Milwaukee Brewers: Who is Back & Who was Let Go at the Non-Tender Deadline

The 2020 MLB Non-tender deadline has passed, what does that mean for the Milwaukee Brewers? Who is still on the team and who is now a free agent?

The non-tender deadline is the deadline for teams to offer contracts to their players in pre-arbitration and arbitration. This does not mean they are required to have a contract signed but rather they have to offer them a contract or the alternative is to non-tender them, thus making the player a free agent. By 7pm CST on Wednesday, the Milwaukee Brewers had to decide whether to tender or non-tender 10 different players; this list included:

Pitchers

Alex Claudio, Josh Hader, Corey Knebel, and Brandon Woodruff.

Catchers

Omar Narvaez and Manny Pina.

Infielders

Daniel Vogelbach, Orlando Arcia, and Jace Peterson.

Outfielder

Ben Gamel

Players Non-tendered

The Milwaukee Brewers officially non-tendered three out of ten players, those players being Alex Claudio, Jace Peterson, and Ben Gamel.

Claudio, Peterson, and Gamel were not high priced options at their respective positions but David Stearns, Matt Arnold, and the Brewers thought that the money they would have spent on these three players would be better spent elsewhere.

After down years for each of these players and the Brewers losing money during the 2020 MLB season, these three moves make sense financially and based on the play we saw from them in 2020.

Players Tendered/Signed Contract

The Milwaukee Brewers brought Hader, Woodruff, Narvaez, Pina, Vogelbach, and Arcia all back to the team for 2021. Of those players brought back Narvaez, Pina, Vogelbach, and Arcia agreed to one-year contracts, effectively avoiding arbitration.

Stearns worked his magic on these one-year deals as according to MLB Trade Rumors, all of these contracts are at or below their projected arbitration values. The biggest potential savings came from the deal with Arcia, who was projected to make between $2.7 and $3.8 million in arbitration by MLB Trade Rumors. Instead, the Brewers and Arcia agreed to a 1-year contract worth $2 million. Arcia will likely be in a position battle with Luis Urias at starting shortstop.

With both Narvaez and Pina coming back to Milwaukee, this makes the catching position rather interesting. This may change in the coming days, but with the recent addition of Luke Maile, the Brewers now have five catchers on their 40 man roster.

Lastly, Vogelbach is an intriguing fit as he has mainly been used as a DH in his previous MLB experience and with the uncertainty of the DH making its way back into the NL, it will be interesting to see what role Vogelbach will have in 2021–although this could also be a sign that the DH is returning as well. Vogelbach has played first base in the past, but his defense does leave something to be desired. However, for just $1.4 million, it was a value that the Brewers could not pass up.

Perhaps the least surprising moves that happened were that Josh Hander and Brandon Woodruff were both tendered contracts by the Brewers.

We knew that both Hader and Woodruff were going to at the very least be tendered contracts, but their was also some hope in Brewer nation that Woodruff could potentially sign a longer-term contract to both save Milwaukee some money in the short term while giving Woodruff long term stability. This would have been very reminiscent of the Freddy Peralta signing earlier this year and potentially this could still happen if the Brewers and Woodruff can agree to a deal before January 15, 2021, which is the deadline to agree to a contract before the arbitration cases are sent to court to be decided.

Hader is further along in his arbitration process and was less likely to sign a deal that MLB Trade Rumors estimated would have been between $4.5 and $6.8 million. Hader has had some trade rumors surrounding him as well and the Brewers tendering him a contract does not mean that won’t happen either. However, it is good to know that two of the Brewers’ best pitchers will be on the roster to start the 2021 season and hopefully for a long time to come.

The Interesting Case of Corey Knebel

Originally it was reported that the Milwaukee Brewers would non-tender Knebel leaving him a free agent and allowing him to sign anywhere. Later it was reported by Adam McCalvy and Ken Rosenthal that Knebel had been traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

We will see in the coming days what the return for Knebel is, but knowing that the Brewers were planning on non-tendering Knebel, it was good for the Brewers to get at least something in return for him. Whether it is a player to be named later or cash, the move to trade Knebel makes a lot of sense as saving money seems to be the mantra of small market professional sports teams, especially following a crazy 2020 season.

How would you grade the Brewers’ decisions during the 2020 MLB non-tender deadline? Let us know below or on Twitter @DairylandXpress.