The story of the Brewers’ remarkable winning streak that has carried them into the playoffs and now a League Championship Series matchup with the Dodgers has been the dominance and run-prevention of the bullpen. With a matchup looming against a much stronger team offensively than the Rockies (the Dodgers finished the season fifth in MLB in runs scored per game and first in True Average), not to mention a longer series and therefore more outs to “get,” it’s fair to ask how sustainable the heavy bullpen usage looks to be for the rest of the postseason.

Usage
Inning limits seem to be an inexact science at best, given what we know publicly.  There may be a slight effect in terms of injury prevention when drastic inning increases are managed by teams. But beyond injuries, suffice it to say that given the toll pitching takes on the human body (with the caveat that every pitcher is different), generally pitchers approaching substantial workload increases are more likely to fatigue. This makes sense on an intuitive level.

Among likely Brewers to make the NLCS roster as non-starting “out getters,” most of the pitchers seem to be in relatively good shape with regard to their innings in the previous season and well within their career highs, with a maximum of 14 games left in the season. Knebel, Burnes, and Woodruff in particular are encouraging in terms of how many innings they may have left over last year’s totals. Freddy Peralta has already pitched over 20 innings more than his 2017 season and might be managed more carefully, especially if the Brewers see him as a starter moving forward.

The real danger zone may be with Jeremy Jeffress, who, despite sitting out a few games to manage minor injuries toward the end of the season, is 11 innings above what he pitched last year. That may not or may not be a factor moving forward, but it is [checks math] a higher workload. As such, there could be fewer opportunities for Jeffress to cover multiple innings. Combined with his recent minor injuries that made him unavailable in Game 163, and his performance so far in October, it’s worth keeping an eye on the next area of the pitching staff to consider for the aggressive bullpenning Brewers.

Fatigue
This is where there is a small area of concern for Jeffress’ availability moving forward to the degree he has been used so far this season.

Source: BrooksBaseball.net

The one-mile per hour difference on Jeffress’ four-seam fastball might not be anything, and in fact comes with a major caveat of a sample size of just 15 times that he’s thrown it in October. But coupled with the recent minor injuries and increased workload, it certainly stands out among the other Brewer relievers, who are mostly throwing harder in October than they have in the season overall.

As a unit it seems like the Brewer bullpen isn’t suffering from any fatigue just yet in October. Somewhat unbelievably, Josh Hader is actually up two ticks on his fastball, and the young and promising duo of Burnes and “secret weapon” Woodruff are also up pretty significantly. Basically, if Craig Counsell is looking just at in-game performance or the metrics that might imply fatigue among his relievers, there’s seemingly little to raise a red flag.

Schedule
This is where the bullpen strategy gets a little tricky. During a 7-game series, how will the Brewers manage their run-prevention strength with also needing to cover more innings overall?

Playing a strictly “bullpen game” as the Brewers did in Game 1 of the Division Series is still workable but may be a bit more difficult to pull off when there are just simply more outs to cover. For example, if after Jhoulys Chacin and Wade Miley pitch Games One and Two, and Counsell decides to bullpen Game Three, he could find himself without Woodruff and Burnes for games Four and Five, leaving a shorthanded staff presumably with Gio Gonzalez and/or Zach Davies toeing the rubber to start Game Four. Perhaps a Game One bullpen game is in the cards again, as it would allow the Brewers to put their best pitcher, Johnny Wholestaff, up against Clayton Kershaw, and then have Chacin go for Game Two. That would allow the bullpen to get some extra rest for the travel off-day to Los Angeles before Game Three.

My head hurts.

At any rate, there are more decisions to consider in a longer series that has 3 games in a row, and it will also likely limit the number of relievers the Brewers are willing to burn for multiple innings at a time.

The bullpen overall looks to be in good shape given their usage so far in the season and at least by velocity, there doesn’t seem to be much drop off in production, either. The Brewers will, however, need some kind of help from their bats or a third starter especially in the middle 3 games of the series in Los Angeles if they want to maximize meaningful innings for their best run-preventing weapon.

