Brewers trade rumors: Andrew Chafin
As the Major League Baseball trade deadline approaches (5 p.m. CT Aug. 1), we'll keep tabs on the rumors and speculation related to the Milwaukee Brewers from around the internet.
The Brewers have already made two moves, trading for first baseman Carlos Santana in exchange for 18-year-old prospect Jhonny Severino and adding Mets outfielder Mark Canha in a swap for minor-league pitcher Justin Jarvis. What else is cooking for the Brewers?
Aug. 1: A name to know: Andrew Chafin
The Brewers already had two "deadline' deals made by the morning of the trade deadline, but general manager Matt Arnold said he expected to remain active in discussions.
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic had another name to offer Tuesday morning: relief pitcher Andrew Chafin of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Rosenthal indicated the Brewers were interested in the right-hander.
Chafin signed an offseason deal with Arizona for $6.23 million, with a team option. He was a relatively coveted free-agent target after an excellent year last year with Detroit, but his ERA is up to 4.19 this year and his WHIP at 1.427, even though his strikeouts have gone up this season.
The 33-year-old might be expendable even for a Diamondbacks team in playoff contention after Arizona acquired Mariners closer Paul Sewald on Monday. The Brewers bullpen is starting to show some cracks after a superb run, with blown leads in back-to-back games.
Jon Heyman reiterated the Brewers' interest in Chafin.
July 31: A list of potential bats from Ken Rosenthal
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic indicated that the Brewers would still be in the market for a bat, and he threw out a list of names that might fit the bill, including Washington's Jeimer Candelario, New York's Mark Canha and Tommy Pham, Seattle's Teoscar Hernández, St. Louis infielder Paul DeJong, and Boston's Adam Duvall and Alex Verdugo.
Candelario and Canha are discussed below. Hernández is interesting, but the Mariners have had some recent success, and it's unclear if they'd want to be selling at the deadline.
The two-time Silver Slugger has struggled a bit this year relative to recent years, with a .696 OPS and a below-average OPS-plus after six straight well-above-average seasons in that regard. He also leads the American League with 141 strikeouts. But he is superb against left-handed pitching.
The free agent after the season is a right-handed hitter and an above-average defender.
The left-handed batting outfielder Verdugo has a .769 OPS and has been steady over the past several years, and the 27-year-old is still only arbitration eligible next year and not a free agent until 2025. He has slumped badly in July (his OPS on June 30 was .836 and then he posted a .477 over 78 plate appearances this month) but rates as a well-above-average right fielder on defense.
Update: The Brewers traded for Canha on July 31.
July 31: A name to know: Mets outfielder Tommy Pham
Robert Murray of FanSided, who used to cover the Milwaukee Brewers for The Athletic, floated the name of Tommy Pham as a potential fit for the Brewers.
The Mets outfielder is 35-years-old and "the Brewers have expressed interest in the past." He's having a nice year, with an .820 OPS for his best offensive season since 2018. Primarily a left fielder, the right-handed hitter is on a short-term deal and will be a free agent after the season.
July 29: A name to know: Mets outfielder Mark Canha
Will Sammon of The Athletic, who covers the New York Mets but also previously covered the Milwaukee Brewers, mentioned that the Brewers and Dodgers are teams interested in outfielder Mark Canha. The Mets essentially indicated that they were in sell mode by trading relief pitcher David Robertson a few days ago.
Canha is having a down year offensively, though he's still regarded as a top-25 outfielder defensively in terms of defensive runs save (plus-5). By comparison, Joey Wiemer is a plus-6.
Canha has been slightly below average in terms of OPS-plus this year (99), with a .712 OPS and six homers this season. That's a big step down for the 34-year-old, who was at 123 and a .770 mark last year with the Mets. He'd been well above average from 2018 through last year, with most of those years in Oakland.
Canha has played the majority of his time in left field this year but has also played double-digit games at designated hitter, first base and right field. he has a 2024 team option on his contract, which was a two-year, $26.5 million pact which would pay him another $11.5 million next year.
Update: The Brewers traded for Canha on July 31.
July 29: A (brief) Eloy Jiménez mention
Bruce Levine, a long-tenured baseball analyst in Chicago, appeared on the Mully & Haugh Show on July 27 on 670 The Score talking about the Cubs and White Sox and briefly mentioned that the Brewers had inquired about Eloy Jiménez of the White Sox.
"They're definitely looking for hitting," Levine said. "They've checked in even with the White Sox to talk about Eloy Jimenez from the people I've talked to. They want to add more hitting at this point."
Bear in mind, this interview took place before the Brewers acquired Carlos Santana, though Jiménez has primarily been a designated hitter for the White Sox this year and occasionally a right fielder.
