Photo Credit: Gene Wang (Flickr CC)
With the 2017 season officially over, free agency is underway across Major League Baseball. If you believe MLB Trade Rumors’ predictions then it will be a busy winter for the Brewers, as they’re expected to re-sign two of their own free agents in addition to adding Jake Arrieta from the Cubs. A four year, $100 million contract for Arrieta would be easily the largest free agent deal in Brewers franchise history, surpassed by only the five-year, $105 million extension Ryan Braun signed in April of 2011 (and which took effect in 2016).
The two free agents MLBTR thinks the Brewers will retain were both 2017 in-season acquisitions: Neil Walker and Anthony Swarzak. They’re expected to receive a combined $34 million on their respective two-year contracts. Even if both of those players do return, however, the Brewers could still be losing a few somewhat historically relevant players this winter.
The Brewers have money to spend in the months ahead at least partially because Matt Garza’s four-year, $50 million contract is finally off the books. After a successful first season in Milwaukee, Garza posted a combined 5.10 ERA over his final three years as a Brewer and allowed a 1.512 WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched), as compared to a league average around 1.300.
It is perhaps fitting that Garza finds a place in Brewers history alongside many of the contracts his will always be compared to. His 528 1/3 innings as a Brewer were the 31st most in franchise history, and 26 through 28 on that list are Jeff Suppan (577), Randy Wolf (570 1/3) and Kyle Lohse (549 1/3). Using the ballpark and era-adjusted statistic ERA+, Garza was the fourth-worst Brewer ever to accumulate 500 innings of work: Only Manny Parra, Suppan and Bill Parsons were worse.
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Last week Garza was joined in free agency by Carlos Torres, who the Brewers outrighted off of the 40-man roster instead of offering arbitration. Torres fell out of favor with the fans late in his two-year tenure but, all told, his numbers with the Brewers weren’t all that bad. He posted a 3.43 ERA in 139 appearances, more than half a run better than the league average for relievers (4.15).
Torres also serves as an interesting reminder of how much relief roles have changed over the course of Brewers franchise history. The frequently-used short reliever is a relatively new phenomenon, which is why Torres ranks 37th on the Brewers’ all-time list for relief appearances despite having spent just two seasons in Milwaukee.
With that said, the longest tenured Brewer set free this winter actually left the organization a few weeks ago: Wily Peralta became a minor league free agent during the first week in October when the Brewers opted not to put him back on their 40-man roster. At the time of his demotion Peralta was the Brewers’ active career leader in innings pitched with 704 2/3, the 22nd most in franchise history. Only five pitchers have thrown more innings at Miller Park than Peralta (385 2/3): Ben Sheets (750), Yovani Gallardo (667), Dave Bush (475 2/3), Chris Capuano (401 1/3 and Doug Davis (392 2/3).
The two most often used systems to quantify pitcher value vary pretty wildly in their estimations of Peralta’s contributions to the Brewers: FanGraphs has Peralta being worth 5.2 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) from 2012-present, while Baseball Reference has him at just 1.7. That latter number puts him in a class all by himself, as only Peralta (704 2/3 innings pitched) and Garza (528 1/3 innings pitched) have pitched more than 160 innings as Brewers and produced less than two wins’ worth of value.
It seems unlikely that we’ll ever see these three free agents in Brewers uniforms again, and perhaps fans won’t miss them. From time to time, however, we’ll almost certainly find cause to refer back to their contributions to Brewers history.
