Overall
The signing of Wade Miley is statistically the highlight of Arnold’s season. In a Brewers rotation hampered by the loss of Brandon Woodruff, he’s been a steady, productive veteran presence.
At the same time, the signing of Jesse Winker to serve as designated hitter has hurt Arnold’s cause as much as Miley’s presence has helped. At least the Brewers are only obligated to Winker for this year.
Here’s the first half report card on the Arnold front office. Note that grades for players departing the organization are based on the reverse of those players’ WAAs with their new teams.
Mode WAA Grade
Acquired -0.9 C
Traded -2.0 B
Signed -0.9 C
FA Lost +0.5 C
Rookies -0.2 C
Overall -0.5 C
The Brewers general manager made a healthy 39 moves impacting the Milwaukee roster since the end of the 2022 postseason. But almost all of them constituted small-scale nibbling around the frontiers of the talent rubric. Beyond that, only 15 of those moves created positive value as opposed to 21 negatives and three neutrals.
And it’s not like Arnold had a productive returning core to build around. That core — Christian Yelich, Willy Adames, Rowdy Tellez, Corbin Burnes, Devin Williams — has been worth -2.7 WAA to the team’s cause.
But that’s the beauty of the NL Central, where mediocrity is good enough.
Can the Brewers hang on? Sure … unless some division competitor actually produces consistent good play. Somebody has to survive this division, and even playing sub-par ball, the Brewers of Matt Arnold are as good a candidate as anybody.