now it's slated to be an open competition between Black and the incumbent Andruw Monasterio. Monasterio lacks the upside that Black has, but has shown he can be a capable hitter at the big league level.

As for the DH spot, the Brewers could go with a rotation of hitters. They have a glut in the outfield still. Now with Chourio in the picture, there's still Yelich, Mitchell, Frelick, and Wiemer all deserving of regular at-bats, which is five players for just three spots. The DH spot can be used to rotate each of them through to keep strong defensive alignments and get everyone ABs. Plus William Contreras will get DH at-bats to rest his legs but keep his bat in the lineup.

While they don't have concrete answers yet at third base or DH, they have solutions on the roster and don't necessarily need to bring in an external addition. Any external addition would block ABs from the young hitters that the Brewers believe are their future. Given that, it would seem unlikely the Brewers would continue to add to their offense before the 2024 season.