This year, things look different in the minors. The Brewers dropped 16 spots in the Baseball Prospectus organizational rankings, due as much to the underperformance of top draft picks (Trent Grisham, Corey Ray) as the big Christian Yelich trade (which sent away three of the highest ceiling prospects in the system, even if they were risky ones). Looking through the affiliated clubs’ opening day rosters, one can get the feeling that the system is less exciting than the 2016 and 2017 versions; or, if the system remains exciting, it’s exciting because of some of the very raw, underdeveloped talent in the club’s low minor affiliates, rather than the advanced affiliated prospects. Nevertheless, extremes abound for this system, as the Brewers are also using their most advanced affiliates to store MLB 40-man roster players (prospect or not).

Below is a list of the 2018 Top 10 Brewers Baseball Prospectus prospects, as well as eleven additional prospects that were covered in the list, plus Jordan Yamamoto (who was also included in the Yelich trade package). I’ve assembled their 2018 age, assignment, as well as the Overall Future Potential role and likely projection for each player (where available). In the case of the eleven additional prospects, only one role or outlook was typically provided by the scouting team, whereas a “high percentile” and “likely outcome” were both provided for the Top 10.

A few quick notes:

• Yesterday, Brewers beat reported Adam McCalvy reported that Keston Hiura will begin the season as a DH due to some elbow soreness experienced while throwing during camp. This is one key reason that fans need to slow the brakes on Hiura Hype, as the DH-risk remains real, and the highly regarded second base prospect really is not a professional second baseman yet; until that is proved otherwise, one also has to wonder if he will end up in left field or as a DH.

• Anchored by Corey Ray and Trent Grisham, the Double-A Biloxi outfield might have the best bounceback tandem in the system. It’s so easy to find critiques with each player’s development thus far, and yet here we are with both players working a level away from the MLB at very young ages. If either play puts things together at this level, MLB role projections could quickly come into focus.

• Tristen Lutz and Carlos Herrera both debut in full season ball, making A Wisconsin one of the most exciting teams in the system. That team is loaded with sleepers, as well as some prospects like Lutz and Herrera who are looking to define that top percentile MLB role and the risk associated with it.

Of course, this list does not even cover 10 percent of the Brewers system, so while assembled minor league assignments, I collected ten of my favorite “deep system” prospect picks. Here I picked one arm and one bat from each level:

A few quick notes on my favorites:

• I will continue to write about Demi Orimoloye as long as he stands outside of typical top prospect debates, because in terms of having tools and waiting to hone the baseball aspect of the game, there’s probably not a higher return in the system (of true extreme risk players) than Orimoloye putting it all together. Watching his second turn at Wisconsin could demonstrate how likely this type of scenario may be, or how risky Orimoloye really will be.

• I picked a few long development and “old” guys in the system because there are simply some very interesting underlying performances (Daniel Brown, Nelson Hernandez) and tools (Luis Aviles) in some of these minor league grinders. Hernandez and Aviles have not necessarily had easy and clear development paths the last few years, but Hernandez is making his full season debut at a reasonable age overall, and Aviles has always simply been about whether the bat comes around. In 2016, the glove was the same story with Aviles in midseason Wisconsin Timber Rattlers coverage, so there’s a question about how long it’s worth hammering home this scouting line, but here we are with another chance for Aviles to prove himself.

• In contrast, it is worth emphasizing that an extremely athletic, ex-Top 10 Prospect like Tyrone Taylor remains (very) young for Triple-A, and is now working a level removed from the MLB. While there are undoubtedly reasons that Taylor’s prospect star has fallen, the recent identification of mechanical adjustments to unleash MLB stars should underscore that where talented, athletic players work to fix their approach, even a seemingly pedestrian profile can emerge as a productive MLB player. Taylor has the athleticism to work as an MLB depth outfielder, now it is worth seeing whether the bat follows at the most advanced level.