New Runs Prevented Workbook || Runs Prevented Primer

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KBQ19VcMZ4g7oW1jkGiYwxCadqjw3rYXkqN200f4lHc/edit?usp=sharing

This is not even some “to-be-expected” regression, as even if one wishes to look at Deserved Runs Average (DRA) throughout the season as a “true” measure of the Brewers talent (which should be cautioned), the Brewers would have been expected to allow anywhere between 23 and 30 fewer second half runs than they actually have allowed.

This is unforeseen and catastrophic.

The blame can be spread around to everyone, from the post-forearm injury Junior Guerra (10 IP, 9 runs on July 24 & 29), injured reliever Matt Albers (1.7 IP, 10 R), former? closer Corey Knebel (9.3 IP, 8 R entering Sunday), and even rookie rotation depth Freddy Peralta (19 IP, 17 R since the break). Worse yet, there is a sense of adding insult to injury, as newly acquired Joakim Soria hit the disabled list promptly after surrendering a grand slam home run in a devastating loss to San Diego, and quietly effective Taylor Williams hit the disabled list with an elbow injury. While fans will feel less sympathy for Matt Albers, who had a couple of different bouts of ineffectiveness surrounded by separate disabled list stints, the veteran righty was crucial to early season success (25 IP, 4 R through the end of May) and each day his injury status and effectiveness is not answered is a day that manager Craig Counsell must carefully ration Jeremy Jeffress and Josh Hader with little back-up. The same goes for Williams, and now Soria; while Jacob Barnes was previously an impact reliever and boasts solid peripherals and a 2.99 Deserved Run Average (DRA), his runs prevention performance in 2018 has not been to the level of that injured trio, and now it’s Barnes, Corbin Burnes, and Jordan Lyles trying to nail down the quietly effective support roles.

It’s as simple as this: the Brewers’ bullpen has two truly fantastic options in Jeffress and Hader, and those options will be great regardless of their surrounding cast. For the purposes of contending, however, this duo is amplified when Stearns’s excellent depth picks (Albers, Williams, even Corbin Burnes), closer (Knebel), and additional acquisitions (Soria) are performing well. Jeffress and Hader cannot do it themselves.

Injuries have also trimmed the rotation, as Brent Suter’s torn elbow ligament and Zach Davies’s back ailments have limited the Brewers’ effective rotational depth. Using Baseball Reference Three Year Park factors, both Suter and Davies combined for 18 Runs Prevented over 273 innings in 2017, offering excellent middle and replacement rotation depth. That level of impact depth performance will not be matched by the duo in 2018. Additionally, even if one could have argued that the club might not have expected Jimmy Nelson to return from his shoulder injury in 2018, having that materialize as a likely injury-scenario reality in 2018 is quite another ballgame. Consider this as Freddy Peralta meets a likely innings limit, Chase Anderson continues an uneven season, and Brandon Woodruff finds himself without a rotational role: #TeamDepth is now basically #TeamNecessity in terms of rotation building.

There’s no need to state it any other way: as much as one would like to criticize the Brewers pitching staff, and GM David Stearns for his failure to build a staff, the club is now to the point where injuries are diminishing even his strongest moves. The Soria trade looms loudest here, as the Brewers grabbed a legitimate high leverage, veteran reliever at the trade deadline and did not get six innings from his right arm before he hit the DL with a groin injury; Albers and Williams could be fan whipping posts when they were ineffective, but the Albers free agency deal looked like a brilliant low-cost gamble early in the season while Williams seemed poised to catapult himself into the high leverage workload discussion (Williams worked a 17.3 IP, 5 R stretch, Holding three leads, from June until the All Star Break).

Citing injuries to the pitching staff is not an “excuse” for the poor performance.

It would have been enough to deal with this group of recent injuries and setbacks, but the Brewers also simultaneously were gifted with a set of role reversions on the pitching staff. Corey Knebel’s descent from excellent closer in 2017 cost the Brewers a chance at a truly elite relief corps; according to Baseball Reference Three Year Park Factors, Knebel prevented nearly 25 runs in 2017. Even a 50 percent regression from that performance level would fit nicely with Jeffress and Hader, who have both been consistent Top 25 pitchers in the 2018 MLB. Add in the aforementioned struggles of Peralta, Barnes, and a bit of stalled usage from the shuttled Houser (he’s only worked two MLB appearances from July onward), and Counsell’s strategic options are looking much more thin while they are also being exasperated by some ineffective starts.

