Milwaukee Brewers: One Simple Way the Crew Can Improve Their Bullpen

The Brewers are off to a solid start this season but that doesn’t mean they don’t have places they can improve. After all, the Brewers had the best start in franchise history a year ago and didn’t even finish by making the playoffs.

There are always improvements that can be made to bring a team to another level and prevent them from going into a slump. Here is one major move I believe the Brewers need to make to keep their success up.

The Brewers should add another left-hander to their bullpen.

At the moment, the Brewers only have one left-handed pitcher in their bullpen. That pitcher is Hoby Milner. The southpaw has had an up and down career but is coming off a solid season where he had a 3.76 ERA in 67 appearances.

Milner is off to an okay start to 2023 with a 3.86 ERA in eight appearances. He is a decent option out of the bullpen but having just one left-handed option has already left Counsell with his hands tied many times this season. 

There have been rumors of the Brewers signing Zack Britton, a veteran left-handed pitcher that has had good success at the Major League level including two All-Star game appearances. However in 2021 things went downhill and the southpaw recorded just a 5.89 ERA and needed Tommy John surgery.

The following season wasn’t prettier as Britton only made three appearances after recovering from surgery for most of the season. This would be a decent signing as it would provide the Brewers with another left-handed option but unfortunately there is some competition for Britton so we will have to wait and see what happens with that. 

Outside of Britton, the Brewers do have other options. The Brewers signed Justin Wilson this offseason who is a solid veteran but is recovering from Tommy John surgery himself and likely won’t appear until the second half of this season. 

Other than Wilson, there is Alex Claudio who the team brought back on a minor league contract last offseason and has major league experience. Between 2019 and 2020, Claudio appeared in 103 games for the Brewers and was one of Craig Counsell’s go-to middle inning relievers. However, since the Brewers non-tendered the southpaw it hasn’t been as pretty. Since 2021 Claudio owns a 5.00 ERA and 4.97 FIP.

Claudio is not only left-handed but excels at getting left-handed batters out, however right-handers have proven troublesome. The biggest road block with bringing Claudio up is that he isn’t on the 40-man roster. This means the Brewers would have to designate someone for assignment in order to add him to the bullpen. 

The Brewers bullpen has been off to a solid start but having just one left-hander in the bullpen is pretty restricting and is something that needs to be addressed for the Brewers bullpen to continue consistently turning in quality innings.