The Brewers have already started clearing the runway for 2027 bullpen depth, and the first moves came right after the World Series. Bryse Wilson and Jared Koenig were outrighted, then both chose free agency, opening space on a 40-man roster that Milwaukee needs to manage carefully as it looks ahead to protecting one or two eligible prospects from the Rule 5 Draft.
That kind of roster churn is part of the job now. Milwaukee needs fresh arms to cover a 162-game season while starter workloads continue to shrink, which means the last bullpen spots are likely to be a revolving door. The Brewers will need pitchers who can bounce between Triple-A and the majors, and if the next collective bargaining agreement tightens the rules on optioning and recalling players, that need only grows.
Coleman Crow and Brandon Sproat are possible answers because both have options left and have slid down the rotation depth chart. But the Brewers may want to keep them on starter schedules, which leaves the relief pipeline thinner than ideal. By moving on from Wilson and Koenig, Milwaukee created room to find better shuttle pieces, whether that means adding minor leaguers to the 40-man roster or bringing in optionable relievers through trades or signings.
One name already in the mix is Garrett Stallings, who handled a shuttle role in the second half of this season. After the Brewers selected his contract at the end of June, he gave them 14 scoreless innings across five separate stints.
The 29-year-old has spent years as a minor-league swingman, works in the low 90s, and doesn’t exactly overwhelm hitters with his fastball shapes. What he does have is variety: six pitches, with a slow changeup doing most of the damage.
That changeup was his go-to against both lefties and righties, and it produced a 37.7% chase rate and a 75% whiff rate on those chases. The question is how long that keeps working once hitters see more of him.
Stallings drops his arm angle by 14 degrees from his fastball to his changeup, giving the pitch more depth, but that also makes it easier to spot when it comes out of his hand. Once hitters recognize it, they stop chasing.
Even so, Stallings has two optionable seasons left and earned plenty of trust from Pat Murphy and the Brewers’ coaching staff, so if he survives the winter, he could be in line for early low-leverage work.
Colton Gordon is another current 40-man arm who could factor into the picture. Milwaukee picked him up with Lance McCullers Jr. in a minor summer trade, then waited until Sept. 22 for his debut, when he worked a bulk relief outing on the night the Brewers clinched a first-round playoff bye. The left-hander comes from a funky low slot and is best used east-west, and the Brewers made a couple of adjustments to help him do that.
They moved him toward the first-base side of the rubber to add a little more deception to his ride-run fastballs. They also changed his primary fastball from a four-seamer to a two-seamer. When he debuted, William Contreras called almost exclusively two-seamers and sweepers.
That fits Gordon’s arsenal better. Both fastballs are thrown with pure backspin but low spin rates, which leaves him with two similarly flat heaters.
His four-seamer doesn’t carry much and gets hit in the air; for his career, it has already allowed 16 home runs and a .583 xSLG. The two-seamer is just as flat, but it gets about four more inches of arm-side run, and that extra movement has turned it into a ground-ball pitch.
Opponents have one home run and a .319 xSLG against it. It doesn’t sink enough to get swings over the top, but it does run into lefties and tail off right-handed bats for grounders.
Beyond the 40-man group, Cameron Wagoner stands out as a dark horse for Rule 5 protection. He missed more than two seasons because of a string of elbow injuries, then returned as a full-time reliever and tore through the top two levels of the minors.
Between Double-A Biloxi and Triple-A Nashville, the 25-year-old posted a 28.6% strikeout-minus-walk rate. In 16 Triple-A innings, he allowed just one earned run and finished with a 1.93 FIP.
Shorter outings helped his velocity tick up and let him simplify what he throws. Working from a low arm slot, Wagoner’s upshoot four-seamer and sinker sat north of 96 mph, and his tight slider got whiffs on 50% of swings in Triple-A.
Brett Wichrowski is a tougher sell. He’s also Rule 5-eligible, but Milwaukee may be willing to leave him exposed after a rough season that left him with an ERA north of 6.00 at two levels. Still, context matters: in Biloxi, his numbers were dragged down by a 42.9% home-run-to-fly-ball ratio while the Southern League homer rate spiked, and the Brewers liked enough of his underlying work to move him up to Nashville.
Once there, they shifted him to the bullpen, where his power stuff could play better without pinpoint command. As a reliever, he leaned more on his sinker and high-spin curveball, and that curve generated a 50% whiff rate from Triple-A hitters. Wichrowski is a long shot to help in 2027, but if he gets hot early, he could still work his way into the conversation as a midseason shuttle arm.
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