• The aggressive Thomas Jankins assignment is probably my favorite for the 2018 season. At BP Milwaukee last season, Kyle Lesniewski profiled Jankins as one of a handful of intriguing late round arms in the Brewers system. While Jankins might not have the “big stuff” profile of a Trey Supak to dream on, the righty has a command profile that matches some of the analytic trends emerging in the Brewers big league rotation (Zach Davies) and offseason acquisitions (Wade Miley).

Finally, throughout the minor league season, remember to support minor league players in their quest for a living wage, and continue to discuss alternatives to the current format of minor league compensation upheld by Major League Baseball. Prospects deserve transparent press coverage and support from fans, and part of this support should include transparency about MLB efforts to openly suppress pay of their affiliated professional players. It is worth emphasizing that the MLB is codifying their position of exploiting minor league players at a time of great wealth for the sport, as evidenced by the extra $50 million MLB Advanced Media revenue payment paid to every team; in an elite revenue industry, why are many minor league players struggling to earn even $7,000 a year for their professional efforts?

Related:
Tyler Webb’s Quiet Upside

Twenty-seven-year-old Tyler Webb is trying to get that eighth and final bullpen spot.

Webb was the trade return from the New York Yankees in the Garrett Cooper deal last July 13th. In 33  Class-AAA innings prior to the trade, Webb had the best stretch of his young career. Over that stretch, he struck out 12.7 batters per nine innings while walking just three batters total. His groundball rate also crept above 50 percent for the first time in his minor league career. His opponents’ BABIP (.366) was his only real blemish.

Webb’s fortunes changed upon arrival in Colorado Springs. The lefty’s strikeouts per nine dipped below ten (9.2) and his walks per nine shot up to 3.8. Batters continued to hit for a high BABIP (.362). After his success in the Yankees system during the first half, he second half of 2017 ended up being the worst stretch of his minor league career. Webb posted a 6.06 FIP along with a 6.48 ERA.

Last season’s debut stretch with the Brewers will hold Webb back, but it should be noted he was pitching his home games in Colorado Springs, which is notoriously one of the most hitter-friendly parks in professional baseball. Additionally, it’s only 16.7 innings of bad pitching being considered here.

Webb isn’t coming out of nowhere, either. From 2014 to 2016, he posted a FIP at or below 3.74 for the Yankees Class-AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. He posted a K/9 above 9.7 in each season while never walking more than 3.1 per nine innings. There’s evidence that shows Webb’s troubling second half of 2017 was a blip on an otherwise stellar track record.

A lack of velocity on his fastball makes scouts wary about his future prospects. In 2017, Webb’s average fastball velocity was under 92 MPH, which is down from the 93 MPH+ fastball he flashed in 2015. Webb’s two other pitches, his slider, and changeup hover around 80 MPH. It’s hard for scouts and analysts to be convinced of a pitcher with Webb’s velocity in 2018. At the same time, his strikeout rate shows he can still dominate without the velocity.

Webb would provide another southpaw arm out of a bullpen that will employ just two left-handers, Hader and Logan. Hader won’t be employed in matchup situations, he’s going to the Brewers’ long-man. Logan, although a successful lefty specialist throughout his career, pitched in just 21 innings last season. There will come a point this bullpen will need another lefty to face the Anthony Rizzo’s and Joey Votto’s of the National League Central.

With all the hoopla surrounding the Brewers outfield and the confusion about how the rotation and second base will shake out, the bullpen is being overlooked. Webb is one of many interesting arms getting a look this Spring Training. If he pitches anything like he did prior to July of last season, his name should be penciled into a roster spot later this month.

Photo Credit: Orlando Ramirez, USAToday Sports Images

Stepping into speculative histories of MLB players, I’ve been thinking about what I’d expect from players like Burnes or Peralta if they reached the MLB in 2018. Both pitchers provide extreme challenges to the observer, and for different reasons.

