Should The Milwaukee Brewers Consider Going To A 6 Man Starting Rotation In September?

September is an exciting time for baseball fans and this year the Milwaukee Brewers are chasing their third division championship in the last four seasons. Like all teams they will do so with the benefit of expanded rosters. This allows organizations to increase their active roster size from 26 players to 28, but with 14 pitchers being the maximum number allotted.

A few weeks ago here at Reviewing the Brew we previewed September call up candidates. Five out of the six players we looked at were pitchers in which one was DL Hall. Hall is coming off back-to-back impressive big league starts against the Cincinnati Reds in which his most recent outing consisted of seven scoreless innings.

Hall's last two performances have raised some eyebrows across Brewers nation. Manager Pat Murphy has also indicated that he has to be a part of their plans going forward. One way Milwaukee could do that is to implement a six man starting rotation.

Should the Brewers go to a six man starting rotation in September with DL Hall as the final member?

DL Hall struggled as a starter early on in the season, but was batting a chronic knee issue that got flared up and resulted in a lengthy IL stint. His velocity was in the low 90s at the start of the year, but during his last outing against the Reds on August 30 he averaged 94.3 MPH and peaked at 95.7 MPH. Hall has been seeing good results over the last month at both the Major and Minor League levels as a starter, so utilizing him in that role going forward is a serious consideration.

One benefit to using Hall as a sixth starting pitcher in September includes managing the innings of others. The unsung hero of the staff Colin Rea is approaching the most amount of innings he's thrown in a season. Rea maxed out at 148 innings pitched in Triple-A in 2019 and currently sits at 146.

Freddy Peralta set a career high in innings pitched last year when he covered 165.2 innings pitched over 30 starts. This year he is at 148.1 over 27 starts. Rookie Tobias Myers has thrown 127 total innings between the Major and Minor leagues this year and his career high is 140.2 that was established last year.

If Hall were to serve as the sixth starting pitcher it additionally would allow Joe Ross and Bryse Wilson to remain in bullpen roles. Ross has a 0.69 ERA since moving into a reliever role (13 innings pitched) and Wilson has performed better out of the bullpen each of the last two seasons.

One last thing to consider is if the Brewers keep DL Hall on the big league roster for all of September they can preserve his final minor league option. Options get burned after a player spends 20 days in the minors. Hall would fall just short of 20 days if he stays with the big league team throughout the final month.

It will be interesting to see what the Brewers elect to do in September. DL Hall as a sixth starting pitcher makes a lot of sense, but it may make recalling Elvis Peguero or Enoli Parades difficult as well as potentially calling up prospects like Jacob Misiorowski and Craig Yoho.