Beyond these role question marks, it is worth questioning the timing of the inclusion of Jorge Lopez in the Mike Moustakas trade. Since Lopez has served the season as an up-and-down member of the Triple-A / MLB “shuttle team” relief squad, discussions of the quality of Lopez’s performance were largely nonexistent at the trade deadline (I’m also guilty of this charge). But, it is worth emphasizing that as a back-roster depth strategy, the “shuttle team” prevented runs at a solid clip, especially when one considers the nature of this replacement role and the likely quality of other replacement pitchers to be acquired in their place.

In fact, these shuttle relievers combined to produce near-average aggregate performance for the Brewers, which leads one to question why Stearns traded Lopez and simultaneously decided to keep Brandon Woodruff at the Triple-A level to serve as replacement starting pitching depth. With Lopez in the Royals system and Woodruff now serving as starting pitching depth, the revolving door relief strategy is effectively dead at what could be the worst time of the season. Given that Woodruff boats a 3.55 DRA at the MLB level to accompany a 52 percent ground ball rate, while also demonstrating an average DRA at Colorado Springs with a consistent ground ball rate there, it is worth questioning why Stearns has not simply replaced Peralta with Woodruff (on the one hand) or simply promoted Woodruff to a steady MLB relief role (on the other hand). According to Brooks Baseball, the relief role is agreeing with Woodruff, who is throwing a sizzling 95-to-96 MPH fastball with more armside run than his 2017 variation, complete with steady change up and slider usage (both with more whiffs than in 2017, too).

This is not a bottomless pit (yet). That the Brewers remain the 12th best pitching staff in the MLB, within one standard deviation of the 10th spot, and sixth best pitching staff in the National League, should demonstrate just how good the club has been for most of the year. Indeed, this pitching staff has fallen off, and it’s important to underscore that it’s not simply “regression,” but a bad combination of regression, injuries, and strategic missteps at the worst possible time. But there could be a quick way out of this issue for the club:

• Get Zach Davies healthy, without any further setbacks, and use him to replace Freddy Peralta in the rotation.

• Develop an MLB role for Brandon Woodruff; preferably this would be a rotational role to spell another ineffective starter down the stretch (or add a sixth man for September), but even a well-defined one-inning bullpen role could be extremely helpful at the moment.

• Re-evaluate depth roles for Ariel Hernandez, Jordan Lyles, Alec Asher, and Aaron Wilkerson, and make any necessary waiver trades to boost the pitching staff. E.g., is Jordan Lyles the right arm to work in the shadow of the successful Triple-A shuttle crew? Is now the best time to make a potential long-term development play for Ariel Hernandez?

• Reconsider Adrian Houser’s shuttle role in favor of a regular one-inning role.

With the assumption that some combination of Soria, Albers, and Williams can get healthy for the stretch run, and that some of the “role regression” pitchers can make adjustments at the MLB level once again, this is a pitching staff that can improve quickly and regain its flexible frontier of roles and runs prevention that were celebrated in April and May. With Zach Davies healthy, a waiver trade acquisition (or two), and potentially prominent roles for two righties that can rush it up there (Woodruff and Houser), this pitching staff can rebound. Now we wait and watch.

Even after the recent spate of bullpen blowups, Brewers relievers still have a 3.57 Deserved Run Average (DRA), which is 4^th in MLB. To that embarrassment of riches, the team has added Joakim Soria, who pitched a scoreless inning during Friday’s win. Thus far in 2018, Soria is on pace for a career best DRA (2.20), which would place him second on the team. He also ranks 16^th in MLB in DRA for all pitchers with a minimum of 38 innings pitched. His performance has been fueled by a career high swing rate (49.4 percent) while also allowing a career low contact rate on pitches in the strike zone (75.5 percent, which is also the 6^th lowest number in MLB). It’s also important to note that his swinging strike rate jumped over 30 percent in 2017 for the first time in his career and he’s kept those gains in 2018.