• Burnes provides a challenge because the righty’s quick ascent to the advanced minors has out-paced the non-proprietary information available about the pitcher, which manifested itself during the 2017 season in the form of widely varying fastball, slider, and delivery reports. From early in the season, when on-the-ground reports placed Burnes as a potentially high reliever-risk profile who could make it work as a middle rotation starter, to late in the season when delivery adjustments and improved fastball reports began leaking out, fans and analysts were essentially given several different pitchers’ worth of information. Entering 2018, then, it’s worth asking whether Burnes is the fastball / slider reliever with middle rotation question marks, the middle rotation arm who could decrease reliever risk by continuing to refine his delivery, or the surging pitching prospect who simply continues to redefine roles by refining mechanics and therefore allowing his stuff to take the next step. All of this can happen with Burnes, or none of it; thus the righty prospect is an acute example of information asymmetry.

• Peralta faces different questions about his stuff and profile, especially due to his diminished stature (compared to Burnes) and his pitching approach (he’s not quite a command-and-deception guy, but he twists and turns his fastballs in order to help his stuff “play up”). In one sense, Peralta is much more conventional than Burnes, insofar as Peralta will be lauded as “the small framed righty who proved everyone wrong” should his frame stick in a functional mid-rotation role. On the other hand, given the frame and lack of a strong fastball, it is worth questioning how Peralta’s arsenal and command will play as he advances in the system. The significance of the righty’s pitch sequencing and location will not be understated. It’s tough to say whether Peralta faces “reliever risk” in the same sense Burnes does, as Peralta’s top role is even murkier than his Advanced Minors teammate.

So, if Burnes and Peralta reach the MLB in 2018, what will their potential roles be? What performance levels might fans expect? With Counsell looking at both pitchers as potential midseason reinforcements for the staff, it is worth digging into potential production expectations.

Role risk will be nothing new to the 2018 Brewers; role risk is all over the roster, even beyond the rookie class. But, in attempting to form expectations about Burnes and Peralta, I turned to other rookie pitchers that are on the MLB roster or in Spring Training camp as non-roster invitees. By my count, these rookies comprise (in order of height) Peralta, Taylor Williams, Marcos Diplan, Jorge Lopez, Aaron Wilkerson, Erik Davis, Burnes, Luis Ortiz, Adrian Houser, Brandon Woodruff, Tyler Webb, and Jon Perrin.

• Several of these arms are already established as MLB relievers or very likely to have relief roles in 2018 (see Williams, Lopez, Davis, Houser, and Webb).

• A few of these arms are organizational depth with questionable futures in terms of organizational plans (see Diplan, Lopez, Wilkerson, Davis, Ortiz, and Perrin).

• Finally, there’s a deep group of potential rotation depth, in terms of starters who could work as rotational replacements or MLB emergency starters in 2018 (Peralta, Diplan, Lopez, Wilkerson, Burnes, Ortiz, and Perrin).

• Woodruff is likely the only pitcher here who is a rotational lock in 2018 (and even writing that leads me to raise some questions, as “There is no such thing as a pitching prospect,” there is no such thing as a surefire pitching role).

Available PECOTA projections (March 2, 2018) for 2018 Brewers rookies (Erik Davis and Jon Perrin projections unavailable). This table features IP projections, as well as Runs Allowed and Runs Prevented figures drawn from projected Deserved Runs Average. Runs Prevented figures are drawn from an average of the 2016-2017 Miller Park / National League. PECOTA strike outs, walks, and WARP are also featured.

With these dozen pitchers, I’ve already laid out extensive role risk simply by categorizing these arms. So, in order to form potential expectations for 2018, I turned to speculative history: namely, how many pitchers in the MLB expansion era matched these arms’ precise height, weight range, handedness, and age as rookies? That is to ask, if these pitchers reach the MLB as rookies in 2018 (e.g., their precise 2018 age), how does their physical profile fare (e.g., their handedness, height, and weight?).

To answer this question, and engage in this speculative exercise, I used the indispensable (and highly recommended) Baseball Reference Play Index to search comparable expansion era players. I searched the expansion era because it is a largely integrated era that also includes a relatively similar form of baseball over the decades in terms of pitching arsenals or prototypes (it tracks the diminishing knuckleball, rise of the splitter / forkball, rise of the fastball / slider profile, etc.). Additionally, as I attempted to search other time frames, I found the reasoning to be rather arbitrary (e.g., if I search the Wild Card Era, should I simply search the Contemporary PED era? If I only search the expanded Wild Card Era (2012-present) will I have a large enough group of players to analyze? And so on).

