Grading Matt Arnold and the Milwaukee Brewers front office at the midway point of the season
By Bill Felber
Free agency
Arnold has approached his direct dealings with players with as much fervor as his team-to-team talks. Since last November, the Brewers have signed 11 MLB-caliber free agents. The problem is they have returned a total impact of -0.9 WAA.
There have been hits. Arnold gave former Cub and former Brewer Wade Miley $13.5 million to come back to Milwaukee through 2024. Miley has responded with a solid season: he’s 5-2 with a 3.02 ERA in 11 starts, and has pitched as well as any member of the Brewers rotation. From a standpoint of WAA, Miley has been worth +0.9 to Arnold.
But not everybody is Wade Miley. Raimel Tapia, Luke Voit, Brian Anderson and Jon Singleton were all signed to fill starter (in the case of Anderson) or backup roles, and all have come up short. Anderson is holding down third base because there’s nobody else to do so despite a .221 average and .691 OPS, which translates to -0.4 WAA. Combine all four of those guys’ WAA and the deficit runs to -2.1 with Voit already having been released.
Five 2022 Brewers were shown the door to make way for those arrivals, the most noteworthy of which was Andrew McCutchen. He returned to Pittsburgh for an encore, and has generated +0.6 WAA there. Pablo Reyes and Taylor Rogers have also been pluses for the Red Sox and Giants, respectively.