With Sunday night’s news that Josh Naylor signed a five-year free agent deal to remain in Seattle, the 2025-26 baseball offseason is officially in full swing. Over the next couple weeks, we here at Brew Crew Ball will be looking at various areas on the roster, looking at how extensive the team’s need is in that area, and looking at a few potential options in both free agency and in the trade market. Today, we get started with starting pitchers.
Milwaukee’s starting rotation was in such dire need of help at the beginning of the 2025 season that the Brewers made a rare aggressive, early-season trade, one that brought in Quinn Priester in exchange for a top 10 organizational prospect (Yophery Rodriguez) and a high draft pick, No. 33 overall.
That trade ended up working out about as well as anyone in Milwaukee could’ve hoped: Priester, a former first-round pick and top 100 prospect, finally put it together after failing to make an impact at the major league level in either Pittsburgh or Boston, and finished the season at 13-3 with a 3.32 ERA (125 ERA+) in 157 1/3 innings. Milwaukee now has five more seasons of team control on Priester, who only just turned 25 in September, and he figures to be a staple of their rotation moving forward.
The rest of the rotation has plenty of questions, but there are plenty of answers around, too. The biggest question is in regard to staff ace Freddy Peralta, who has one more season on the contract extension he signed in 2020. He’s being paid just $8 million this season, an immense bargain for an in-his-prime pitcher who finished fifth in the National League’s Cy Young voting in 2025. The fact that he’s just a year from free agency means there is plenty of talk about whether Peralta will be traded before the season — fair to wonder, given the way that Milwaukee approached the dwindling years of control on Josh Hader, Corbin Burnes, and Devin Williams — but indications so far seem to be that while the Brewers are listening on Peralta, they’d need to be absolutely blown away by an offer to let him go. It seems most likely at this point that Milwaukee keeps Peralta into the season, and assuming they’re in contention at the trade deadline, they’ll keep him until the end of the season, extend a qualifying offer, and accept a compensatory draft pick when he signs elsewhere next winter.
The rest of the staff is one of the more intriguing areas of the team heading into 2026. Jacob Misiorowski had a roller coaster first season in the big leagues but ended it by showing in the playoffs that he is absolutely the type of talent that could carry this rotation for years to come. Barring something catastrophic, he will be in the rotation to start next season.
The same can probably be said for Chad Patrick, who had a fantastic start to the 2025 season before slowing down somewhat and spending some time back in the minors — not so much because of poor performance, but because the Brewers got healthy enough that they no longer needed him. The time away did wonders: in the minors, Patrick worked on a new slider, and when he came back, he looked better than ever. Like Misiorowski, Patrick pitched a bunch of huge innings in the postseason and seems poised to enter the 2026 season with an inside track on a rotation spot, though he could end up in the bullpen.
Peralta, Priester, Patrick (that’s a lot of Ps) and Misiorowski make four, but if there’s one thing we know about modern baseball, it’s that you can never have too many starting pitcher options. Free agent Brandon Woodruff could be one of those options (see below), but Milwaukee has several internal options for that last rotation spot. Logan Henderson and Robert Gasser are both highly regarded prospects who have impressed in small samples in the majors in their young careers but missed most of 2025 with injuries. Tobias Myers looked good out of the bullpen late in the season and could reclaim the rotation spot in which he impressed in 2024. DL Hall and Aaron Ashby may be destined for bullpen roles at this point in their careers, but both were considered future starters in the minors and it’s not out of the question that one or both of them could still start as a Brewer. Carlos Rodriguez hasn’t been effective at the major league level, but he’s not 24 yet and he’s had a good minor league career; if nothing else, he offers some depth.
That’s a lot of solid options for the Brewers, which makes you think that starting pitcher may not be much of a concern for the front office this offseason. But while this group boasts talent, it lacks experience, and if the Brewers trade Peralta (that’s a huge if), they’ll be one of the most inexperienced groups in the league barring an outside move.
Let’s look at some options for that outside move.
Two pitchers who played a big role for the Brewers in 2025 are free agents: the first is franchise legend Brandon Woodruff, who declined his end of a mutual option and became a free agent. The Brewers have offered Woodruff the qualifying offer (one year at just over $22 million), and he will need to make a decision on that early this week, a decision that may not be particularly easy.