Soria has tinkered with his arsenal throughout his time in MLB. Last year, he threw his fastball less than 50 percent for the only season in his career, replacing those missing fastballs with a career high usage rate for his changeup. Based on the results last year versus his whole career, there wasn’t a performance reason for this new approach, and he’s reverted back to a pitch mix that closely mirrors his 2016 season while trading some curveballs for his slider (and it should be noted that our mother site noted last week that Soria has increased his slider usage in July at the expense of the curveball).

Soria’s game plan shifts based on the handedness of the batter.  When facing lefthanders, he’s a fastball/changeup pitcher. Early in the count, batters can expect a fastball, then start to worry about the changeup when Soria gets ahead in the count or has two strikes. Lefthanders are swinging and missing on 17 percent of the changeups they face from Soria.

Against right handed hitters, Soria is willing to use more of his repertoire. His fastball rate drips to 53 percent, with its highest rates coming on the first pitch of the at bat and when the count is even. While the changeup remains a go to pitch with two strikes, he’s been much more willing to mix in his curveball and slider. Taking a peek at his July numbers, which admittedly only encompasses 10 games and 9.7 innings out of 41 total appearances and 39.7 innings for the season, his confidence in the slider is even more apparent. It’s his two-strike pitch and it’s usage is almost on par with his fastball when he’s ahead in the count. Batters have whiffed on the slider 23.8 percent for the whole season and that’s jumped to 28.1 percent in July.

Soria has had success this season with both of his approaches, though his strikeout rate exploded since he started relying more on his slider. Because he’s had success against batters from both sides, Soria slides in the bullpen as yet another devastating late inning option who doesn’t need to be matched up. While the starting rotation has the weakest DRA out of any of the contenders for a playoff spot in the National League, Soria joins a bullpen that will shorten games and give the Brewers a chance to compete with any team.

Christian Yelich is in the middle of a thirteen-game hit streak. He went 2-4 on Sunday, actually bringing down his on base percentage from the first twelve games of the streak. Yelich is right behind Jesus Aguilar for the team lead in True Average (TAv) amongst lineup regulars and his .332 would be a career high.

The biggest driver of Yelich’s improved performance have been his power numbers. According to Statcast, he’s produced the best hard hit percentage, barrel percentage and exit velocity of his career. While pitchers have generally sought to attack Yelich low and away, he hasn’t been taking the bait and instead has been swinging at pitches he can hit. In almost every sector of the strike zone, Yelich has improved his isolated power numbers this season compared with his career. Yelich has always feasted on fastballs, but now he’s generating power on all pitches:

Pitchers haven’t changed their approach much from 2017 because he can handle everything right now. The only place to get him to swing and miss is throwing either too high or too low to be a strike, but if those pitches miss, then they get launched. For a team that regularly shuffles its lineup and has faced injury issues, Yelich’s presence has provided consistency where there is little to be had. He’s currently 11^th in the National League in BWARP and is a serious candidate for down ballot MVP votes. If he can continue his offensive tear, Yelich may help to power the team to a division title.

The Brewers have another tough week ahead of them with no days off and substantial travel. A four-game series in Los Angeles against the Dodgers begins tonight, followed by a trip home to face the Rockies for three games. The Dodgers have the second best record in the National League, yet have underperformed their Pythagorean over under by 5.4 games, which is the worst mark in MLB. Meanwhile, the Rockies have overperformed their Pythagorean over under by 3.4 games which is 4^th in MLB. Colorado has the third best road record in the National League, so one cannot assume they will be pushovers just because the games are at Miller Park.

Surplus Grade
At Baseball Prospectus Milwaukee, I have worked on a transactional Benefit-Cost Analysis system for assessing prospect-and-MLB trades. I use the term “Surplus” to denote the value of a player through trade, which includes the player’s on-field production plus their “scarcity” (which, in terms of MLB labor, translates into their contractual dollars plus control time). In the following table, I demonstrate one way of assessing surplus for these trades, which includes both options for Soria and Moustakas picked up for the 2019 season.

Recommended Background: Refining Surplus Pricing || Organizational Logic and Playoff Trades

It should be stressed that this is not viewed as a complete analysis of a transaction, but rather an analysis that paces current MLB player production and prospect roles against the history of MLB in order to assess their value; the hypothesis is that since MLB teams can (and do) trade prospects for MLB roles, a value metric can be found that places prospects and MLB players on the same scale.

