If there’s one thing we know about the Brewers and starting pitchers, it will be that they use a lot of them. Listen to any broadcast about the team and you will likely hear, at least once, a mention of how many starting pitchers the team has used over the past couple of seasons. (This is a true but somewhat misleading statement, as those counts tend to include “openers,” but the point stands.)
Already in mid-March, we’ve seen why the Brewers leaned into acquiring a lot of starting pitcher depth.
They traded for highly regarded, about-major-league ready young pitchers in both of the Freddy Peralta and Caleb Durbin trades to go along with the several that were already in the organization.
The loss of Peralta will undoubtedly matter. Peralta was (and still is!) a very good pitcher, an excellent clubhouse presence, and one of the team’s longest-tenured players. But the Brewers have done just about as well as a team with their limited financial means can in terms of replacing him with multiple options that should be able to contribute this season and for many seasons beyond. Let’s take a look.
The veteran
One thing that this pitching staff will not have in abundance is experience. By my count, there are 12 pitchers who are somewhat in contention for getting starts at the beginning of the season, though that includes three players I expect to be in the bullpen (but who the powers-that-be have murmured about as starters) and one who is currently injured. Of those 12 pitchers, there is one who is 33 years old. There are zero others who are within five years of that one player’s age.
The veteran, of course, is Brandon Woodruff. Woodruff, who turned 33 in February, is five years and three months older than the second-oldest player in this group, Aaron Ashby. Woodruff has started 127 career games; that’s 88 more than any other player on the roster. He’s thrown 745 career innings; the other 11 players in this group have that beat, if you combine them all, but if you narrow the field down to the seven pitchers most likely to grab spots in the rotation, they come up short, with just 717 innings between them.
Woodruff, at this point, isn’t really a known quantity. His health issues are well documented — he hasn’t thrown even 70 innings in a season since 2022. He finished last season hurt. He is obviously not getting any younger.
But last season Woodruff, even with somewhat diminished stuff over what he had at his best in the early 2020s, showed how valuable he can be. Despite lower velocity he managed the best K:BB ratio of his career at 5.93. He had career-best rates in walks per nine and strikeouts per nine. The underlying metrics suggest that those are probably unsustainable, and the losses on his stuff may have contributed to his career-worst rate in home runs per nine innings.
But he will certainly be able to provide leadership and he’s not going to make it easy for hitters. I wouldn’t put it past Woodruff turning into an impeccable control pitcher at this point in his career, either; he’s always had a good walk rate, and he’s a smart enough pitcher to realize that if he can’t throw in the mid-to-upper 90s anymore, he’s going to need to lean into different strengths.
The results could be mixed, and who would take the over if you asked over/under 75 innings this season? But Woodruff can still serve an important function to this team and this pitching staff.
The new guys
There are a whole bunch of players in this category, a few who are new to the organization and a few who came up through the organization. The thing that they all have in common is a lack of time in the big leagues; Quinn Priester leads this group with 257 major league innings, and not one other player has reached 200.
Priester is, of course, injured. And while I’m optimistic, there are those who viewed his late-season (possibly injury-influenced) swoon as a major warning sign, especially when coupled with the fact that Priester outperformed his FIP by 0.69 runs. But Priester is an excellent example of the Brewers’ front office finding players whose particular talents — in this case, ground balls — are tailored to the team behind them.
The new-to-the-org guys include Brandon Sproat (acquired in the Peralta trade) and Kyle Harrison and Shane Drohan, acquired for Durbin. Sproat and Harrison are relatively recent top 100 prospects. Drohan is a late bloomer who was extremely good in Triple-A last year, but who hasn’t thrown an inning in the majors yet. Harrison hasn’t clicked in the big leagues, yet, but he doesn’t turn 25 until August. All three have intriguing arsenals that you’d expect the Brewers will be able to maximize.
The internal prospects include Jacob Misiorowski, Chad Patrick, Robert Gasser, and Logan Henderson. Gasser, who has made seven career starts dating back to May 2024, is the only one who pitched in the big leagues before last season. Patrick, who spent a good chunk of last season in the rotation, is the only one who has thrown more than 100 innings as a big leaguer.
Misiorowski, of course, could quickly become one of the league’s best pitchers if he’s able to consistently find his spots. Whether or not he can do that remains a question, but if he figures out his control, you’ve got a guy who throws 104 mph with massive extension and multiple devastating off-speed pitches (some of which still reach the plate faster than many other pitchers’ fastballs). Misiorowski walked 4.2 batters per nine innings last year, a number that would’ve tied for second in the league among qualified pitchers, and that mark was better than any of his three seasons in the minors (not including 2022, when he walked seven batters in 1 2/3 innings in his two-game professional debut).
Henderson, like Sproat, has only made a handful of appearances in the majors, but Henderson made such an impression in his five starts early in the 2025 season that it’s difficult not to be excited about him. In those five starts, Henderson allowed only five runs in 25 1/3 innings (a 1.78 ERA) and struck out 33 batters (11.7 per nine). While he won’t keep that pace, and there are questions about his velocity and a third viable pitch (in his five starts last year Henderson threw a fastball or a changeup 89% of the time), there’s a lot of intriguing talent.
Patrick had a great 2025. He made his major league debut in a relief outing on March 29 and was a staple of the rotation (and Rookie of the Year candidate) through the first week of July, when he was demoted not really because he was bad but because the Brewers were finally healthy again and he was the odd man out. Patrick worked on some new stuff in the minors and came back in late August, and down the stretch he served a valuable role as a reliever capable of going multiple innings. He served in that role in the postseason, where he allowed just two runs on three hits and a walk in nine innings while striking out 11. He, along with Misiorowski, was one of the most reliable players in the Brewers’ 11-game postseason run.