Using the expansion era, here are the search results from Baseball Reference Play Index. For each player, I searched exact height, handedness, age, and rookie status, while also searching a five percent range in weight (there are some issues with using listed weight). The “Comps” column shows the number of historical rookie comparisons for each potential 2018 Brewers rookie.

This table shows the basic summary of the searches that I conducted using the Play Index tool. What immediately surprised me was the lack of comparisons for some players (like Peralta, Diplan, and Webb), and the large number of comparisons available for “prototypical” starting pitching frames (particularly Lopez, Burnes, and Woodruff). Alternately, for a supposedly “old” prospect, the number of comparisons available for Perrin also surprised me, which suggests to me that there has been a path in MLB history for righties of his size and draft pedigree to reach the MLB, even if it takes a while.

Meandering through the comparisons, there are simply some fun and interesting names that appear.

• 2018 rookie Jon Perrin would reach the MLB at the same time as 2012 rookie Yu Darvish, who shares Perrin’s handedness, age, height, and basic weight range; among older comps, Doug Brocail and Todd Worrell are my favorites for Perrin.

• A few names jump off of 2018 rookie Brandon Woodruff’s spreadsheet, like Corey Kluber (!), Ryan Vogelsong, and (of course), Tim Worrell.

• Corbin Burnes has Michael Fulmer and Steve Bedrosian, Houser has Kevin Quackenbush, while Neftali Feliz and Shelby Miller belong to Luis Ortiz. Fulmer is a fascinating comp for Burnes not because of his excellent MLB performance, but because he shared Burnes’s information asymmetry in terms of advanced minors scouting roles and MLB adjustments to exceed expectations. Feliz and Miller are interesting comps for Ortiz, for as the righty faces questions about innings workload and relief risk, it’s good to remember that successful arms have also shared the righty’s frame, height, and age as rookies.

• The lone comps for Diplan and Peralta? Peralta matches 2000 rookie Byung-Hyun Kim (!), while Diplan matches 1965 rookie Dick Selma.

• Obviously, there is a world of gray area here, as these comparisons say nothing about a player’s draft or international development status, stuff, place in the minor league system, etc. Moreover, for my search, I did not use these comparisons to create trends or aging curves, so what I am attempting should not be read alongside the (much more methodologically sound) PECOTA system.

From these searches, a batch of 257 rookie comparison seasons resulted. In order to analyze potential performance markers in environments comparable to the 2016-2017 MLB, I indexed each season according to Runs Allowed per Game (RA/G), and sampled post-Strike rookies that played during a season with a run environment within 5 percent of the 2017 RA/G. This analysis produced a sample of 85 rookie comparison seasons. The following table shows the basic production range for this 85 rookie population:

For this analysis, I focused on Innings Pitched and basic league-level Runs Prevented (I did not investigate historical park factors for this analysis). To compensate for the lack of park factors, I produced a range of runs prevented estimates. Overall, this group of pitchers did not average high innings pitched totals (presumably due to their rookie status, in many cases), with the average pitcher in this sample working nearly 39.0 innings.

This sample can be further categorized to focus on each specific Brewers rookie’s physical profile. In the next table, a range of runs prevented (RnPrv, LowRnPrv, and HighRnPrv) accompany Innings Pitched and Runs averages and standard deviation (IP, IP_StDev; Rn, Rn_StDev).

This table undoubtedly demonstrates a wide range of potentialities for these Brewers rookie pitchers. The innings pitched variance alone suggests that these players could range anywhere from “Did Not Play” to 70-to-80 IP seasons. It’s easy to get excited about some of these results; for example, 75 innings pitched and five runs prevented from Corbin Burnes, or 56.3 IP and six runs prevented from Taylor Williams would represent excellent rotational and bullpen support for Milwaukee.

