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At the opening of the 2019 regular season next week, the Milwaukee Brewers will not have two of the top three lifters in their last game. Josh Hader is in good health, but Jeremy Jeffress has been slowed down by a shoulder injury and Corey Knebel has a problem with his elbow.
Jeffress was able to toss a marker Thursday and his manager, Craig Counsell, said he should join the team in April after a brief stint on the injured list. The situation in Knebel is much more disturbing. He has a damaged ulnar collateral ligament and will ask for a second opinion. Tommy John's surgery is a possibility but not a certainty.
Tom Haudricourt from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has details about Knebel's injury:
"There is a problem with UCL," said manager Craig Counsell after the Brewers' 11-5 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. "He's going to have a second opinion, then we'll take a step forward, that's where we are."
Counsell said that Knebel was beating a damaged UCL, probably since he was injured in the elbow in 2014, while he was in the Detroit system. He said that it was not a complete tear, which would require reconstructive elbow surgery by Tommy John and an absence of about a year.
"We do not know," said Counsell about Knebel who may need this procedure. "Corey has been advocating this for a long time, we have to find what's there, what's new, make sure you have the right answer, and then move on."
Even if Tommy John's operation is not necessary, Knebel will miss several weeks because of his elbow problem. The pitchers are not content to get a second opinion on a partial rift of a week at UCL to be part of the major league 's lineup next week. Even slight ligament tears require treatment and weeks of rehabilitation. Knebel will miss a little time, even in the best of cases.
In addition to Jeffress and Knebel, the Brewers will also be without Bobby Wahl, who never sleeps. who had a knee injury caused by the flu earlier in the spring. Corbin Burnes, Freddy Peralta and Brandon Woodruff are all charged for the rotation, leaving Counsell and the Brewers with this relief opening project:
In all likelihood, Hader will not be married in the ninth inning while Jeffress and Knebel are out. Counsell proved that he was able to take advantage of his levers. It is therefore likely that he will use Hader against the best batters of the other team in the seventh and eighth innings, leaving the ninth inning to someone else. Milwaukee's roles are not too rigid.
Earlier this week, it was reported that the Brewers were talking to the nearest independent agent, Craig Kimbrel, although the reports are in conflict. One person said the discussions were serious, another said the Brewers were just doing due diligence. Chief Brewer David Stearns was certainly opportunistic over the winter, signing one-year contracts for Yasmani Grandal and Mike Moustakas when their markets collapsed. Trying to do the same thing with Kimbrel makes perfect sense.
And, with Jeffress temporarily and Knebel probably longer in the long run, Kimbrel has quickly gone from a potential luxury product to a necessity for the Brewers. They are designed to be good enough by starting, eliminating their opponents, then smothering them with the pen in the last innings. This office has now been somewhat compromised. Even if Jeffress returns soon, losing Knebel is a blow.
The Brewers won 96 games a year ago and finished with the best record in the National League. The different projection systems do not expect them to be so great this season. Check it out:
|
Fangraphs |
83-79 |
3rd (5 GB) |
4th (2 GB of spot WC) |
|
Pecota |
88-74 |
1st (+2 GB) |
N / A (+1 GB on the WC spot) |
|
SportsLine |
87-75 |
T-2nd (5 GB) |
T-1st (+3 GB on the WC spot) |
Even if you think that the projection systems are hogwash because they have all missed the Royals this year, I think we can all agree that NL Central will be very competitive this season. The Cardinals have improved a lot and I'm not ready to bury a team of Cubs who won 95 games a year ago despite so many problems (Yu Darvish was injured, everyone stopped hitting in September , etc.).
The Brewers are at a very tricky point of the earnings curve. The NL Central race seems to be very tight, which means that every Brewers (or Cardinals or Cubs) win added to their list has a huge impact. The chances of winning the division are much better. It's one thing to add a win and go from 95 to 96 wins when you're already a division favorite, or go from 75 to 76 wins when you rebuild. When you're in a division race and you can pass, say, 90 to 91 wins, it's potentially huge.
We know for sure that Jeffress will miss the start of the regular season and we can assume that Knebel will miss several weeks with his damaged UCL. This means (theoretically) that the lower relief people will be pushed into tight / high leverage situations in their absence. Instead of Barnes and Williams being Counsell Counts 4 and 5, they are now his 2 and 3 relievers. It's a big difference, a difference that Kimbrel can help catch up with.
Kimbrel's signature would probably push Petricka towards Triple-A and give Counsell again the freedom to use Hader as a multi-sleeved weapon. He would no longer have to worry about the ninth inning. The difference between Kimbrel and Petricka, the replacement he would likely replace, could represent several more wins. Two or three, maybe even maybe four or five, should Kimbrel have a 2017 season rather than a 2018 season in 2019.
Potential blocking is not necessary. There is still room for another high-quality bullpen in the bullpen and, with Jeffress and Knebel injured, the Brewers could clearly use another arm at the end of the game. The potential blockage is money. Cot's baseball contracts include the Brewers with a payroll planned for the opening day of $ 121.7 million. It's about $ 30 million more than last year. From one side, Brewers accessories to increase payroll and try to improve. That's how it should work when you're in their position.
On the other hand, the Brewers should also post the largest payroll in the history of franchises this season. Milwaukee is the smallest baseball market and it may be difficult, if not impossible, to further increase the payroll, especially as Kimbrel wants to at least match the qualifying offer for one year, in the amount of 17 , $ 9 million, which he rejected early in the off season. If Kimbrel was willing to take, for example, money for Moustakas (one year, $ 10 million), I think half of the league would try to do it.
All competitors could use Craig Kimbrel in their paddock and the Brewers are particularly well placed now that two of their best end-of-round players are injured, a potentially long-term injury. The Central Central NL race is tight again, so everything the club can do to separate from the pack is worth it. Financially, this might not work. At this point however, signing Kimbrel seems more like a necessity for the Brewers. It no longer looks like a potential luxury.
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