The Brewers announced they’ve picked up their $14.5MM option on catcher William Contreras. Milwaukee declined a $14MM option on reliever Antonio Senzatela and their end of an $8.5MM mutual option for backup catcher Gary Sánchez. The Brewers also officially announced the previously reported moves of issuing a qualifying offer to Jake Bauers, while Dustin May declined his half of a $20MM mutual option.
On top of the option decisions, the Brewers also did a bit of housecleaning at the back of the 40-man roster. Milwaukee lost outfielder Akil Baddoo on waivers to Pittsburgh while running relievers Bryse Wilson and Jared Koenig through waivers unclaimed. Koenig has already elected free agency, and Wilson will have the right to do the same.
There wasn’t much suspense with any of the option decisions. Contreras is coming off a World Series MVP win and would’ve been eligible for arbitration even if Milwaukee declined the option. His projected salary was right around the option price, and there’s no reason for the Brewers to take that to a hearing. They’ll surely get calls from other teams about his availability on the trade market as he enters his walk year.
However, the Brewers have enough short-term spending capacity to make a $23.15MM offer to Bauers and could trade the likes of Trevor Megill or Andrew Vaughn to trim salary from their arbitration class. While an offseason Contreras trade seemed plausible this past summer, it’s more difficult to envision coming off the franchise’s first title.
They’ll need to make some kind of move for the backup catcher role with Sánchez returning to free agency. He didn’t play much given the monster workloads that Contreras logs, but the veteran chipped in 12 home runs with a .209/.349/.422 slash line across 275 plate appearances. It wouldn’t be a surprise if they run things back by renegotiating a one-year deal at a higher salary than this past season’s $1.75MM guarantee.
Senzatela is unlikely to be back. The Brewers picked him up in a deadline trade with Colorado. The former starter pitched well early in the season with the Rockies but began to tail off by June. He didn’t exactly right the ship in Milwaukee and finished the season with a 4.05 ERA and modest 19.3% strikeout rate across 73 1/3 innings. His durability and a fastball that ticked up to 97 mph in relief should find him a fairly cheap big league deal in his first trip to free agency.
Wilson and Koenig were obvious non-tender candidates. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected them for respective $1.1MM and $900K arbitration salaries. Neither is exorbitant, of course, but Wilson gets shuttled on and off MLB rosters and Koenig was limited to nine MLB appearances this year. He suffered an elbow sprain in April and gave up nine runs (seven earned) across seven MLB innings, leading Milwaukee to keep him in the minors for the second half of the season.
Koenig is a season removed from tossing 66 innings of 2.86 ERA ball with a 25% strikeout rate. His fastball averaged 96 mph during his brief big league stint this year, though he wasn’t able to miss bats in Triple-A. He’s likely looking at a non-roster invite to big league camp — probably on a team that doesn’t have as much left-handed relief depth as the Brewers possess.