Given his injury history, it’s far from a given that Woodruff will have a ton of suitors, and while he should be able to get two or three years on a deal that’s worth at least as much as $22 million (if not more), it’s not guaranteed, especially given that any team that would sign Woodruff to a deal like that would need to forfeit a draft pick. If Woodruff declines the qualifying offer, it’s unlikely that he’d return to Milwaukee, but it’s not completely out of the question; he’s a legend here and clearly likes it, and I think all things considered he’d probably like to continue playing for the Brewers. But he’ll go where he gets the best deal, as he should.
The other player in this category is the wily veteran lefty Jose Quintana, who is approaching his 37th birthday but gave the Brewers 131 2/3 decent innings in 2025. Especially toward the end of the season, things were scary with Quintana; he’s got no “stuff” left, and he’s getting by on the 2,100 innings of big-league experience he’s got at this point (an immense number by modern standards: since the turn of the century, that’s 39th among all pitchers, and since 2010, it is seventh).
Quintana had a $15 million mutual option declined for the 2026 season, which was definitely too much for what he can offer at this point. But it’s not inconceivable that the Brewers could explore bringing him back at a number closer to the $4 million (plus a $2 million buyout) that he made in 2025.
This isn’t a great free agent class for starters, but there are a few intriguing names at the top: Dylan Cease, Framber Valdez, Ranger Suárez, Michael King, Shota Imanaga, Lucas Giolito, and Zac Gallen lead the way, and I think it’s safe to say that the Brewers are not going to be shopping in this tier. The most intriguing (and mildly realistic) name from that group for me is Gallen: he’s on the younger side (he just turned 30), and while he struggled a bit in 2025, he’s gotten Cy Young votes in three of the last six seasons. I still expect him to get far more than the Brewers would offer.
If we’re looking for experience, here are one or two veterans that would be cheaper that I wouldn’t mind seeing the Brewers take a flier on, in no particular order:
Germán Márquez might be toast at this point, but for the first six years of his career, he did the impossible: he offered real value as a starting pitcher in Colorado. He’ll only be 31 on Opening Day, and he missed most of the 2023 and 2024 seasons with an injury that required Tommy John surgery. The 2025 season was a real struggle — Márquez had a 6.70 ERA in 126 1/3 innings — but he was an above-average pitcher in almost every one of his healthy seasons prior to 2023. Maybe there’s nothing left, but if there’s anything to help a player bounce back, it’s getting him out of the Denver air.
Zack Littell will probably get more money than the Brewers are willing to spend on the rotation; there are some issues with his underlying numbers, but he’s been a solidly above-average innings eater the past two seasons after spending the early part of his career as a reliever.
Michael Lorenzen is an older guy (34 in 2025) who has had some success the past couple years (he was an All-Star in 2023 and was moved at the trade deadline in each of the last two years) before taking a step back in 2025. He’ll probably end up on a one-year deal that is more than the Brewers want to pay.
Could Milwaukee bring back Erick Fedde? It was just over a year ago that Fedde was one of the hottest names at the 2024 trade deadline after an outstanding first half with the White Sox. But 2025 was a bit of a disaster, and Fedde ended up with Milwaukee — his third team of the season — to finish the year. He could probably be had for cheap, and if the Brewers saw something in their time with him, they might make that move. Probably not much of a needle mover, though.
The Brewers could conceivably make a similar gamble on another player who they might have a little extra insight on, Jordan Montgomery, who was technically a Brewer when he was included in their trade deadline acquisition of Shelby Miller. But the Milwaukee coaches and front office probably didn’t actually spend any time with Montgomery, who had Tommy John surgery in spring training in 2025. He likely won’t be healthy to start the 2025 season, either. Montgomery’s 2024 was nightmarish, but he was one of the more reliable starters in the league from 2021-23. He’ll be 33 in 2025.
One other player with Brewer ties to discuss: Adrian Houser, who had an absurdly good start to the season with the White Sox in 2025 — far beyond anything he’d done in his career — which earned him a trade to Tampa, where he wasn’t very good in his last 10 starts. The Brewers know Houser, and he’s a high-extension ground-ball pitcher, exactly what Milwaukee tends to covet. A reunion doesn’t seem out of the question.
Let’s take one more wild stab at an injury bounceback guy: how about John Means? Why not? Means had Tommy John in 2024 as a member of the Orioles, and rehabbed with Cleveland in 2025. He finished the season healthy, though he did have an ERA over six in just over 20 innings in Triple-A. Means, who will be 33 in 2025, has been effective whenever he’s been on a major league mound: in 401 career innings, he has a 3.68 ERA (123 ERA+) and 4.23 K:BB ratio. But it has taken him seven years to accrue those 401 innings, and he hasn’t thrown more than 23 innings in a season since 2021. This would be a longshot, but one with some potential upside.
