Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland Athletics seemingly perfect trade partners

The Milwaukee Brewers are surprise contenders this season and the Oakland Athletics are looking at a third straight season in which they will be selling pieces at the deadline. They could be a perfect match at some point this month.

The Milwaukee Brewers weren’t supposed to contend this season. The thought was that the Chicago Cubs would become baseball’s overlords for the foreseeable future, leaving team after team in their wake. With a focus on the future and young talent taking up much of their roster, the Brew Crew were supposed to be one of the many Cubs’ casualties. Well, with two games until the break the Brewers are 4.5 games up on Chicago and the stranglehold that Colorado held on the second wildcard spot earlier in the season has become more of a loose grip, making a playoff berth a very reasonable proposition for Milwaukee.

Enter the Oakland Athletics. The two clubs have recent history, dating back to early 2016 when the A’s sent prospect Jacob Nottingham to Milwaukee in exchange for Khris Davis. David Stearns had just taken over as the GM of the Brewers, coming over from the Astros, and the A’s had acquired Nottingham from the ‘Stros system that past summer.

The A’s will be active again this deadline, but to what extent remains a bit of a mystery. The big fish they have to offer is Sonny Gray, and while the Brewers have been linked in rumors with the A’s ace, he would be a cherry on top for them. Instead, a deal involving Ryan Madson, and perhaps Sean Doolittle, if they can pry the left-hander away from Oakland, would fit a lot better with the Brewers’ current needs.

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Milwaukee has been stockpiling talent in recent seasons, and thanks to the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers, they’re overflowing with talent at all three outfield positions. Keon Broxton, Ryan Braun and Domingo Santana currently roam the outfield, but before long there will need to be room for Brett Phillips and Lewis Brinson, and behind them Corey Ray and Trent Clark. At some point someone besides Braun is going to be cast aside.

That sometime could be this July, as the Athletics could use some depth in their outfield, and they’re flexible with where that player is in their development. While the A’s have been promoting their top prospects like crazy in recent weeks, they won’t be ready to contend right away. Adding another talented young player to that mix could help them all gel as a unit ahead of their rise back up the standings.

It’s tough to see the Milwaukee Brewers trading off of their big league roster to help out their bullpen, but if they were going to do so, Keon Broxton could be someone that the A’s target. He strikes out a ton and has some pop, and while his defensive metrics haven’t been as good this season as they were last year, he would certainly be an upgrade at whichever outfield spot Bob Melvin put him. Clark or Phillips could also come into play instead of Broxton in a potential deal.

I doubt that a straight-up Broxton-for-Madson deal would work for the Brewers, but at the same time, Madson has the higher bWAR of the two (1.3 to 0.5) and holds a 2.34 ERA over 34 2/3 innings with Oakland. He also has postseason experience and another year remaining on his contract. With Brinson and Phillips just about ready to get called up and stay in the bigs, swapping an extra outfielder with a league average bat could be the cost of doing business this summer, if the A’s are looking for big league talent.

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It would show the fan base that the team is making a push for this season, but at the same time isn’t taking away a huge building block for future seasons. A move between the Brewers and A’s for some bullpen help, and heck, maybe even Sonny Gray, seems like the right kind of deal for both teams to make.

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