A few days after their season ended, Matt Arnold and Pat Murphy met with the press on Thursday for their end-of-year press conference. Murphy talked about the Dodgers’ series and offered some interesting thoughts on his team, and we got a few newsy tidbits as well.
Murphy discusses the Dodgers series
Not that we need to spend much time on this, but Murphy did discuss a bit his team’s underperformance in the National League Championship Series. The thing I found most interesting was how he discussed the way that the Cubs series took
a lot out of the Brewers, and may have affected them in the next round. I hadn’t really considered that, but especially for a team that hasn’t experienced a lot of postseason play, I could see that as a real factor.
Matt Arnold has been promoted
Arnold was already the top figure in the Brewers’ front office, but he has been officially added the title of President of Baseball Operations to his title. In terms of Arnold’s day-to-day, this changes nothing, but what it does do is make it harder for other teams to poach him, as MLB teams generally only allow their executives to interview for other positions while they are under contract if that other position is a promotion rather than a lateral move. There isn’t a front-office position higher than POBO, so hypothetically Arnold could only be hired by another team if he is out of contract (or if the other team, presumably, offers compensation).
We do not know, of course, what Arnold’s contract looks like. This promotion presumably gave him a raise, but the Brewers are not obligated to make those numbers public, so we don’t know what sort of contract Arnold is under or if this promotion came with an extension.
Arnold is viewed as one of the very best GMs in the league. He won MLB’s Executive of the Year award in 2024 and has already received the Sporting News’ version of that award in 2025 and has a good shot at winning the MLB version again this season, too.
Injury updates
We also received a handful of updates on injured (or not-so-injured) Brewers:
- William Contreras, who has been dealing with pain from a fractured finger for the past two years, will see a specialist to see if there’s anything that can be done about it.
- Caleb Durbin finished the season with elbow soreness and will have arthroscopic surgery next week. He is expected to be healthy in time for spring training.
- Sal Frelick did have a sore knee checked out, but nothing out of the ordinary showed up and it isn’t expected to affect his offseason.
- Quinn Priester was also dealing with some soreness in his wrist at the end of the season but, like Frelick, is expected to be healthy for spring training.
- Three pitchers who were working their way back from injury in the last few weeks of the season were all considered fully healthy when the season ended, those pitchers being Trevor Megill, Logan Henderson, and DL Hall.
And a minor transaction…
Connor Thomas, who the Brewers took in the Rule 5 draft last season, cleared waivers and elected free agency. He’ll be out until mid-summer, at least, after he had surgery on his elbow this season. Thomas appeared in two games as a Brewer this season and allowed 12 runs, all earned, in 5 1/3 innings.
If you’re interested, the whole press conference can be viewed here.
