Missing from the changes, however, was any adjustment to the game’s antiquated waiver system, which has existed in its current form, more or less, for over a century. While this might not be optimal for baseball, for Brewers fans this is a blessing greater than the sum of the rest of the CBA combined.

Over the past year, David Stearns has been one of the most active general managers in all of baseball in dumpster diving the waiver wire.

While this hasn’t really paid dividends yet, it’s a good, risk-free strategy to maximize the talent on your 40-man roster. Though Milwaukee left several valuable pieces unprotected for December’s Rule 5 draft, and even lost young pitcher Miguel Diaz to San Diego via the Twins, it’s not as if David Stearns is letting the 40th spot on the roster go to waste. In fact, it is quite the opposite.

Fantasy baseball players reading this will need no introduction to the concepts of “stashing” and “streaming.” Neither one is a recent development in the game. “Stashing” refers to keeping a player with upside, but no real value in the present day, buried on your bench. “Streaming” is when you add a player you don’t intend to keep long-term, such as a starting pitcher on the day they start. Power-hitting outfielder Adam Walker is the latest example of Stearns’ shameless streaming strategy.

The Brewers claimed Milwaukee native Walker off of waivers from the Twins on November 18th. For two weeks, he remained on the team’s 40-man roster. Then, on December 2nd, the day after the new CBA failed to fix the waiver system, the Brewers waived Walker to clear out his roster spot. The Baltimore Orioles claimed Walker, ending his Brewers career before it began. But if they hadn’t, Milwaukee would have managed to successfully stash Walker in their minor-league system indefinitely. This is what the Twins tried to do two weeks prior and, somehow, they would have no claim to the player they’ve developed in their minor league system over the past four years.

If you’re marveling at how wildly unfair this system is, well, you’re not alone. But it doesn’t seem that fixing this is a priority for the players’ union at the moment, so the Brewers will continue to use it to their advantage.

Last year, Milwaukee found a small diamond in the rough through waiver trolling. They claimed reliever Jhan Marinez from the Rays in May, and worked out a trade for him after the claim. Marinez threw 58.7 innings for the club, pitching to a .267 True Average, 4.71 DRA, and 52 percent groundball rate. Marinez is a useful bullpen piece, utilizing a sinker and slider as his two primary pitches to induce ground balls and weak contact. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. With Tyler Thornburg exported to Boston, Marinez could even emerge as a dark horse candidate to close for the 2017 Brewers. Originally, he was supposed to be a claim-and-designate candidate, but injuries in the bullpen around that time spared him from the chopping block long enough for him to establish himself. Marinez struck out 15 of 36 batters he faced in the month of May, and at that point it was pretty hard to justify sending him down.

Marinez was never sent down after the Brewers claimed him, but Rob Scahill was a true example of how streaming works. The Pirates designated him for assignment, opening him up to waivers, on July 3rd. Nine days later, the Brewers claimed him and optioned him to Colorado Springs. Later on, Scahill came up to Milwaukee for a late-season trial, where he would post a sterling 1.04 WHIP in 18.3 innings. In Scahill’s case, too, the Brewers managed to pilfer a player from the division rival Pirates at zero cost.

The way the system works, a player whose contract doesn’t have any minor league options remaining must clear waivers in order to be sent down from the Major League club. A club can also waive a player with options remaining, such as Walker. There are no rules governing how long the claiming team must keep a claimed player on the roster, however, and all it costs a team to do this is a reset of their place in the waivers order. If you’re trying to sneak claims right back down to the minors, this doesn’t faze you. You need a player to clear waivers through every other team anyways! And if you’re working under the assumption that waiver claims are basically low-odds lottery tickets that you can get for free, simple logic would follow that you want as many of them as you can.

For what it’s worth, the odds of finding anything more than marginally useful through this system isn’t great. But the Milwaukee farm system is already stocked with more than a few potential stars, meaning waivers is just a way to fill in the cracks free of charge. The 40th man on the 40-man roster is not a future superstar, and it could be argued that the most useful thing you can do with that spot is turn it into a tool with which to generate spare parts that cost nothing.