Yet, the basic averages might provide some hint as to why the Brewers front office has remained quiet on the pitching free agency market thus far: even averaging around 35 innings and providing moderate runs prevented totals, this group of pitchers has a physical pedigree that suggests competent replacement depth can come from rookie ranks. Of course, it is impossible to fully extrapolate from these historical rookie comparisons to the Brewers 2018 pitching staff; this is not a correlative relationship. Yet, through this speculative historical analysis, one can find that Milwaukee has some solid physical characteristics with plenty of historical counterparts (especially Lopez, Burnes, and Woodruff); there are also some nearly one-of-a-kind profiles (see Diplan, Peralta, and Webb). Ultimately, these dozen rookies present Milwaukee’s front office and field management with an array of options to collect outs and prevent runs, even if they’re a group of wide-ranging replacements.

Baseball Prospectus. 2018 PECOTA (March 2, 2018) [CSV]. Retrieved March 4, 2018 from baseballprospectus.com.

Baseball Prospectus. “More PECOTA” (Player Cards). Retrieved March 4, 2018 from baseballprospectus.com.

Baseball Reference. Play Index. Sports Reference, LLC., Sports Reference LLC, 2000-2018. Searches conducted March 3, 2018 from baseball-reference.com.

That very day, the Cubs went out and got the biggest target of all. Jose Quintana made his way to the north side in an unexpected deal that pried some of the last remaining jewels from what was recently one of the top farm systems in baseball. Disinterested in losing Josh Hader to land Quintana, Brewers GM David Stearns set his sights significantly lower and zeroed in on another left-handed pitcher, whom he then acquired hours after Quintana crossed town. The terms of the deal were these: In exchange for 26-year-old minor league first baseman Garrett Cooper, the Brewers received 26-year-old Yankee reliever Tyler Webb, who had tallied all of six innings at the major league level.

On the surface, this was a swap of AAA over-performers who were buried on their respective depth charts. Webb had set the pitcher-friendly International League ablaze with a 1.38 DRA in 33.3 innings for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders; Cooper was riding a .329 TAv in the hitter-friendly PCL for Colorado Springs. The Yankees had a glaring need at first base and a vaunted bullpen. Half of the Brewers’ opening day relief corps (Neftali Feliz, Tommy Milone, Jhan Marinez, and Taylor Jungmann) had already pitched their way out of town and the Thames/Aguilar timeshare at first was in full, powerful swing. Both teams likely hoped to catch lightning in a bottle and wring some productivity out of a pair of players from the fringe.

From Cooper, the Yankees received 45 plate appearances of .326/.333/.488 ball that translated to a .276 TAv and all of 0.1 WARP. Cooper was later traded (along with five-minute-Brewer Caleb Smith of the 2016 Rule 5 Draft) to the Miami Marlins in exchange for international slot money and a low-level pitching prospect.

The Brewers, whose position in the standings started to slide as soon as the second half opened, let Webb into just two big league games. He gave up three hits and a run in each of these.

Early returns suggest that this could be the sort of deal with such imperceptible effects on the franchises involved that nobody will ever remember it happening. Webb offers the Brewers a chance for something more, though. Gaze beyond his shaky eight-inning sample of big league work, and he looks the part of a serviceable bullpen piece.

Webb relies on a four seam fastball to set the table, opting to let it rip for two pitches out of every three. It’s a competent offering, featuring decent rise and middling run. Webb’s command of his fastball is average. Lots of things about Webb are average. The heater zips in around 90-92 mph, with a Statcast-measured average perceived velocity of 91.82 mph. That puts Webb squarely in the middle of the pack among lefties.

There are two secondary pitches in Webb’s arsenal. The first is a 82 mph slider that the six-foot-five lefty threw once for every five of his big league pitches. It, too, is an average pitch. But Webb starts to separate himself with his changeup, which didn’t show well during his 2017 cup of coffee but has been known to dominate hitters in the upper minors. The change dives to the plate at around 81 mph, and in theory gives Webb a tool that could allow him to retire right-handed batters and move beyond a specialist role.

