Brewers: 3 Remaining Free Agents Who Could Still Address the Crew's Bullpen

Here are three remaining free agents who could still address the Brewers' bullpen.

2. RHP Michael Fulmer

The Brewers don't necessarily need to go with a left-hander should they add another reliever to the pen. With that in mind, their next best option would also be a bit younger of one in 29-year-old right-hander Michael Fulmer.

Fulmer is also a former Tiger, which is the team he'd spent his entire career with before being dealt to the Minnesota Twins at last year's trade deadline. Unlike Chafin, bullpen work is a bit of a new thing for the righty.

Fulmer was purely a starter for the first few seasons of his career, winning AL Rookie of the Year in 2016 and becoming a first-time All-Star in 2017. Sadly, Tommy John surgery knocked out his 2019 season and after returning to start 10 games in the shortened 2020 season and compiling an 8.78 ERA over that span, it was pretty much all bullpen work going forward.

The results have been positive since the switch. Fulmer has a 3.17 ERA over the last wo seasons with 115 of his 119 appearances coming out on in relief. He has also seen his strikeout rate rise from a career 6.9 K/9 as a starter to 9.5 as a reliever.

One of the keys to his success last season was limiting hard contact. His allowed hard hit rate of 36.8% put him in the 61st percentile among MLB pitchers while his allowed barrel rate of just 4.4 % had him in the 91st percentile.

Here are three remaining free agents who could still address the Brewers' bullpen.

3. LHP Matt Moore

Just having made the second one-year stint with the Texas Rangers of his career, Matt Moore gives the Brewers another lefty reliever to consider. And he is a pitcher who is even newer to working out of the bullpen than Fulmer.

After debuting in the 2011 season with the Tampa Bay Rays, Moore had been a starter his entire career until 2021 rolled around. Some of those seasons were successes (such as 2013 when he was an All-Star and finished 9th in AL Cy Young voting) while others were much less so.

2017 on saw some of his worst years as a starter with ERA's of at least 5.50 in that season as well as 2018 and 2021 (he missed most of 2019 with a knee injury and pitched in Japan in 2020). Moore flipped back and forth between the rotation and bullpen in '21 with the Phillies and last season, the Rangers made him a full-time reliever for the first time in his career.

Apparently that was just what Moore needed because 2022 was one of the best seasons of his career. In 63 appearances, the southpaw put up a 1.95 ERA, held batters to a .187 average, and had a 10.1 K/9 that was the best since his three-game rookie season.

He did this by dialing down his four seamer usage a bit while significantly increasing his curveball usage. After never having thrown his curve more than 23.1% of the time prior to last season, he used it 38.2% of the time in 2022.

Spring training is coming but that doesn't mean there isn't still time to sign players for the 2023 season. Maybe the Brewers can get one new face to add to the mix when pitchers and catcher report next week.