The Brewers didn’t just get a depth arm in Colton Gordon. They got a pitcher who fits their eye, even if the results haven’t matched the profile yet.
At 6-foot-4, the left-hander checks a lot of Milwaukee’s usual boxes. He gets down the mound well, creates plus extension and shows enough pitch variety to make you think there’s something to work with.
Gordon can move the ball east and west with a sweeper and a slow, slurvy curveball, and he has feel for a changeup that can create depth. The problem is the obvious one: he doesn’t throw hard, and the stuff hasn’t played in the majors.
Since 2025, Gordon has posted a 5.95 ERA across 95 1/3 innings in 24 big-league appearances. This season has been even rougher.
He’s spent most of his time in the minors, not because the Astros didn’t need him, but because he’s given up six home runs in 50 batters faced and his ERA is north of 11.00. That’s a sharp contrast from his last two and a half seasons at Triple-A Sugar Land, where he’s had an ERA under 4.00 every year as a starter.
The strike-throwing is real, though, and that’s part of why Milwaukee will take the bet. Gordon has faced 958 batters between Triple-A and the majors since the start of last season and walked only 52.
In his brief major-league career, he’s allowed more home runs (27) than free passes (22). He works in the zone exceptionally well, but the issue is where that zone work leads him.
His four-seamer sits at 91 mph and doesn’t get the kind of carry you want, even with a low three-quarters slot. His sinker doesn’t bring enough heavy action either, and when that fastball shape isn’t setting the table, the softer pitches get exposed.
The sweeper may look like a plus pitch in isolation, but too many hitters have been able to square him up.
That’s where the Brewers come in. They’re not taking Gordon with some grand, finished plan in mind.
He’s useful depth, he can start, he throws strikes, and he still has one more year of optionability beyond this season. But Milwaukee also sees room to squeeze more out of him, both right away and down the line.
One obvious adjustment is pitch usage. The Brewers are likely to push him toward his sinker and cutter more heavily, at least for the rest of this season.
The sinker should make sense against lefties, and even against righties, leaning on it instead of the four-seamer should help the defense get involved behind him. His cutter has taken on more of a slider look this season than it had in the past, and it’s gradually replacing a true slider as his sixth pitch, but Chris Hook and Jim Henderson may want him to explore the harder, more fastball-like version of that pitch for a while.
The bigger swing may come in the delivery. Gordon has the kind of body Milwaukee likes, but not the way he uses it.
He begins on the third-base side of the rubber and works with a fairly extreme crossfire stride. The Brewers are expected to move him to the first-base side and try to straighten him out a bit on the way to the plate, while keeping the strike-throwing that makes him useful.
Better posture near release could also naturally lower his arm slot and give his fastball a little more deception.
That’s the fascinating part here: Gordon is 27, he doesn’t light up the radar gun, and his major-league track record is ugly. But the Brewers are likely to view him as clay they can still mold.
The delivery doesn’t match their preferences, yet it has enough mobility to suggest change is possible. The pitch mix isn’t especially exciting, but the gap between Houston’s pitching approach and Milwaukee’s leaves plenty of room for tweaks before any major mechanical overhaul even begins.
For now, he’s insurance for a staff dealing with injuries and medium-term durability concerns. Long term, he might be more than that.
And that’s why this kind of trade keeps working for Milwaukee. Matt Arnold has gotten very good at finding the throw-in piece who turns out to matter.
The deal that brought in Kyle Harrison, David Hamilton and Shane Drohan had that feel, and this one does too. Lance McCullers Jr. is the bigger name and probably the more likely immediate help for the Brewers in the balance of 2026, but they wouldn’t have made the move without Gordon.
A year from now, his stock may look a lot better than it does today. He looks like a classic Brewers project - and a strong candidate to get a serious tune-up.
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