The White Sox are in full-throttle sell mode, having dealt Lance Lynn, Joe Kelly, Kendall Graveman, Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez in short order. Jiménez, who is signed through 2024 in the final year of a six-year deal worth $43 million, still rates as an above-average hitter (.806 OPS, 13 homers, 119 OPS+ indicating he's 19 percent better than an average hitter), but he's not an elite defender and would essentially be pigeonholed as a designated hitter.
That might mean, if he's traded, that he commands a steeper return than the Brewers would be willing to pay.
After all, Keston Hiura registered a 114 OPS+ last year in 266 plate appearances, and given his success at Class AAA again, it seems as though the Brewers could expect to match a good percentage of what Jiménez offers merely by promoting Hiura. Or, more likely, the team would rather add someone who could contribute on both sides of the ball if they make a move of any kind.
July 28: A proposal from Fangraphs for a Jeimer Candelario
Dan Szymborski of Fangraphs offered a series of trade proposals around baseball, including one that would get the Brewers a third baseman to pair with their new first baseman.
He proposes the Brewers acquiring Candelario from the Nationals for minors leaguers Robert Moore and Freddy Zamora, a pair of middle infielders.
"I can’t imagine that the Brewers will stand completely pat given their precarious lead in the NL Central, but I suspect they aren’t in the mix for the best players available at the deadline," Szymborski wrote. "The team is 13th in the NL in runs scored, so they need to add offense fast, and Candelario’s a solid bat to plug into the middle of the order for two months. Third base has been one of the lineup’s (many) weak spots."
Candelario, 29, is a free agent after the year and is having a superb season, with an .812 OPS and 16 homers. He grades out as a slightly-above-average defender in terms of Defensive Runs Saved by The Fielding Bible, so he wouldn't be a downgrade there.
Moore, who had a big night at Advanced Class A Wisconsin on Thursday night, is regarded as the team's No. 8 prospect according to MLB.com. The 21-year-old has a .712 OPS and plays second base for the Timber Rattlers this season. The 24-year-old shortstop Zamora had a .753 OPS at Class AA Biloxi and is ranked No. 20 in the system by MLB.com.
Update: Candelario was traded to the Chicago Cubs on July 31.
July 27: Could the Brewers get a good return dealing Major Leaguers like Victor Caratini and Colin Rea?
They might not immediately jump to mind as players who can be traded with a big return, but Jeff Passan of ESPN floated a couple names that the Brewers might be willing to trade, namely catcher Victor Caratini and starter Colin Rea.
Robert Murray of FanSided echoed Passan's sentiment that Caratini could be a trade chip. The reliable backup catcher has often served behind the plate for Corbin Burnes starts, and he's provided a .710 OPS at the plate with five homers (as of July 27). He's just about everything you could hope for as a backup catcher, but he might have crossed into territory where he's good enough to start for another team looking for help at the position.
Caratini is a free agent after the season. At Class AAA Nashville, Alex Jackson (who played in five games for the Brewers last year) has a .942 OPS in 43 games, with 12 homers tied for second on the team. No slouch himself, fellow catcher Payton Henry has an .858 OPS and gets on base with an impressive .371 clip. Never mind the fact that one of the team's top prospects, Class AA catcher Jeferson Quero, is having a massive year with Biloxi.
Rea has made 17 starts for the Brewers, posting a 5-4 record and 4.53 ERA with a 1.193 WHIP. He strikes out a respectable 7.4 batters per nine innings and could be rotation depth for a team that doesn't have what the Brewers have (when healthy), which is a slew of options that includes Wade Miley, Adrian Houser, Julio Teheran and perhaps even Class AAA pitcher Robert Gasser after the "big three" of Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff and Freddy Peralta.
The Shohei Ohtani situation took a big turn Wednesday night
Brewers fans probably weren't alone in dreaming of a scenario that brought Angels mega-star Shohei Ohtani to Milwaukee for the final two months before he hit free agency. But Wednesday night represented a massive shift for the Los Angeles Angels.
Not only did the team say it had no intention of trading Ohtani, it backed that up with a bold pre-deadline move, adding White Sox starter Lucas Giolito and reliever Reynaldo Lopez. Giolito was arguably the biggest name available on the starting-pitching market, and it was a clear-as-day statement that the Angels intended to push for a playoff berth this season and not back up to fight another day.
Entering Thursday, the Angels had a 52-49 record, seven games back of Texas in the American League West and four games back of the nearest wild card spot, with two teams (Red Sox and Yankees) to leapfrog in between. The Angels, however, just swept the Yankees and had won six of seven heading into a Thursday doubleheader at Detroit.
It's perhaps dismaying to Brewers fans for a couple reasons; one, it rules out the Ohtani fantasy, but it also adds one more aggressive buyer on the market who could have been seen as a seller. The Brewers probably wouldn't have been a player for Giolito, but as the dominoes start to fall, it creates greater competition for the rest of the market.