Here’s how the trades look without options:

Any way one slices it, David Stearns is “going for it,” in terms of delivering trades that provide clear cut short-term MLB roster gains while surrendering long-term roster assets. On the face of it, Stearns has paid more than he is receiving; at worst, he paid a dollar to return one quarter. In the case of the Soria trade, the time horizons are acceptable, as it is unclear how quickly lefty Kodi Medeiros will reach the MLB (even from Double-A in 2018), let alone a relief role that sees the young southpaw form his tools into high leverage function (which would arguably be his highest realistic role); the same can be said for Perez, who has never played stateside ball and thus has a truly indeterminate role horizon.

In the case of the Moustakas trade, it’s tougher to make a case about role horizons, for both Phillips and Lopez have useful (if not flashy) roles for a 2018 contending ballclub and potentially better roles for the future. Phillips could morph into a multi-tool center fielder if his bat develops at the MLB level, but his defense, speed, and power remain strong enough that Phillips could also serve as a rare “impact Fourth Outfielder;” it’s impossible not to dream on Lopez’s fastball and curveball combo playing up as a reliever, and the MLB dream for the righty would be that if the command comes along he can scale relief roles from low- to high-leverage.

Related: What does the future hold for Jorge Lopez? || Medeiros & Perez 

It must be added that if it appears perplexing that the potential transactional surplus prices involved in the Moustakas do not equal one another, they need not. One can argue that from an organizational standpoint, reaching the playoffs is a push for additional revenue, as well as an operation that concerns on-field baseball production. At some point, Wins, Runs Scored, Runs Allowed, Overall Future Potential, etc., are turned into cash for an organization. In the case of the 2018 Brewers, these recent deals, especially the Moustakas trade, bolster the club’s Wild Card lead (currently up 2.5 games) and (dare I say it) give the club a better chance at competing with the division leading Lakeview Nine (the Cubs currently lead Milwaukee by 1.5 games for the National League Central crown). Once these playoff odds are bolstered, the organization can also price out their odds of playing deeper into the playoffs, and frankly, if the Brewers believe these types of deals can help their club reach the League Championship Series, it does not necessarily matter that their deadline deals were “too expensive.”

MLB Roster Profile
Thus far, it is clear that the Moustakas move accomplishes two key objectives for the MLB roster:

• First, the move improves an offense in need of consistent production by making it deeper through the addition of a solid prime-age veteran bat.

• Second, the move will test an efficient defense and organizational shifting philosophy by moving incumbent third baseman Travis Shaw to second base.

Moving Toward Contact
To the first point, Mike Moustakas developed into a solid, consistently better than average batter after his 2015 breakout. The left-handed bat is also a clear addition to the discipline-contact department for the Brewers offense, as Moustakas consistently strikes out at a better than average clip. Ostensibly, Moustakas adds power and contact to the batting order, and as many have noted, will test these traits in a ballpark that is much friendlier to left-handed batters than Kansas City’s park.

The following table includes Moustakas’s home run, walk, and strike out percentages, as well as his True Average (TAv) and Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA), which are advanced metrics that assess underlying offensive and defensive elements to express production (.260 is average for TAv, and 0 is average for FRAA).

While Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) demonstrate some fluctuations in recent seasons for Moustakas, the third baseman performs at a consistently better than average rate with the glove as well as the bat, which should reduce some of the potential impact of the Brewers’ infield shuffle. Additionally, since Orlando Arcia is working to the left of Moustakas, theoretically some of the defensive pressure should be taken off of the third baseman.

Misusing Phillips?
One of the remaining questions for the MLB roster is whether Brett Phillips actually had a solid role for the club moving forward. Perhaps because of the left-handed batting bent of much of the Brewers positional group (Eric Thames, Christian Yelich, Shaw, and more recently Brad Miller, too), Phillips has remained out of favor for the club’s official “fourth outfield” spot, a spot that has recently belonged to the hot-and-cold Keon Broxton. Despite a .180 batting average, Broxton has walked and hit for power frequently enough to keep his glove on the roster, which is playing at around 2.4 FRAA (after a -8.2 FRAA campaign in 2017). From the right side of the plate, Broxton ostensibly offers more flexibility when manager Craig Counsell needs to spell Yelich or Thames in the outfield.