It’s nice to watch Webb throw. He has fluid arm action and repeats his delivery well, unleashing all three of his pitches from the same slot and release point. In the major leagues, Webb induced grounders on 43.5 percent of his balls allowed in play. But his minor league work was stronger, including a 57.1% mark in the thin air of Colorado Springs. He also knows how to miss bats, fanning eight in eight innings in the bigs and 11.2 per every nine innings of minor league work. He may not replicate his 4.45 K:BB ratio in the minors, but it’s not hard to imagine that number settling into the mid-3s with more major league experience.

Here’s Webb with the Yankees, jamming Domingo Santana with an inside fastball the week before his trade:

And here he is in the 2015 Grapefruit League, changing speeds for an emphatic K:

The profile is intriguing enough that Webb was selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 2016 Rule 5 Draft. Though he was eventually returned to New York, he still has two minor league options and a good chance to produce some surplus value towards the back of the major league bullpen. He’ll battle fellow former Rule 5 pick Wei-Chung Wang for a lefty specialist spot in spring training, and will likely accumulate frequent flyer miles between Milwaukee and Colorado next season. By the end of 2018, he could carve out a steady role retiring lefties or pitching in low-to-mid-leverage innings. Not a bad return for 45 plate appearances of Garrett Cooper.

Photo Credit: Benny Sieu, USAToday Sports Images

New acquisition Tyler Webb made his Brewers debut on Sunday, and he got off to as poor a start as possible, as he surrendered a grand slam on his first pitch to Nick Williams. Brooks Baseball classified the pitch as a curveball, but according to Brooks Baseball and the BPMilwaukee write up on Webb, he doesn’t actually throw a curveball, it was just a poorly thrown slider.

Webb has a limited MLB track record, but his pitching patterns show this was not atypical use of his breaking ball. According to Brooks Baseball, he’s used his slider on 23.08 percent of his pitches this season. That usage rate rises to 37.50 percent when limiting his splits to left handed batters. And that usage rate tops out at 67 percent on first pitches to left handed batters. Now I realize that this is some serious carving up of already small sample sizes, but based on this pattern, Webb likes using that slider to start off lefties. Of course, Nick Williams knows that because the last time he faced Webb, he got a first pitch slider, which he hit for a home run.

Starting with his two outings against Milwaukee before the All-Star break, Webb saw a marked change in his typical game situations. Before July 7, he only entered in the middle of an inning once and all of his outings were in low leverage situations. Baseball-Reference’s Average Leverage Index (aLI) creates a number based on the average pressure seen by a player in a game. It’s indexed to 1.0: anything above 1.0 is considered high pressure and below 1.0 is low pressure. Webb’s pre-July 7 aLI was 0.18. His two games against Milwaukee had a 1.85 aLI and yesterday should have only added to that number.

If Webb is to be the LOOGY on this team, he’ll need to get used to high leverage situations and entering games in the middle of an inning. Sunday was a trial by fire, and while he failed, that’s not the end of the world. How Webb bounces back, and maybe varies his pitch mix, will determine if his Milwaukee tenure is successful.

Over the weekend, Jonathan Villar went 4-13 to extend his hitting streak to eight games. The mini streak has bumped his TAv to .233, still the worst for a regular on the Brewers. While it’s encouraging to see Villar at least getting some hits, the streak itself doesn’t seem to show any underlying improvement. He’s struck out nine times while walking only twice and only one hit during this span has gone for extra bases.

Looking at his whiffs per swing, to try and compensate comparing a large data set to a small one, Villar is whiffing at a higher rate now on all pitch types when compared with his full 2017 season. There also isn’t any immediate difference in his swing chart during the streak as opposed to his full season, which makes sense since his walk rate has gone down (those two walks are across thirty eight plate appearances).

While it’s great that Villar is sneaking a few more hits in, especially since he’s been restored to the leadoff position not based on any type of merit, there doesn’t appear to be any underlying change here to make one think that Villar is about to break out. If he can keep squeaking through these singles, while adding some patience and power, then maybe there’s something there, but until then, this eight game hitting streak is just a statistical oddity.