MLB's big middle class presents challenges
Numerous teams, including the Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners, New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals, find themselves in an awkward middle ground where it's unclear if they're "buyers" or "sellers." It's not an unusual phenomenon, but it again means only a small handful of teams will be truly open to moving top talents, and those on the fence are going to wait until the bitter end either way.
The Cubs are an interesting case, entering Thursday with a 50-51 record but still just 4½ games from the nearest wild card spot and six games out of first place in the NL Central. They've won seven of eight and five straight heading into Thursday, and their plus-48 run differential (the only positive one in the NL Central) sure indicates that they're underperforming their record.
The Cubs and Cardinals haven't exactly shown a track record of dealing with Milwaukee regardless of situation, either.
Players listed as 'fits' for the Brewers include a trio of Rockies: C.J. Cron, Randal Grichuk, Brad Hand
Mark Feinsand of MLB.com wrote a look at players he fully expected to be traded at the deadline and speculated that the Brewers could find a home for a number of Colorado Rockies.
That includes C.J. Cron, a free agent after the year who can play first base and has 11 home runs in 53 games this season. His on-base percentage, however, is below .300, and he's far less of a fit now that the Brewers have acquired Santana.
Outfielder Randal Grichuk has an .842 OPS and can play three outfield spots, and he's also in the final year of his current contract. But he's not a home-run masher (six bombs this year playing in a notoriously hitter-friendly park), and he wouldn't likely match the defensive prowess that the Brewers currently have in-house.
Reliever Brad Hand has pretty strong splits but would be a good option agianst left-handed bats. He has a 4.76 ERA this year and 1.50 WHIP in Colorado in 38 games, but remember the environment; over the previous three seasons, he had a 3.24 ERA and 1.217 WHIP in 206 games. He's also a free agent after this year.
Feinsand also mentions the Brewers as a possible fit for Tigers left-handed starter Eduardo Rodriguez, who has three years left on his $49 million contract but can opt out of those (and probably will, given that he's got a 2.95 ERA this season in 15 starts).
UPDATE: Both Cron and Grichuk were traded to the Angels on July 30.
Brewers looking for middle infielders?
Jon Morosi of MLB Network said the Blue Jays, Mariners, Giants and Brewers are among teams looking at middle infielders.
It's a pretty broad statement that could easily be applied to most teams, but what's surprising is that the Brewers love Brice Turang's defense at second base (even if his offense is a work in progress) and Willy Adames, while struggling at times with the bat, has been a defensive linchpin and is one of the team's cornerstones.
Morosi mentioned White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson, Cardinals shortstop Paul DeJong and Rays utility player Vidal Bruján as available bats.
Anderson is the most exciting of those names, having made the All-Star team in 2021 and 2022 after emerging as one of the game's brightest stars. But his relationship with the White Sox has been occasionally tumultuous, his personal life has been the subject of headlines, and his numbers have plummeted this year (.571 OPS, .285 OBP). He's still a quality defender and might fit the mold of the classic "change of scenery" guy. He's 30 years old and has a team option for 2024 at the end of his seven-year, $37.5 million deal.
Bruján is only 25 and not arbitration eligible until 2026. The switch hitter has bleak numbers this year (.486 OPS in 58 plate appearances), but he could play almost any position on the diamond and has much better numbers in AAA. Over the past two years and nearly 500 plate appearances at that level, he's posted an OPS near .800, on-base percentages in the .360s and 42 stolen bases.
One proposed trade by former GM involves Brewers receiving top-50 prospect
Jim Bowden, a former baseball GM who now writes for The Athletic, proposed six trades he'd like to see and threw out an unconventional one, with the Brewers dealing outfielder Garrett Mitchell and receiving Oakland Athletics catcher/first baseman Tyler Soderstrom.
Soderstrom, a first-round pick in 2020 who was actually taken six picks after Mitchell that season, is just 21 years old and could theoretically provide left-handed pop at first base. He hit 29 homers in the minors last year.
In return, the A's would get a player who's going to miss most of the rest of the season with injury, but Milwaukee does find itself with a number of outfield options long-term, including Sal Frelick, Joey Wiemer, Christian Yelich and, eventually, Jackson Chourio.
The Brewers, of course, already got a hefty return in a recent exchange with Oakland for a young outfielder.
It seems like a weird deal from Oakland's perspective, in that they'd be surrendering a top-50 prospect in baseball for Mitchell, a player who may be further along in development toward proving he can be a reliable MLB regular, but has injury question marks. Would the A's, nowhere near "win now" mode, really be willing to part with a higher-ceiling prospect?
But it does raise the question: would Mitchell be the type of player the Brewers could dangle in some type of trade?
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers trade rumors: Who are players to watch at deadline?