Related: Understanding Phillips

The trouble with the Broxton-Phillips wager is that Phillips arguably already surpasses this level of production even with his MLB floor, which he demonstrated in spectacular fashion toward the end of the 2017 season. In that brief performance, Phillips flashed his elite defensive tools (4.3 FRAA), while also presenting a strong batting average (.276), walk rate (nearly 10 percent), and power (seven extra base hits in 98 appearances). This type of production is what makes pricing out an MLB role for Phillips so difficult, because the left-handed batting defensive asset has enough questions about his offensive game to raise the possibility that pitchers will expose his shortcomings with more exposure. But the glove and arm are so good as to keep Phillips in a serious regular rotation if he falls out of a starting spot, and he could easily serve as an MLB outfielder with 300-to-400 valuable plate appearances, the type of ephemeral roster asset that most playoff teams dream of. The trouble with the Brewers trading Phillips is that his floor is arguably already reaching this role, which raises questions about why the club did not employ Phillips for more than 15 games in 2018.

Along with keeping right handed pitcher Brandon Woodruff in the shuttle crew between Milwaukee and Triple-A Colorado Springs, and shifting Corbin Burnes to relief for his MLB debut (when his top role, floor, and the club’s admitted 2019 plans have him slated as a starting pitcher), the club’s usage of Phillips should serve as a serious area for strategic questioning and analysis. Did the Brewers use Phillips to the best of his current ability, even given that they’re working with his MLB floor? The flip side of this argument would hold that since the Brewers do not have outfield space to test Phillips’s top role as a starting center fielder, trading him simply means that a “blocked” prospect will get his chance elsewhere; similarly, if you believe that Phillips will settle into the impact back-up role as well, that’s not a role that you mourn trading away to bolster an MLB roster weakness elsewhere.

Does Fielding Matter?
As for moving Shaw to second base, this is the type of value-seeking move that one would love to see from a loudly-announced, so-called “analytic” front office. The Brewers have one of the most efficient defensive units in the National League, even with the recent demotion of star defensive short stop Orlando Arcia and a display of less-than-stellar middle infield play of late; the club’s bread-and-butter has been stopping hits from falling in the outfield, either on flyballs or line drives, and coupled with the somewhat bizarre distribution of batted balls between pitching units (i.e., the key relievers are typically more groundball oriented, on the whole, than the starting pitchers), the Brewers defensive unit can withstand unexpected arrangements so long as the personnel shift for key game moments.

Additionally, moving Shaw to second base answers an interesting question about the extent to which fielding matters for an MLB club. This question was prominently raised when Arcia was demoted, as even a top tier glove in all of baseball could not hold that batting performance, and now the inverse equation can be applied to Shaw. By True Average, Shaw is one of the very best bats on the Brewers, and the club essentially has a .298 TAv second baseman at the deadline (that’s good enough for sixth best in the MLB among 2B with 100 PA); neither Brian Dozier nor Jonathan Schoop, the remaining rumored second base targets for the Brewers, can be counted on to match Shaw’s impact batting production. Furthermore, keeping Shaw at second base arguably gives the club the chance to continue their long play gamble on Jonathan Villar, who can slide into a meaningful depth role once he returns from the disabled list. The equation here is quite clever, as if the Brewers are going to gamble on Dozier or Schoop putting it together, they can also gamble on Villar, who has shown flashes of brilliance in 2018 and was batting .261 / .346 / .348 over the 20 games preceding his disabled list stint.

If Counsell can start a fielding unit that includes Moustakas and Shaw, and then use a fielding substitution when a key groundball reliever enters a close game (looking at Jeremy Jeffress here), ostensibly the manager has more options to get the offense going without sacrificing key late game defense. One can dream that if the Brewers succeed in the playoffs, this unorthodox defensive gamble lead the way. At worst, Travis Shaw has simply begun a potential shift over to the right side of the infield, where he might serve as a viable first base option for 2019 should the Brewers and Moustakas exercise his mutual option for 2019.