Gasser is the one in this group whose future might look murkiest. A fringe top 100 prospect prior to the 2024 season, he — like Henderson last year — made five good starts for the Brewers that season. But an elbow injury required Tommy John surgery, and Gasser didn’t get back to the big leagues until late last season, when he got in 5 2/3 innings in two shaky starts. He got beat up a little bit in the postseason, too, and he hasn’t looked very good in spring training. Gasser is still only 26 and you can’t give up on a guy after less than 35 career innings, but of all the guys in this preview, he’s the one who’s probably trending most downward.
But given the way the Brewers handle their starters, he’s likely to get a shot at some point this year, so we’ll hope he can get back to the promising form he showed before his arm injury.
The relievers who they keep telling us could start
Three players fit into this category, and they’re all left-handed: Aaron Ashby, DL Hall, and Ángel Zerpa. I’m going on the record now to say that I’m skeptical any of them will be any sort of traditional “starter” in the big leagues this year; they just have too many options, and while the bullpen is likely to be pretty heavy on lefties, I don’t necessarily think that’s a problem.
Ashby has proven capable of being one of the league’s top relievers, and the fact that he’ll be “stretched out” as a potential starter (he’s thrown 4 2/3 innings in two spring appearances) could just mean that he’s being prepped as an old-school “fireman,” an ace reliever capable of throwing two or three innings at a time. Ashby did this with regularity last season, when he threw 66 2/3 innings across 43 appearances, and he was excellent in doing so: a 2.16 ERA, 10.3 strikeouts per nine, and — qualitatively — stuff that, when he was on, looked impossible to hit.
I personally don’t believe it makes a ton of sense to move Ashby into a starting role when he’s proven this effective as a reliever. Yes, the Brewers tied some long-term money into Ashby that would make him somewhat expensive as a reliever, but if he’s one of the best relievers in the league he’s still a bargain at the $5.7 million he’ll make this year (and $7.7 million next year, with club options at $9 million and $13 million the next two). If the Brewers had more pressing needs in the starting rotation, I’d say sure, but as long as they’ve got options there, I believe Ashby is more valuable out of the pen.
Hall is similar to Ashby in terms of the starter/reliever dynamic, but he’s also got a lot to prove. Hall, like Garrett Mitchell, has intriguing talent but hasn’t been able to stay on the field, and in Hall’s case there have been some concerning trends in his pitch velocity. Hall has managed just 81 2/3 innings since coming to Milwaukee as one of the two major pieces in the Corbin Burnes trade, and while he’s shown flashes, the results have been largely inconsequential.
What we need to see from Hall is a healthy season so that the Brewers can get an actual assessment of where he fits. He’s still pre-arbitration, so it’s not like they’re taking any financial risk here; he likely starts the season in the bullpen, too, but he has started in the past and could conceivably do that again if there is need.
Zerpa, to my eyes, is just a reliever (a role he filled for the World Baseball Classic winners, Venezuela, over the last two weeks). Of his 148 big-league appearances, 140 are out of the bullpen, and while he did mostly start in the minor leagues, so did a lot of pitchers who end up as relievers. I see no indication that Zerpa (who hasn’t been pitching more than an inning at a time all spring) is being considered for any role other than as a typical reliever, despite what Matt Arnold and Pat Murphy would have us believe.
Anyone else?
Beyond those nine players — Woodruff, Misiorowski, Priester, Patrick, Harrison, Sproat, Henderson, Gasser, and Drohan, in roughly that order, I would think — who is in the upper levels of the minors who could play a role this season if necessary?
The top two names here are Carlos Rodriguez, who has made seven appearances with the Brewers over the last two seasons, and Coleman Crow, who hasn’t debuted yet, because they are the two “starters” who are on the 40-man roster. Rodriguez is still young, but he’s got a 6.95 ERA across 22 major league innings and he’s sort of getting edged out of the prospect conversation.
Crow, who the Brewers got from the Mets in the December 2023 trade that sent Adrian Houser and Tyrone Taylor to Queens, had an excellent 2025 season at Double-A Biloxi, where he posted a 2.51 ERA in 10 starts and had a 6.5 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He finished the season at Triple-A Nashville, where he’ll start this year, and if enough players get injured, he could find his way to Milwaukee at some point this season.
Beyond those two, there’s not a whole lot else I’ve got my eye on for 2026, though the Brewers tend to surprise us in this regard.
Who makes the rotation?
Probably all of them? But I’ll take a stab at the Opening Day rotation.
We know that Quinn Priester will start the season on the IL with a hopeful return sometime in April or May. Brandon Woodruff is ramping up but probably won’t quite be ready, either. Based on Murphy’s comments, it seems that Misiorowski and Patrick will definitely start the season in the rotation. I’m going to say Harrison gets there, too.
I think the Brewers start Sproat in the minors, unless they want to use him for a start or two and then send him down when Woodruff is ready. I just think the service-time incentive is there for the Brewers to hold him in the minors for about six weeks this year.
I don’t have a good grasp on where the Brewers go with the last two spots to open the season, but just to make a guess, I’m going to say Gasser, as a lefty, gets one of them. For what it’s worth, Adam McCalvy thinks Aaron Ashby gets a spot in the rotation; I don’t really feel good about that as a long-term fix, but it might work in the short term. If we go along with that and say that Ashby starts the season in the rotation, I think it would be in a “piggyback” situation, where you might see Ashby and, for instance, Hall on the same day for three-ish innings each.
The Brewers certainly have enough pitchers to cover the innings they need to cover, but the combination in which they do so will remain mysterious for a while.
