Milwaukee Brewers: 2 Minor League Deals Announced in Last Week

While the MLB and the Players’ Association are working their way through the lockout, the Milwaukee Brewers, along with every other team, can still add to their minor league systems. For all minor league affiliates, things are pretty much business as usual despite the work stoppage at the big league level.

So with that, David Stearns and the Brewers have added to their organizational depth recently, offering minor league deals to David Dahl and Abraham Almonte along with invitations to spring training—that is, if we have a spring training.

What do Dahl and Almonte bring to the Milwaukee Brewers organization?

Dahl is an outfielder and a former first-round pick by the Colorado Rockies in 2012. Unfortunately, his career up to this point has been defined by various injuries.

The most games that Dahl has played in a season since entering the big leagues in 2016 is 100, which came in 2019 when he was an All-Star with Colorado, slashing .302/.353/.524 with an OPS+ of 111.

However, the last two seasons have gone very poorly for Dahl. Over 24 games during the shortened 2020 season, he recorded a .470 OPS. In 2021, he began the year with Texas before he was DFA’d after recording a .569 OPS in 63 games.

After going unclaimed, Dahl would actually sign with the Milwaukee Brewers in August and spent the remainder of the season in Triple-A Nashville, where he slashed .327/.375/.536 in 31 games. It’s also worth noting that he does have a career .826 OPS verse right-handers.

Defensively, the 27-year-old Dahl can play either of the corner outfield positions and by DRS, he has been a below-average defender over his career.

Almonte is another outfielder, and he has appeared in the big leagues every season since 2013, but he’s also had his fair share of stints in the minors and bounced around to several different organizations during that span.

He would appear in a career-high 82 games during the 2015 season, then 67 games in 2016, 69 games in 2017, and 64 this past season with Atlanta. For his career, Almonte has a .234/.302/.374 slash line and an OPS+ of 82.

As a switch hitter, he has been much more effective against righties with a .713 career OPS compared to just .586 against lefties. Like Dahl, Almonte has experience at both corner outfield positions, and over the last few seasons, the 32-year-old has been an average defender by DRS.

With a somewhat crowded outfield that consists of Christian Yelich, Lorenzo Cain, Hunter Renfroe, and Tyrone Taylor, along with Jace Peterson, Mike Brosseau, and even Keston Hiura as other options, it’s difficult to see a path for either player to significant playing time.

With that said, they do provide organizational depth, and with the way the Milwaukee Brewers cycle through players during a season, there is the potential that either Dahl or Almonte could see a few big league at-bats at some point in 2022.