Milwaukee Brewers: Jake Cousins Emerges Out of Bullpen

As I mentioned in a recent article where I discussed Jace Peterson’s unexpected impact on this season, regardless of the sport, any successful team is going to have some surprising contributions along the way. When it comes to this Milwaukee Brewers team, another player in addition to Peterson who is doing just that is Jake Cousins out of the bullpen.

Cousins’ arrival to the big leagues has been unconventional, to say the least. He was drafted in the 20th round of the 2017 MLB Draft by Washington but was released prior to the 2019 season while still injured. That summer, he would try out for the Schaumburg Boomers, who are a part of an independent baseball league, and after some strong showings, the Milwaukee Brewers found Cousins and signed him to a contract.

Cousins would begin in rookie ball before moving to high-A Wisconsin. During COVID-19 while the minors were shut down, Cousins would pitch for the Chicago Dogs, another independent ball team, as a way to stay in baseball shape. He would join the Crew for spring training but ultimately would begin the 2021 season in double-A Biloxi before quickly being called up to triple-A Nashville. As I said, this was a pretty unconventional path to a big-league debut.

During his time in Biloxi and Nashville, Cousins appeared in 16 games which spanned 17.2 innings, allowing 12 hits while striking out 30 along with a 2.55 ERA and a 0.962 WHIP. Cousins has continued to find similar success with the Milwaukee Brewers behind a nasty slider, a sinker, and a fastball that can reach around 97 mph.

Coming out of the bullpen, Cousins has appeared in seven games so far with the Brewers. Over those nine innings, he has allowed only one hit, no runs, three walks, and 14 strikeouts–including nine strikeouts in his first four innings of work.

"“I think Jake’s in a place, through experience, that he’s found himself a place where he’s found what he’s good at,” manager Craig Counsell said via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “He doesn’t try to think too hard about it and sometimes, that’s how you have success — finding what you’re good at (and) saying ‘this is it’ and I think that’s where Jake’s at.”"

According to Baseball Savant, Cousins’ max exit velocity on contact ranks in the 95th percentile among pitchers, and he is yet to be barreled up once with an oftentimes out of the zone slider that batters just can’t lay off of. As you can imagine, the rest of his peripheral numbers look pretty darn good as well, with hitters struggling to square him up.

The emergence of Cousins out of the bullpen, along with that of Miguel Sanchez, has given the Milwaukee Brewers another needed arm to rely on–especially after losing two bullpen arms in the trade with Tampa Bay that brought Willy Adams to Milwaukee. It also gave the Brewers the flexibility to trade Trevor Richards to Toronto for Rowdy Tellez in an effort to try and bolster the first base position.

In the grand scheme of baseball, this is still a very small sample size from Cousins, but based on what we’ve seen so far, it’s nearly impossible not to be impressed with what we’ve seen from him over his seven outings.

"“It’s been a crazy year,” Cousins said via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I had a good support system around me, my wife and family. It’s pretty cool. The Brewers have really helped me improve. They had a plan to get me to the major leagues. They’ve put me here. It’s a testament to them.”"