A few more names to keep an eye on: Merrill Kelly, Tyler Anderson, Martín Pérez, and… Aaron Civale (it would be very funny, wouldn’t it?).
There are a million different directions this could go. The Brewers have enough minor league ammunition that, if they wanted to, they could be in on literally anyone in the league; our comment section this weekend was discussing whether you would hypothetically trade Jesus Made for Paul Skenes. (I would, but I have friends who wouldn’t.)
So — Tarik Skubal, potentially available? The Brewers could do it. Likewise with a lesser but still substantial target like Joe Ryan. Would they? Almost certainly not. But they could.
But — that’s not where we’re going with this. I’m going to continue limiting this to minor acquisitions for players who offer the Brewers what they don’t have: experience. To draw myself further parameters, I’m going to look through teams who I do not expect to be competing for much in 2025 who should be looking at getting prospects for whatever value they do have at the major league level. Here are a few I found:
The Pirates might not be trading Skenes, but they might be looking to get off of some of the money they committed to Mitch Keller. Keller is entering his age-30 season and has three years and roughly $55 million remaining on an extension he signed in 2024. I’d probably stay away — he’s had an ERA+ within six points of league average in each of the last four seasons, and there’s a lot of blue on his Statcast page. But there’s some cost control here, and even if he is just a league-average innings eater, there’s some value in that. (Another intriguing Pirate who will probably stay put: Johan Oviedo, who pitched well at the end of the season in his first action in two years.)
A guy who struggled in 2025 but has a decent track record of success: Minnesota’s Bailey Ober. He’s got two years of control but isn’t super cheap — Spotrac predicts he’ll get about $6.8 million in his second arb year. It’s not clear what the Twins will do this offseason: many expect them to continue the teardown that they started last season and complete it by offloading their remaining veterans, including Ryan (mentioned above), plus Pablo López (probably too expensive for Milwaukee’s taste) and Byron Buxton. But some think they might look to bounce back quickly after last year’s fire sale, and if that’s the case, they’ll probably hold on to Ober.
If there are Sandy Alcantara sweepstakes, the Brewers likely do not figure into them. But what about another Marlin, one who knows Milwaukee? Janson Junk had a nice year for the Fish in 2025, and while it didn’t work out for him in Milwaukee, there’s obviously something there that the team’s front office liked when they traded for him before the 2023 season. Junk won’t be 30 until January, he is cheap, and team control is not an issue. If the Marlins like a younger player that Milwaukee could offer them, they’d probably jump at the chance.
I talked earlier about getting Germán Márquez out of Colorado. What about Kyle Freeland? There’s an argument that Freeland is the best pitcher in the history of the Rockies (I know!), but he led the league by losing 17 games in 2025 and he hasn’t had an ERA+ above league average since 2022. But Freeland’s FIP far outperformed his ERA in 2025, and he doesn’t walk very many hitters. He’s getting up there (33 in 2026) and he’s not cheap — he’ll make $16 million in 2026 and has a vesting option for $17 million in 2027 if he throws 170 innings. But maybe Colorado eats some of the contract?
Washington’s Trevor Williams will have the distinction of being older than both his manager and his pitching coach in 2026, should he stay in Washington. After making 13 excellent starts in 2024, the Nats signed Williams to a two-year, $14 million contract. But he missed much of 2025 and needed an internal brace procedure (scary), but he’s recovering and while he might miss the beginning of the 2026 season, he shouldn’t be too far behind the rest of the pitchers during spring training. The elbow injury is probably big enough of a red flag to scuttle this one, but you never know.
One last note: I’d love to see the Brewers make a run at José Soriano of the Angels, who I like and is young with a lot of team control left, throws really hard, and gets a ton of ground balls — sounds perfect for Milwaukee. If the Brewers are targeting someone who would take significant prospect capital but wouldn’t require Milwaukee’s very best guys, he’d be right at the top for me. But the Angels think they’re going to be in it every year, so I doubt they’d give him up for much of anything.
While starting pitching probably isn’t the Brewers’ main area of concern, it’s also a place where good teams don’t stand still. If Freddy Peralta stays with the team, as expected, there may not be a lot of innings available in 2025, but Milwaukee will probably add someone who has some actual big-league experience, and if Peralta is on the move, then something bigger could be in the offing.
If any of these guys end up on the Brewers, I’d be surprised, but just for fun, the targets I think are most realistic: Junk for trade guys and Houser for free agents.
This document has nearly 3,000 words, and if you read them all, thanks!
