The Brewers remained competitive after cutting payroll last season. Could they replicate it again like their sign Rhys Hoskins, trade Corbin Burnes scenario?

Last winter, the Brewers had a very interesting and somewhat confusing offseason. The front office made it clear the team was planning to compete, yet there weren’t any signs of showing it. Trading away Mark Canha, letting Carlos Santana walk, and packaging Adrian Houser and Tyrone Taylor for a pitcher recovering from Tommy John surgery doesn’t sound like moves a team with playoff aspirations would make.

But just when January came around, the Brewers made a big splash by signing the top free agent first baseman, Rhys Hoskins, to a two-year deal in what looked like the offseason-defining move. But then, about a week later, the club flipped their ace pitcher Corbin Burnes for the return of Joey Ortiz, DL Hall, and a compensatory first-round pick who eventually became first baseman from Tennessee, Blake Burke.

Fast-forward to today, the club won the NL Central and was just as competitive while shedding around $10 million from its 2023 payroll. With the Brewers moving away from Bally Sports and now having their games aired on MLB.tv, there’s a chance the Brewers will have to do it again and cut payroll while planning to make another playoff run.

The Brewers might have to replicate their duo transactions of signing Hoskins and trading Burnes to save money. Join me in this series of trying to replicate this double move with the 2025 crop of free agents.

Payroll Preview

Before we look into what the Brewers could do to cut salary, why don’t we look at what the payroll could look like without making a signing or trade? We already know Willy Adames and Joe Ross will be off the payroll. But there is still good money that’ll need to be paid elsewhere.

According to Adam McCalvy, eight players have options in their contract. Hoskins has opted into his $18 million salary, while the Brewers will likely opt into the club options of Freddy Peralta, Colin Rea, Devin Williams and Eric Haase. Wade Miley has already been bought out of his $12 million contract for 2025 for the $1.5 million buyout. Barring a trade before a potential deadline, the club will probably elect to pay the buyouts of Gary Sanchez and Frankie Montas.

Next, the club has eight arbitration eligible players looking to get a nice raise. For now, we will assume all players will be tendered and the salaries will be the same as the FanGraphs projections.

Finally, there are pre-arbitration contracts that will have a pay near the league minimum. While we can’t assume each player will be paid $760,000, we can look at the projected salaries of those contracts according to FanGraphs which currently sit at $11.4 million.

When we put all those numbers together, the Brewers would have a projected salary of around $127 million. This is around $11 million more than the projected 2024 payroll. Even though FanGraphs projected roster payroll is currently at $99.36 million, it doesn’t account for the players that will opt into their contracts. So, with this being known, the Brewers won’t go out and buy another player without cutting their salary from other avenues. But let’s look at the potential signing first before cutting salary.

SIGNING: Brewers Sign 2B/SS Gleyber Torres (Calculated Market Value Per Spotrac: three-year, $21 million)

I know what you are all thinking, why do the Brewers need another middle infielder? Joey Ortiz and Brice Turang are great middle infielders. The club has Tyler Black waiting for his time to get called up. Cooper Pratt is going to be the club’s future. So why get another one?

It may seem easy to slide a player like Ortiz over to shortstop and find someone to take over at third. But even the options at third are quite slim in-house. If they go this route, the next man up would probably be Andruw Monasterio. Nothing against the utility infielder, but it is definitely a far cry from Adames with the bat.

As for potential prospects, the aforementioned Black is still trying to figure out his role in the organization and could slide in at the hot corner. 2023 first-round pick Brock Wilken could also see some opportunities at the major league level. However, with a .199/.312/.363 line in 108 games with the Biloxi Shuckers last season, he may need time in Triple-A Nashville before the club adds him to the 40-man roster.

The free agent market isn’t great either. Alex Bregman is just as if not more expensive than Adames. Yoan Moncada is an option, but he has only played 104 games in the last two seasons. Eugenio Suarez could’ve been a great option that could’ve provided a little bit of pop in the lineup. The Diamondbacks, however, exercised his $15 million option preventing him from joining free agency.

