Underrated piece of Lance McCullers trade could become best part of Brewers' return

In need of pitching depth at the halfway point of the 2026 campaign, Matt Arnold and the Milwaukee Brewers' front office swung a surprising All-Star Break trade with the Houston Astros. The Brew Crew acquired former All-Star starting pitcher Lance McCullers, left-handed swingman Colton Gordon, and cash to cover a large chunk of the former's remaining salary. In exchange, the Brewers sent 21-year-old outfield prospect Jadyn Fielder, son of franchise legend Prince Fielder, to the AL West club.

The headliner of the trade is certainly McCullers, who was not only an All-Star and postseason hero for the Astros in 2017, but also finished 7th in Cy Young voting after posting a 3.16 ERA in 28 starts during the 2021 campaign. The 32-year-old McCullers also has 72.2 innings of playoff experience across six different seasons, including a four-inning save in Game 7 of the 2017 NLCS and a seven-out start in Game 7 of the World Series in the same year that earned him "postseason hero" status among Astros fans.

McCullers' injury history and his recent dip in effectiveness after missing the entirety of the 2023 and 2024 seasons means he is by no means the game-changing rotation addition Brewers fans were hoping for ahead of the trade deadline, but Milwaukee certainly has the ability to turn the right-hander into a serviceable rotation option as they mull over their starting options for the final stretch of the 2026 campaign.

However, while McCullers, who is in the final year of a five-year, $85 million contract, certainly has the more name recognition of the two arms joining the Brewers from the Astros after the All-Star Break, it's the 27-year-old Gordon who will likely end up adding more surplus value to Milwaukee's roster over the course of his career. Whereas McCullers will be a free agent at the end of the 2026 season, Gordon is under team control for the next five or six seasons (depending on how much service time he accrues over during the rest of the season), giving him an opportunity to impact the big-league roster for years to come.

Colton Gordon is the real prize of the Brewers and Astros' midseason swap

A quick look at Gordon's ERA to this point in his brief major league career suggests that the left-hander was simply a throw-in for the Brewers in their surprise All-Star Break swap. Gordon, who made his debut with 86 innings during the 2025 season and has added 9.1 more frames to his ledger this season, sports a career ERA of 5.95, which isn't heavily influenced by his inflated 11.57 mark this year. Throughout his two-year big-league career, Gordon has struggled with limiting home runs from opposing hitters, as he's allowed 27 longballs in his 95.1 total innings at the major league level.

However, despite Gordon's unimpressive surface-level numbers, there's reason to believe the controllable left-hander could offer plenty of value to Milwaukee's pitching staff over the next half decade. For one, Gordon actually grades out above league-average when it comes to Pitching+, a metric that combines Stuff+ and Location+ to give an overall grade of a pitcher's true value independent of his surface-level numbers. Gordon's career grade is 101, just slightly above the league-average grade of 100, but finding a controllable, 27-year-old southpaw, who can start games and possesses an above-average Pitching+ grade is no easy task, and the Brewers did so by simply taking on $2.5 million of McCullers' salary and giving up a lottery ticket prospect in Fielder.

Additionally, Gordon possesses an intriguing pitch mix that should have Brewers fans confident in his ability to stick as a starter. He can throw both a four-seam and a sinker, the latter of which Milwaukee may try to get more late action on by altering Gordon's grip. He also rarely throws a mid-80s slider that the Brewers may turn into a cutter in order to bridge the gap between his fastballs and his low-80s sweeper. If Milwaukee can find a way to generate more horizontal movement on Gordon's sweeper, the southpaw will have all of the pitch shapes needed to be a really effective starter at the big-league level.

Perhaps the most encouraging part about acquiring Gordon is the fact that he has so much team control remaining. Milwaukee will have an opportunity to work with the young left-hander for several years to come, and with a really strong foundation already laid, it's not difficult to imagine Gordon becoming a very valuable part of the Brewers' pitching staff. Though McCullers may have more short-term value, don't overlook the inclusion of Colton Gordon in this trade, as it's likely he ends up being the more impactful piece.

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