Brewers: 5 Players the Team Could Non-Tender at the Deadline

The Milwaukee Brewers have another opportunity to shape their roster for the 2023 season this Friday. That is the deadline for MLB teams to tender contracts to players not currently signed to one for 2023.

The Brewers have a whopping 18 arbitration eligible players on the 40-man roster. They also have over a dozen more on the roster who are in the pre-arbitration stage of their careers. All of them will require decisions from Milwaukee as to whether they will tender a contract or not.

A majority of those players are a lock to be tendered but not all of them. Some could find themselves as free agents after Friday if the Brewers decide that the cost to retain doesn't outweigh the need to open up roster spots to improve the roster elsewhere. So who could fall into that category?

Here are four players the Brewers could non-tender at Friday's deadline.

1. C Victor Caratini

As it stands, Victor Caratini is now the most experienced catcher on the Brewers' roster. The honor used to go to three-year starter Omar Narvaez, but he became a free agent when the offseason began. Still, that doesn't necassarily mean Caratini's spot is safe.

In his first year as a Brewer, Caratini started off well enough offensively. But he struggled hard in the second half and finished with just a .199/.300/.342 slash line over 95 games. Since a solid season with the Cubs in 2019, he has seen a general decline in his offensive numbers over the following years.

Caratini has one year of control remaining and is projected to make $2.8MM next season, which is a lot for a subpar offensive catcher. Milwaukee could decide to non-tender him and instead go with an external option, such as one of the catchers the Blue Jays reportedly have on the block or a free agent that makes sense like Christian Vazquez.