Grading the Brewers' last offseason through the first half of the 2023 season

With all of the changes in the Milwaukee Brewers' front office with David Stearns stepping down, there were a lot of people that thought that the Brewers were about to enter a rebuilding era. The team is getting older and has some key pieces set to hit free agency, plus trading away Josh Hader didn't exactly scream "we want to win now".

However, instead stripping down the roster, the Brewers mostly stayed the course with not spending a lot of money in free agency, keeping the roster largely intact, and making some additions via trade to mixed results.

At this point, we know the drill. Milwaukee is almost never going to be players for the big free agents because of the constraints of their market. The Christian Yelich deal was awesome and justified, but those sorts of deals are going to be rare exceptions. The Brewers continue to make things work for the most part with this strategy as they are still competing at the top of the division, but the question now is how have the moves they made last offseason panned out so far?

Here's our grades of the Brewers offseason moves through the first half of the season

If you are looking for a rigid set of standards for each grade, you won't find them here as this is completely subjective. Data-driven analysis of moves exists elsewhere and we highly recommend them as they are sweet, but this is going to be more subjective and feel in the moment. To get a D or an F here generally has to involve making the team actively worse, signing an awful contract, or making a really lopsided trade. Will it be perfect? Absolutely not. However, we will do our best to explain our thinking at the very least.

Anyways, lets look at the Brewers free agent signings, trades, and departures individually and then at the end, we will give the Brewers their overall grade.

Brewers Free Agent Signings

Wade Miley
Brian Anderson
Justin Wilson
Blake Perkins

Exercised $10 million club option for Kolten Wong

Predictably, the Brewers didn't do much on the free agent market. The Brewers are already gun-shy about spending money and with how crazy player contracts got last offseason, it isn't surprising whatsoever that Milwaukee largely steered clear of the market.

That said, this was still a really quiet offseason even by Milwaukee's standards as they only committed a little less than $10 million to new free agent signings with Wade Miley's $4.5 million for 2023 being the most they gave out to a player. The Brewers at least chose wisely there as Miley has been good for Milwaukee this season especially given how little they are paying for that production.

Exercising Kolten Wong's $10 million could have been a net-negative given how bad he has been this season, but Milwaukee ended up flipping him in a trade that we will discuss in a minute. Overall, a very quiet free agency which is kinda problematic if you are seemingly wanting to compete in 2023 and there were guys on the market that could have helped this roster out and not cost an arm and a leg.

Free Agency Grade - C+: We can't ignore the Brewers' relative inactivity on the market, but the Brewers do get credit for the Miley signing as that he has been an important part of the Brewers rotation. Certainly not a good showing in free agency, but it could have been worse.

Brewers Trades

Received William Contreras, Justin Yeager, and Joel Payamps in three team deal with Atlanta and Oakland

Traded Hunter Renfroe to the Angels

Traded Kolten Wong to the Mariners for Jesse Winker and Abraham Toro

Other minor trades including for Owen Miller, Javy Guerra, and Bryse Wilson

This is where Milwaukee shined the most last offseason as one move in particular was an absolute heist. The Braves were looking for a way to acquire Sean Murphy from Oakland last offseason and the Brewers managed to worm their way into being involved. Milwaukee did have to give up prospect Esteury Ruiz who is a terror on the basepaths, but then somehow got the second best player in the deal behind Murphy in William Contreras plus a pair of relievers. Ruiz is a fine player, but getting an All-Star talent in Contreras plus two legitimately useful relief arms for him is an absolute steal.

The Kolten Wong for Jesse Winker trade has ended up as a bit of a wash as both players have been bad this season. The return for Hunter Renfroe remains pretty underwhelming for the most part, although Elvis Peguero has turned out to be a very helpful piece of the Brewers' bullpen. Also, Renfroe was never a long-term solution for Milwaukee, anyways. The rest of the moves were pretty minor and haven't had enough time to really bake yet, but it was nice to see Milwaukee stay busy on the trade market.

Trades Grade - B+: Getting Contreras in that three team deal almost warrants giving Milwaukee an A here by itself. Unfortunately, Contreras isn't quite good enough to ignore the fact that Wong was basically wasted as a trade asset given Winker's struggles and the Brewers didn't make much of an impact on their big league roster beyond that. Still a very solid showing, though.

Brewers Offseason Overall Grade

You can probably guess that the Brewers aren't going to grade out particularly well, but we do need to mention that this team is still five games above .500 and tied for first place in the National League Central at the moment. While we can quibble over the details and process at times, Milwaukee has a track record of fielding competitive teams despite their self-imposed constraints. The results haven't been amazing or anything, but this is still a pretty good team right now.

One other thing that needs to be addressed, though, is how the Brewers handled Corbin Burnes' arbitration. That whole situation doesn't really fit neatly into the categories from earlier, but this was a big mistake by the Milwaukee front office. Arbitration is already a messy enough process, but to go as far as the Brewers did to win their hearing and alienate Burnes along the way was just poor form. Not only does that make any hope of an extension with Burnes basically non-existent now, but we also have to wonder if it has impacted his play on the field this year. That not only hurts Burnes' value to himself, but also diminishes his potential trade value down the line. It also could have a slight chilling effect on players wanting to play in Milwaukee in the future.

Overall Offseason Grade - C+: The Contreras deal was an amazing get as he looks like he is going to be a very solid players for a long time. The Brewers also didn't commit any great sins in terms of bad contracts or lopsided trades which keeps them from the lower grades.

However, they also didn't do enough to bolster their roster. The lack of impact moves either in free agency or in trades outside of the Contreras trade gives the feel that this is a team that is just treading water. Frankly, it is fortunate that the Brewers play in a division that has been this bad in 2023 because a playoff berth has largely remained possible because of that. At the end of the day, teams should improve their rosters when they are still in contention and the Brewers only barely cleared that bar if at all.

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