Up Next: The Brewers begin a ten game road trip with four games in Pittsburgh. The Brewers are 3-4 against the Pirates, and split a four game series in Pittsburgh the last time these teams met. The Pirates just won two of three from the Cardinals, creating a three team scramble for second place in the N.L. Central between those two teams plus the Cubs.

Tyler Webb will turn 27 next week and began his career as a 10th-round pick by the Yankees back in 2013. After a successful collegiate career as a closer at South Carolina, Webb became a senior sign for the Yankees who inked for a relatively meager $30,000 bonus, well below-slot value for the 314th pick that season. The southpaw hit the ground running as a professional, reaching Class-AAA for the first time by his second professional season. Statistically speaking, his profile is truly eye-opening.

During his first go-round in the AAA International League with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre back in 2014, Webb tossed 20.0 innings across 17 appearances, yielding a 4.05 ERA. He did register a pretty nifty 26:7 K/BB ratio though, and DRA loved his work quite a bit more than his earned run totals suggested as evidenced by the 1.85 mark that he produced. Webb would spend all of 2015 and 2016 with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre as well as most of 2017, and the results were more of the same. He posted solid ERA totals – a combined 3.31 mark in 144.0 innings across the three seasons – while striking out 28 percent of the batters he faces against just a 6.1 percent walk rate. DRA has been quite a bit more bullish on Webb than even his strong run prevention totals. He registered a 2.02 mark (84 DRA-) across 38.0 innings in 2015 as well as a 2.40 DRA (88 DRA-) in 72.7 frames last season. This year, however, has to this point been the best season of Webb’s career. In 33.3 AAA innings in 2017, Webb has compiled a sterling 1.24 DRA (28 DRA-) thanks in large part to a tremendous 47:3 K/BB ratio.

On the mound, Webb stands at an intimidating 6’5″ and tips the scales at 230 lbs. He comes at hitters from a mostly over-the-top arm slot and features three pitches: a four-seam fastball, slider, and changeup. Fangraphs described his breaking ball as “average” and his change as “above-average” prior to the season, though Baseball America was a bit more bearish in their grades of his secondaries. Their preseason write-up suggests his “sweepy” slider is more of a fringe-average pitch, while the changeup is a below-average offering that “gives him something to toss up against righthanders.” Both outlets note a low-90s fastball with BA adding that it has “enough deception to be effective.” If his CSAA totals from the last three seasons are of any indication, Webb should have above-average to plus command of his arsenal. Webb has historically been very good against fellow lefties, including holding them to just a .558 OPS this season with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. That makes him an ideal candidate to fill a role as a LOOGY going forward at the big league level.

Despite his minor league successes, the Yankees left Webb unprotected in last winter’s Rule 5 Draft. It is worth noting that the Brewers had the opportunity to select him back then, but passed in favor of another left-handed Yankees farmhand in Caleb Smith, who was immediately traded to the Cubs for cash considerations that same day. The Pirates did make Tyler their pick in the draft, though he did not make the team out of spring training and was returned to New York before the season began. Webb wound up making it to the big leagues with New York this season in any case and thus far has worked 6.0 innings in seven appearances, including two games against the Brewers last week. He’s allowed three earned runs with four walks, five punchouts, and a single home run.

Though they may not have been enamored with him last winter, Milwaukee’s front office apparently sees enough future value in Tyler Webb that they were willing to give up an interesting (albeit blocked) first base prospect in Garrett Cooper in order to bring him in. Webb will report to the big league club for their series that begins later tonight at Miller Park, joining the bullpen as a left-handed specialist to complement the right-handed, splitter-wielding, tough-on-lefties Oliver Drake. Having just made his big league debut this year, Webb still has a full six seasons of club control remaining, so if he performs as the club surely hope he could very well become a multi-year fixture in the Brewers’ bullpen going forward.

Photo Credit: Andy Marlin, USAToday Sports Images