3 Early Outfield Trade Targets to Boost Milwaukee Brewers Offense
By Paul Bretl
The Milwaukee Brewers currently sit 43-33 and just barely atop the NL Central standings. As expected, this has been a team largely led by their pitching staff with an up-and-down offense in tow.
Milwaukee has had success against inferior opponents and pitching staffs but has struggled against some of the better teams that the MLB has to offer–at times going quite cold at the plate. Currently, as a team, the Brewers rank 24th in batting average, 13th in OPS, 12th in runs, and fifth in total strikeouts.
While they are better than league average in OPS and total runs, as I alluded to, those numbers are boosted a bit by taking advantage of lesser opponents. Overall, there is still a concern about how this offense can perform in the postseason as they still feel a bat or two away.
The trade deadline is a bit later this season, taking place on August 2nd, but it wouldn’t hurt to pull off a trade before that point if the right deal presents itself. The obvious upgrade in the batting lineup comes in the outfield, where Tyrone Taylor has a .718 OPS, Andrew McCutchen may be at his best in a DH role, and Jonathan Davis likely isn’t a long-term answer.
So with that in mind, here are three outfielders for the Milwaukee Brewers to consider targeting prior to the trade deadline.
Milwaukee Brewers Outfield Trade Target: Andrew Benintendi – Kansas City Royals
Andrew Benintendi began his big league career in Boston during the 2016 season. For his career, he is a .276 hitter with a .781 OPS.
This season, specifically, the left-handed Benintendi has a slash line of .299/.367/.388 with three home runs. He has a strikeout rate this season, according to Fangraphs, of 14%, which is in between “above league average” and “great” on their scale, while his walk rate of 9.7% is “above average.”
Many of Benintendi’s underlying metrics look very good this season as well, measuring above league average in most categories, according to Baseball Savant, except for hard-hit rate and barrel rate. With that said, Benintendi would immediately lead the Brewers in OBP — and by quite a bit — an area that as a team they need to improve upon.
Although Milwaukee primarily needs help in centerfield with Christian Yelich in left field and Hunter Renfroe in right, Benintendi has primarily been a left fielder in recent years, however, he does have experience in center. But that doesn’t mean a move wouldn’t be in store as we’ve seen David Stearns sacrifice defense in the past in exchange for offense.
Benintendi is playing 2022 on a one-year deal worth $8.5 million, according to Spotrac.