Brewers Add Shelby Miller and a Stowaway

You might’ve been worried that the Brewers had slept through the trade deadline. Maybe general manager Matt Arnold had overslept, or maybe the Twins were hogging all the cellphone bandwidth in the Midwest. But no, sure enough, Milwaukee got on the board right at the last minute, first by sending Nestor Cortes to San Diego, and then by making an unusual trade for Arizona teammates Shelby Miller and Jordan Montgomery.

Wow, that’s a reliever with a sub-2.00 ERA and a guy who pitched the Rangers to a championship two years ago. For just a player to be named later or cash? Sounds like a steal… wait, both of them are hurt, and both of them are free agents at the end of this year. That can’t be right.

I guess we’ll start with Miller, the less hurt of the two. Miller’s injury, a forearm strain, has certainly portended ugly things in the past — it can be a precursor to a UCL tear — but after going on the IL July 6, Miller has already thrown at least one bullpen session. If he needs to go out on a rehab assignment, it might delay his Brewers debut some, but with Milwaukee’s playoff odds currently at 96.6%, this is an acquisition for October, not August.

You guys are probably all smart enough to figure out on your own what it means if Miller doesn’t get healthy, so let’s concentrate on the best-case scenario.

Miller turns 35 on October 10; however few people in this country hope to celebrate their birthday at work, rather than at home with friends and family, Miller must be among them. But even after more than a decade in the majors, a UCL replacement, and various other injuries, he can still throw 95 routinely, with above-average movement both vertically and horizontally.

Even though he’s only 6-foot-3, Miller has an extreme drop-and-drive delivery that allows him more than seven feet of extension. That’s child’s play for new teammate Jacob Misiorowski, but among the best in the league by mortal standards.

Miller has a sweeper that’s been effective in limited use against righties, but his major secondary pitch is an upper-80s splitter that, like the fastball, has outstanding arm-side movement.

That fastball-splitter combination has made Miller one of the best bat-missers in any bullpen in the league: 97th percentile chase rate, 87th percentile whiff rate, 84th percentile strikeout rate. He has also posted above-average quality-of-contact numbers. He’s in the top quartile of the league for suppressing exit velocity and barrels.

The Brewer’s rotation is absolutely nasty, and will only become more so after the deadline, as Robert Gasser is on his way back from Tommy John surgery.

The bullpen, less so. There are individual pitchers from this group whom I like a lot: Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill can be dominant in late and high-leverage situations. Aaron Ashby is a groundball machine, and Nick Mears is a perfectly fine middle reliever.

But on the whole, the Brewers’ bullpen arrived on Deadline Day 11th in the league in WAR and strikeout rate, and 15th in ERA-. That’s average, and average won’t cut it in October, particularly for a team with questions about its offense. And the other playoff teams with questions about their relievers are only getting stronger. The Mets bought three good rental relievers in the week before the deadline. The Phillies signed David Robertson and made a massive trade to get Jhoan Duran, to say nothing of Andrew Painter looming in the high minors as a potential 2008 David Price.

The Brewers had to do something. A healthy Miller isn’t in the same category as some of the other guys who got moved this week, but he’s absolutely good enough to pitch high-leverage playoff innings for Milwaukee.

So what is Montgomery doing in this trade? Well, collecting a $500,000 trade bonus, for one thing, according to Jon Heyman. Which is awesome, if you ask me. Montgomery’s tenure with Arizona is going to go down as an all-time free agent disaster for the Diamondbacks, but it’s downright aspirational for those of us who dream of making millions of dollars without having to come to work.

Because Montgomery isn’t going to be pitching. He just got Tommy John in April, he’s a free agent at the end of the year, and because he got traded in the middle of the season, the Brewers can’t stick him with a qualifying offer. Not that they would; I’ve been in the tank for Montgomery since his freshman year at South Carolina, but even I wouldn’t QO a pitcher who hasn’t started a game in over a year and posted a 6.23 ERA in his last full season.

There’s also no roster crunch in Arizona; the Diamondbacks just traded six major leaguers, of whom four were on the active roster, and received only two players who went straight on the major league team. They’ve got more 26- and 40-man roster spots than they know what to do with right now. And even if they didn’t, Montgomery’s on the 60-day IL and therefore exempt from roster limits.

Given that he’s rehabbing from Tommy John surgery all year, I’d be kind of surprised if Montgomery even sets foot in Wisconsin or gets issued a jersey number. Nevertheless, the Brewers do have the opportunity to pitch themselves to him as a good place to sign for 2026. Hey, Brandon Woodruff, maybe you can make a call and tell Monty how much you enjoyed rehabbing your long-term shoulder injury here. That sort of thing.

Maybe, but I’m more interested in the $5 million or so the Diamondbacks sent to Milwaukee with these two injured pitchers.

That’s a lot of money, but it does not cover the rest of Montgomery’s salary. The Brewers are handling about $2 million of the $7 million and change still due Montgomery this year. Miller only makes $1 million this year, and with two thirds of the season already gone, trading him is only saving the Diamondbacks about $320,000. By taking on Montgomery, Milwaukee can basically write Arizona a check for $2 million, which would not have been allowed otherwise.

Near as I can tell, there’s no luxury tax purpose served by this transaction. Arizona is miles short of the cutoff after selling this week. This $2 million is just going straight into the bank.

And, look, we’ve all been there. Trying to negotiate an appropriate prospect return for an injured Shelby Miller at 5:45 p.m. on Deadline Day is like picking out a wedding gift the day of the ceremony. It’s easier to write a check sometimes. I get it. But it’s a bit… ungallant to take handouts from one of the archetypal small market teams. That’s all.

Anyway: The Brewers get a high-leverage reliever, probably, without giving anything up. The Diamondbacks save a few bucks. Montgomery makes out like a bandit. I love it. I hope the Brewers make him a ring if they win the World Series.