It hasn't even been a week since the Brewers brought home their first World Series championship title in franchise history, and Milwaukee's front office is already getting to work on its offseason moves. It goes to show that even when you reach the pinnacle of your field, there's always work left to be done.
GM Matt Arnold and his team announced eight transactions on Monday afternoon, clarifying the outlook of the roster as they enter what's expected to be a long and complicated 2026-27 MLB offseason. Those moves are as follows:
• William Contreras: Brewers Exercised 2027 Club Option
• Jake Bauers: Brewers Extended Qualifying Offer
• Gary Sánchez: Brewers Declined Club Option
• Antonio Senzatela: Brewers Declined Club Option
• Bryse Wilson, Jared Koenig, & Akil Baddoo: Waived By Brewers
• Dustin May: Player Declined 2027 Mutual Option
This brings Milwaukee's roster down to 33 spots, leaving some significant gaps at key positions. Although some of these were expected, like the Contreras club option or Bauers' qualifying offer, others, like declining Sánchez and Senzatela's options after they played roles in the title run, came as more of a surprise — at least, mere days after their season ended.
These are the three burning questions that emerged most fascinatingly from the Brewers' earliest wave of offseason transactions.
Are the Brewers going to play hardball with Contreras and Bauers, or pay them what they earned to stay in Milwaukee?
There's no denying the expectation that both William Contreras and Jake Bauers deserve to get paid for their contributions to the first World Series run in Brewers history. They finished as the World Series MVP and NLCS MVP, respectively, earning the respect and admiration of people throughout the baseball landscape. They'll certainly have suitors elsewhere, but Milwaukee has a rare opportunity to negotiate with both of them this winter and make sure the title team remains intact.
Historically, we'd expect the Brewers not to be aggressive in their negotiations. These are the types of players they've traded in the past. But the context has shifted, and we need to see if the Brewers' leadership group also believes in that sentiment. Otherwise, these fan favorites could be on the move sooner than expected.
How do the Brewers plan to replace all of these pitchers?
Milwaukee got 15.1 innings out of Dustin May and Antonio Senzatela during their title run, but are presumably moving on without them. It made sense to move on from May, whose 5.73 ERA in the postseason likely overstates the lackluster quality of his performance, but still speaks to his inefficiency. Senzatela, on the other hand, offered a quality bridge in relief innings with four strikeouts and zero earned runs in his 4.1 innings pitched during the run.
Even if the results were mixed, that's quite a few innings to replace for a team that just won it all. And more fearfully than that, it remains unclear how they intend to replace that production moving forward. Although I wouldn't put it past Matt Arnold to pull another rabbit out of his hat and find a good fit for the role.
Is Milwaukee going to call up some prospects or make a few moves to flesh out the rest of this roster?
These moves opened a handful of roster spots for Milwaukee to explore this offseason, but it remains unclear how they plan to fill those positions. They have one of the deepest farm systems in the sport, but there aren't many tangible opportunities for a young player to play meaningful minutes and carve out a role for this squad. So wouldn't they be better off growing in the minor leagues?
The other option is to spend some money to fill those roster spots this offseason, which would contradict the historic precedent set by the organization. Then again, that was before they were a championship club, so maybe after making obscene amounts of money off the World Series, they'll be willing to spend more freely this summer to keep the momentum going and try to establish a Midwest baseball dynasty.
Add us as a preferred source on Google