The Milwaukee Brewers didn’t land a headline-grabbing blockbuster, but they did check off two needs at once.
According to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, Milwaukee has acquired right-handed starter Dustin May and left-handed reliever JoJo Romero from the St. Louis Cardinals.
MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy reported that the Brewers are sending outfielders Josiah Ragsdale and Alexander Frias back to St. Louis in the deal.
Ragsdale, who had been playing at High-A Wisconsin, is Brewer Fanatic’s No. 16 prospect. Frias, who was at Double-A, did not crack the outlet’s Top 20. The Brewers will need to clear room on both their 26-man and 40-man rosters to make the trade official.
May gives Milwaukee another arm for the rotation after the club came up short in its push to land back-to-back AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Even with that miss, the Brewers still have a shot to add another starter before the 5 p.m. CT deadline.
The 28-year-old is making $12.5 million this season and has a mutual option for 2027. Romero is earning $4.26 million and will be a free agent after the year. Between them, the Brewers will owe just under $5 million.
May has been in bounce-back mode in his first season with the Cardinals, which is exactly what he was after when he signed there. Through 21 starts and 109 innings, he owns a 3.14 FIP and a 4.38 ERA, along with a 7.6% walk rate and a 23.1% strikeout rate.
His season follows a 2025 that started with the Dodgers and ended with a trade to the Boston Red Sox at the deadline to open room for other players headed to Los Angeles. Across those two stops, he posted a 4.88 FIP and a 4.96 ERA in 25 games, all but two of them starts, over 132⅓ innings.
Romero should help take some of the pressure off Aaron Ashby as Milwaukee’s top left-handed bullpen option. The Brewers also lost Angel Zerpa to Tommy John surgery, and that injury could keep him out for most of 2027.
Romero has appeared in 44 games this season, throwing 43 innings with an 8.6% walk rate and a 23.1% strikeout rate. He was excellent in 2025, finishing with a 3.28 FIP and a 2.07 ERA, though that year also came with an 11.6% walk rate and a 21.6% strikeout rate.
On the position-player side, the Brewers are already loaded with young outfielders at the major-league level, including Jackson Chourio, Luis Lara, Garrett Mitchell, Sal Frelick and Brandon Lockridge. Josh Adamczewski and Braylon Payne are also ahead of Ragsdale and Frias in the organization’s outfield pipeline.
In Other News...
Brewers May Be Trying Another Deadline Turnaround Fans Have Seen Before
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Naylors arrival is the part that makes the move feel familiar to longtime Brewers watchers. He is at a similar stage in his career to Andrew Vaughn when Milwaukee brought him in previously, and the club has shown before that it believes a fresh setting can unlock a player it thinks still has room to grow. Both Naylor and Heuer were optioned to Triple-A after the trade, so the next phase of this move will play out away from the majors while the Brewers see whether another deadline swing can produce the kind of turnaround they have chased before. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Fans Just Got Another Trade Deadline Twist In Relief Market
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For Brewers fans, it adds another layer to a market that has already been buzzing around relief help. Suter is heading to a contender for the stretch run, and there is at least one more twist to monitor if the schedule lines up, because the Brewers could see him again when the Braves come to town later this month. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Just Made A Staff Move Pat Murphy Really Needed
The Brewers have been looking for another layer of stability around a pitching staff that has had to keep adapting all year, and a recent move with St. Louis gives Pat Murphy another pair of arms to work with as the calendar turns toward the stretch run. It is the kind of trade that makes sense on Milwaukees side: add big-league help where it can matter most, while dealing from a deeper group of minor-league position players to make it happen.
For a club trying to piece together innings and shorten the distance from starter to endgame, the attraction is obvious. The shuffle also shows how much the Brewers value getting immediate pitching support without waiting on a prospect timeline, even if it costs them two outfielders who had been part of the organizations future depth. What comes next is the part Milwaukee will care about most: whether the new arrivals can settle in quickly enough to help right away. [Read more 🡒]