The Milwaukee Brewers have begun their yearly tradition of cutting costs, and on Monday, the Brewers ended up declining the $5.5 million player option on Colin Rea’s contract, therefore making him a free agent.

But before Rea’s option was declined, 29 other teams had the opportunity to claim his contract off of waivers, and none decided to do so, which was rather telling of how teams view the 34-year-old starting pitcher.

Rea has been a reliable source of innings over the past two seasons for the Brewers. He suited up in a total of 58 games since 2023, with 49 of those being starts. The veteran pitcher managed to throw 292.1 innings during that span, which is certainly of value for any MLB team — but perhaps not just for $5.5 million.

One of Rea’s weak points as a pitcher is that his stuff doesn’t rate highly in teams’ metrics. As Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic pointed out, Rea ranked 55th out of the 58 qualified major-league pitchers last season in the advanced metric Stuff+, with only Jose Quintana, Austin Gomber and Patrick Corbin ranking lower than the former Brewers pitcher.

Teams have been wary over the past few years of relying on pitchers whose stuff aren’t the best, and Rea has clearly given teams reason to be worried over how he’d perform in the next few seasons. Regardless, Rea should find a home rather easily. Innings eaters don’t grow on trees, and it’s not like he couldn’t get any outs to save his life.

Not only has he absorbed plenty of innings for the Brewers over the past two seasons, he has also done so at a reasonably good level. He has an ERA of 4.45 to go along with 245 strikeouts since the start of the 2023 season, and perhaps on a contract worth less than the $5.5 million he would have made had the Brewers picked up his option, he could be a worthwhile addition for any team that needs some reinforcements at the back of their rotation.

Brewers brace for another starting rotation retool

Not only did the Brewers decide to let go of Colin Rea, they also lost Frankie Montas, who opted to enter free agency after declining his side of a mutual option worth $20 million.

The Brewers got a combined 38 starts from Montas and Rea last season, and Milwaukee will now have to find a way to replace those 225 innings they’re likely to lose with the departures of those two.

Nonetheless, the Brewers have earned the benefit of the doubt in this regard.

They also lost a huge piece of their starting rotation last offseason in Corbin Burnes, whom they decided to trade away to the Baltimore Orioles in the final year of his deal. But at the very least, the Brewers have had a good nose for cobbling together a workable starting rotation despite being limited by their budgetary constraints.

The Brewers’ in-house options aren’t too bad anyway. They have Freddie Peralta and Tobias Myers atop the rotation, and they have Brandon Woodruff as a wildcard option, provided that he’s healthy to pitch after missing the entirety of last season due to a shoulder injury.