Milwaukee Brewers: Looking back at the Carlos Gomez trade

Four years ago, in 2015, the Milwaukee Brewers made an attempt to bolster their farm system when they traded Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers to the Houston Astros for four young players.

Today, we’ll take a look at how this trade worked out for the Milwaukee Brewers and where all the pieces of this trade are now. Following two All-Star seasons in 2013 and 2014, the Brewers decided it would be beneficial to trade then 29-year-old Carlos Gomez along with Mike Fiers who was a solid rotation piece.

Since being traded, Gomez has bounced around, playing for four different teams. He had a solid 138 games across one full and one partial season with the Texas Rangers in which he had an OPS of .827. For the other three teams, he has failed to post a batting average over .221 or an OPS over .650.

Gomez was certainly a dynamic player and a fan favorite and someone that everyone could enjoy coming to the ballpark to watch, but with his decline and now aging into his 30s, it appears the Milwaukee Brewers front office saw him at the top of his trade value and shipped him out at the right time. The Brewers also dodged a bullet by never letting him pitch as the Rays did in a game in 2018 where he walked four batters, gave up three runs, and got one out leading to an ERA of 81.00.

Now that we’ve talked about the ERA of a position player, let’s dive into the pitching stats of an actual pitcher involved in the trade, Mike Fiers. Since being traded, Fiers has been a fairly steady starting rotation option for the three teams he’s been on. In his time since leaving, he has a record of 40-30 with a 4.26 ERA. These are both respectable numbers, but not great, so the loss of Fiers shouldn’t really be taken to heavily.

There’s just one reason that it stings a little bit more than it should. Fiers has thrown two no-hitters including one later the very year he got traded to Houston in 2015. Now, obviously just because he threw no-hitters for other teams doesn’t mean he would have for the Milwaukee Brewers, but a guy who has accomplished something twice that has only been done once in the Brewers entire history makes it hurt a little bit more.

Let’s discuss the pieces that the Milwaukee Brewers got back and how they’ve performed.