What does 2026 have in store for this former Brewers top pitching prospect?

Should the Milwaukee Brewers' pitching staff remain as is through the rest of the offseason, the back-to-back-to-back NL Central champions will enter the 2026 season with one of the deepest starting rotations in all of baseball. Anchored by a veteran duo of Freddy Peralta and Brandon Woodruff that the Brewers have managed to keep together beyond their first six seasons of team control, Milwaukee's rotation will be filled out by some combination of their inexperienced, but highly talented young starters.

Following his 2025 breakout season, Quinn Priester is practically a shoo-in to be a member of the Opening Day starting rotation. The former first-round pick joined the Brewers in early April last year and immediately added some stability to the starting staff that Pat Murphy and the Milwaukee faithful are hoping he can replicate in 2026.

Beyond Peralta, Woodruff, and Priester is where things start to get interesting. Not only do the Brewers have options like Jacob Misiorowski, Chad Patrick, Logan Henderson, Tobias Myers, and Robert Gasser, all of whom made appearances in Milwaukee's starting rotation in 2025, but they also have arms like Aaron Ashby, DL Hall, and Ángel Zerpa who have starting experience and are likely to be stretched out into starting pitchers in spring training, regardless of whether or not they end up serving as starters in 2026.

Already with 11 starting options mentioned above, it may seem like the Brewers are more than set for the 2026 season, but if Milwaukee's recent seasons are any indication, the team will need to tap into even more depth at some point next year. Considering the fact that in recent seasons the Brewers have had names like Erick Fedde and Dallas Keuchel make starts for their big-league club, it's fair to assume that at some point in the 2026 season, a pitcher not already mentioned will be starting games for the Crew.

Fortunately, the Brewers' starting pitching depth extends even farther, with another arm on their 40-man roster who has experience starting games at the big-league level. Carlos Rodriguez, who twice won the Brewers' minor league pitcher of the year award, is entering what feels like a make-or-break season for the former top prospect. His campaign to regain the favor of the Brewers' coaching staff and their fans, after what was a disappointing and unfortunate 2025 season for Rodriguez, is off to a strong start with his play in the Dominican Winter League.

Carlos Rodriguez, entering a make or break 2026 season, is off to a strong start in the Dominican Winter League

In assessing whether or not Rodriguez could be a factor on Milwaukee's 2026 pitching staff, look not to his limited opportunities in MLB, but rather his long track record of success in the minor leagues, and especially the success that he found in 2025 after tweaking his arsenal of offerings. During the first two months of the 2025 campaign in Triple-A, the then-23-year-old Rodriguez leaned into his four-seam and changeup, which led to a sharp boost in his strikeout rate and a decline in his walk rate. In late May, with the Brewers needing a reinforcement for their big-league pitching staff, Rodriguez and his sub-2.00 Triple-A ERA were promoted to the big leagues.

It wasn't Rodriguez's first crack at the major leagues; that came the season prior when a three-start stint resulted in three losses and a 7.30 ERA. Hoping to redeem himself in 2025, with a great deal of momentum from his scorching hot start to the season with the Nashville Sounds, Rodriguez was assigned a rainy game in Pittsburgh. He entered the game in the fifth inning, sat through a rain delay, and then came back out for five more outs when the rains subsided. A heroic feat, the performance nearly led to a devastating elbow injury for Rodriguez, but he avoided surgery and rehabbed his way back to another shot at the big leagues later in the year.

After surrendering four earned runs in three innings in a late August, Rodriguez ended on a high note with two scoreless relief outings of four outs or more. Even still, Rodriguez, and his one minor league option year remaining, entered the 2025-26 offseason as one of the bigger question marks on the Brewers' 40-man, needing a strong 2026 campaign to re-establish his value.

Thankfully, he's off to a strong start in the 2025-26 Dominican Winter League. Playing for the Toros del Este, Rodriguez is making his first appearance in LIDOM, and his first four starts have gone very well; he's posted a 3.18 ERA in 17 innings while striking out 17 opposing batters. It's a small sample size, no doubt, and the competition in the Dominican Winter League is certainly not the same as in MLB, but it's encouraging nonetheless to see Rodriguez finding success prior to what is one of the more important seasons of his professional career.

It's highly unlikely Rodriguez finds himself on Milwaukee's 2026 Opening Day roster, and unlikely still that he's one of the team's first options when they find themselves in need of starting pitching depth, but the likelihood of Rodriguez impacting the big league roster at some point next season remains high. Hopefully, his early success in the Dominican Winter League carries into the spring exhibition season, and Rodriguez enters the 2026 campaign with some encouraging momentum.