Gleyber Torres could play second base and allow Turang to play his natural shortstop position. In seven seasons with the Yankees he has a .265/.334/.441 line with a 113 wRC+. The Venezuelan two-time All-Star had a rough start to his 2024 season, posting a .230 batting average with eight home runs and 35 RBI in his first 93 games of the season. However, his second half of the season should net him a better paycheck in 2025, as he hit .290 with a .780 OPS in his last 61 games.

Torres is a career .251/.332/.398 hitter with two outs and runners in scoring position. In high leverage situations, he had a .338 batting average on balls in play with 27 RBI with a 102 OPS+. While he doesn’t exactly fit the hole that was left behind, he would be a decent replacement in the lineup. The same cannot be said for his defense.

According to FanGraphs, he had a negative OAA (outs above average) as well as -11 defensive runs saved in 2024. For an organization that had prided itself on defense over the last few years, signing a bat like Torres could become a defensive liability.

He had positive defensive numbers back in 2022, but it’s still not the same glove as Adames provided. There has been a potential buzz of moving outfielder Sal Frelick into the infield so maybe Milwaukee could use Torres’s talents as a part-time DH.

In his final year of arbitration, Torres received a $14.2 million contract. He may not be worth that type of pay this offseason, but he is still arguably the best second baseman on the free agent market. He will likely look for a better pay than the projection made by Spotrac.

Prediction: Gleyber Torres signs a two year, $26 million with an opt out after 2025 (4 million buyout) and a mutual option for 2027 ($16 million, 3 million buyout)

TRADE: Brewers trade Devin William (2025 Salary: $10.5 million)

If there was a talking point to end the Brewers 2024 season, it was Devin Williams who came into the ninth with a 2-0 lead attempting to punch the Crew’s ticket to the NLDS. Unfortunately, he allowed four runs including a three-run home run by pending free agent Pete Alonso. From then on, people were wondering if this may be the last time we see the Airbender as a Brewer.

In six seasons with the Brewers, Williams picked up 97 saves, a 1.83 ERA, and a 1.02 WHIP. His efforts resulted in him winning the 2020 Rookie of the Year as well as two Trevor Hoffman Reliever of the Year awards (2020 and 2023).

Last offseason, the Brewers signed Williams to a deal hours after the club had exchanged arbitration numbers. The deal was for one year, $7.5 million and a club option for 2025 worth $10.5 million with a $250,000 opt out.

If the Brewers were planning to keep Williams, they would likely take the buyout and negotiate a one year contract in his final year of arbitration in hopes to get a lower salary. But we all knew what happened to Josh Hader and Corbin Burnes in their final years of arbitration. This could be no different.

We’ve already seen what a Brewers team would look like without Williams. For the first half of the season, he was nursing stress fractures in his back. During that time, the Brewers went (75-56) as Trevor Megill slid into the closer’s role. By the end of the season, the Brewers bullpen had a 3.11 ERA and a 1.16 WHIP. Even if you take away Williams numbers, the rest of the bullpen would still have the second best ERA in baseball (3.16) along with the third-best WHIP (1.16).

The Brewers can fill the void of Williams with pitchers like Trevor Megill, Abner Uribe, Bryan Hudson, and even Nick Mears if the “pitching lab go brrr.”

If the Brewers elect to trade Williams, don’t expect a huge package. It’s not like Milwaukee can get a Samuel Basallo from the Orioles, an Aidan Miller from the Phillies, or a Dalton Rushing from the Dodgers (although I wouldn’t say no if they offered it).

If anything, you should expect a trade package less that what the Brewers got for Burnes. At the time, the deal didn’t seem like much, but look what Joey Ortiz has become for the Crew.

Conclusion
In this scenario, the signing of Gleyber Torres and a Devin Williams trade is a wash salary wise. While that is a bad thing for a team that is trying to at minimum hover around the $116 million salary from 2024, there’s an argument made that it makes the team better.

Williams, while a renowned relief pitcher around the league, doesn’t exactly hurt the bullpen as much as it may seem. Adding Torres, on the other hand, gives the Brewers a young veteran upgrade to a lineup that needed some sort of help after Adames elects free agency.

There are other avenues of saving money such as non-tendering the likes of Hoby Milner or Bryse Wilson, signing players to backloaded extensions (William Contreras), or making other trades like the Devin Williams one listed above.

Regardless, expect another busy offseason with trades and interesting “diamond in the rough” type signings this winter.