This is #TeamDepth exhibiting team flexibility across the offense, fielding, and contractual horizons, and even if the acquisition cost seems steep, the playoffs payoff is clear and (hopefully) immediate.

Photo Credit: Benny Sieu, USA Today Sports Images

This post was updated at 10:30 AM to include additional BPMilwaukee and Baseball Prospectus links and add Corey Ray as a top prospect.

Perez is the very definition of a “flyer.” He will turn 21 later this year and has spent the last two years pitching in the Dominican Summer League, the lowest rung of the minor league baseball ladder and a circuit typically populated by teenagers. He’s got some nice surface stats this year (2.01 Earned Run Average (ERA) and 10.5 strike outs per nine innings in 40.3 IP) but doesn’t possess impressive raw stuff. The fastball from Perez sits only in the 88-91 MPH range and he’ll mix in a cutter, curve, and changeup. For Chicago, the true prize in the deal is Medeiros, Milwaukee’s first-round pick at #12 overall in 2014.

Medeiros was a divisive prospect going back to the day he was drafted, with many scouts sticking the “future reliever” label on him right away. But getting pegged as a bullpen arm isn’t the denigration that it used to be given the way that baseball has changed and emphasized the importance of a good relief corps. It’s been an up-and-down developmental road for the southpaw, with the lowest point coming in 2016 when he walked nearly as many batters (63) as he struck out (64) in 23 appearances for Class-A Advanced Brevard County. He’s bounced back well statistically since then, however, and this season he produced a 3.14 ERA with 107 punchouts against 45 walks in 103.3 innings for Double-A Biloxi before being dealt.

The Brewers stayed steadfast in developing Medeiros as a starter despite the obvious issues with his profile. These are commonly noted: the funky arm slot and high-effort delivery, the below-average command, the platoon issues, and the lack of a third pitch to play off his fastball/slider combination. The White Sox are expected to keep him in a similar capacity for the time being, but the scouting consensus continues to form around a relief role. Following the trade announcement, Eric Longenhagen of Fangraphs tweeted out that Medeiros “should be premium lefty bullpen weapon at maturity.”

For a reliever of Soria’s ilk (2.56 ERA, 45 DRA-(!), 49:10 strike outs to walks in 38.7 IP) under control for potentially 1.5 seasons, the trade price of Medeiros seems fair. Sure, the lefty’s skill-set is quite intriguing, and if you squint just right, you can see a Hader-esque upside in a fireman role. But Medeiros isn’t the flamethrower that he once was; his stuff has backed up a bit since high school and he’s now closer to the 88-93 MPH range with his heater than the mid-90’s fire he once possessed. He didn’t even garner a mention in Baseball Prospectus’ top Brewers prospect list at the beginning of the year, nor did his improved performance push him into the midseason update of Baseball America’s top prospect list for Milwaukee. MLB Pipeline had him at #13 in Milwaukee’s system before the trade with an Overall Future Potential (OFP) of 45, and he now slots in at #19 overall among Chicago’s farmhands. The Brewers would have faced a difficult decision about whether or not to protect Medeiros from the Rule 5 Draft (among a host of other notable prospects) this winter, and now that will be the White Sox problem.

The only real complaint I saw regarding this deal was a fan lamenting that “another first-rounder didn’t pan out.” In this case, though, that’s the wrong way to think about it. Yes, the Brewers have had some notable whiffs at the top of the draft, such as Eric Arnett, Jed Bradley, Victor Roache, and so on. But Medeiros was drafted at 12th overall, signed and then developed to the point where he became a desirable commodity for other franchises. His future potential was leveraged into present production in the form of Joakim Soria to better fit with Milwaukee’s current competitive window. There is more to valuing a prospect than the Wins Above Replacement that he produces on the field for the franchise that drafts/signs him, and I would argue that using Medeiros as a chip to bring in a reliever performing at an elite level for the rest of this year and possibly next season is plenty valuable. Now the risk of completing his development and extracting big league worth falls upon the White Sox staff.

It’s not difficult to envision a future in the big leagues for Medeiros, but an average left-handed reliever seems like the most plausible outcome at present. Given where the team is at in the standings and the upcoming 40 man roster crunch, that’s something that Milwaukee could afford to part with.