The 29-year-old righty has notched 27.7 innings this year between Pittsburgh and Milwaukee, with a 3.90 ERA and 4.35 DRA. Scahill’s numbers don’t stand out much, which likely explains why the Pirates allowed the Brewers to snatch him up on waivers. But dig a little deeper, and you’ll see the parts that could make up an ace reliever — one that could bear a resemblance to Milwaukee’s erstwhile ninth-inning man.

Let’s focus in on Jeffress for a moment. Remember Jeffress? ‘Twasn’t long ago that he donned the Brewer blue. That was his second stint in Milwaukee, though, and the first one didn’t go quite as well. Following inconsistencies in the minors and a failure to establish himself in the majors, Jeffress went to the Royals in the Zack Greinke trade, then bounced around for a few years. By the end of 2012, he owned a career ERA in the Show of 4.89, along with a DRA of 5.00 flat.

Then, things turned around, because of two changes. Off the field, a doctor formally diagnosed him with — and gave him the appropriate medication for — epilepsy, which had hampered him through his prior years. Moving past that and being able to focus more on baseball has obviously helped him on the mound. But the other difference, the one that pertains to Scahill, came with regards to Jeffress’s arsenal:

The four-seamer went out the window, and the sinker took its place. The result? A 2.52 ERA and 3.51 DRA since 2013. Jeffress has piled up a ton of grounders over that span — only nine other pitchers with as many innings have a higher ground ball rate than his 59.8 percent — and he’s backed that up with a satisfactory 21.6 percent strikeout rate. His sinker, which has a 64.1 percent ground ball rate and 9.0 percent whiff rate in its elevated role, has fostered each of those two traits and made him an exquisite reliever.

How does this connect to Scahill? The current Brewer also throws a sinker, and a pretty good one at that. When put in play this season, it’s gone on the ground 66.7 percent of the time. Among the 181 hurlers with at least 200 sinkers, that ranks 21st. More impressive than that, though, is the deception that the sinker offers:

Rankings out of pitchers with 200+ sinkers in 2016

That’s right — only Baltimore’s ninth-inning nightmare can top Scahill in terms of sinker whiff rate. And really, Britton exists in another echelon, so Scahill shouldn’t feel bad about trailing him. What matters is that Scahill can blow the sinker past hitters, and he can goad them into hitting a ground ball off it. As we saw with Jeffress, that combination tends to suppress runs.

So why has Scahill’s production lagged behind? While he’s thrown the sinker more often recently — this year, it’s made up 49.1 percent of his pitches — he still hasn’t reached the levels of Jeffress, who’s used his sinker 60.5 percent of the time since 2013. And Scahill has really struggled with his four-seam fastball: Whereas he consistently drops the sinker down in the zone, the straight heater stays up over the plate. He’ll need to swap out some of those four-seamers for sinkers to really take the leap.

Improving his offspeed pitch could also aid Scahill. Jeffress plays off his sinker with a nasty curveball, which has a 62.2 percent strike rate and 16.5 percent whiff rate across the past four seasons. While Scahill has a curve of his own, it can’t compare — this year, it’s gone for a strike 50.0 percent of the time and a whiff 3.6 percent of the time. A secondary offering isn’t a necessity, though; for proof of that, look to Britton, who’s relied on his sinker 91.9 percent of the time in 2016. Scahill’s sinker has proven quite effective, so maybe that route would suit him.

Whatever happens, we should have patience with Scahill, and other players of his ilk. Lest we forget, Jeffress took some time to develop: When he broke out in 2013, he was already 25. Scahill’s even older, at 29, but he could make the leap too with a little repertoire adjustment. Even if the odds and the aging curves don’t favor him, that sinker might have the power to make him Milwaukee’s next closer.