2025 Milwaukee Brewers player grades
Here are our Milwaukee Brewers player grades for 2025, based on analysis by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Brewers beat writers Todd Rosiak and Curt Hogg.
Brandon Woodruff accepted a one-year qualifying offer to remain with the Milwaukee Brewers.The $22.025 million contract is the highest average annual value ever given to a Brewers pitcher.Woodruff returned after major shoulder surgery in 2023 but then had his 2025 season end early due to a lat strain.He expressed confidence in his health and ability to perform at a high level for a full season.
Money may not be able to buy happiness, but in Brandon Woodruff’s case, it sure can buy him a boat – and, more importantly, a chance to remain in Milwaukee.
Woodruff, taking a break from some off-season fishing at his home in Mississippi, called his choice to accept the qualifying offer from the Brewers a day earlier “an easy decision” a day after the news dropped Nov. 18 he would remain with the only team he’s ever been a part of. At the $22.025 million salary attached to the qualifying offer, Woodruff’s contract will have the highest average annual value of any ever given to a Brewers pitcher.
“When the Brewers extended the qualifying offer, I took that as a big compliment. I really did,” he said in a phone interview. “I also took it as they really wanted me here. I know the ramifications of offering a one-year, 22 [million-dollar contract] to a pitcher in the Brewers organization. That has never happened. I don’t take that lightly.
“When they did extend it that was a signal to me that, yes, they were serious about winning and wanting to move forward with me and had confidence in my abilities. That was all I needed to see from them.”
Woodruff and his agent, Bo McKinnis, were sure to do their due diligence and see what other types of offers were out there for him should he decline Milwaukee’s offer and become a free agent. That included soliciting the opinion of 5-year-old daughter Kyler, who pushed for the right-hander to stay with the Brewers. Ultimately, the circumstances for Woodruff, who’s now two years removed from major shoulder surgery and made 12 starts in 2025 before a right lat strain brought his season to the end, made it a simple call.
“For me it became clear pretty early on,” said Woodruff, who will turn 33 in February. “Easy decision to take the qualifying offer. I was extremely happy to come back somewhere I’m extremely comfortable. I’m excited. I’m pumped. That’s what it broke down to. You guys can see what transpired yesterday [around baseball]; that’s the most accepted qualifying offers in the history of it. You can get a sense of what was going on with everything.
“But, come on, that’s a large number and it’s a place where I’m comfortable and love.”
Last time Woodruff was a free agent, following his surgery in November 2023, he turned down offers from other clubs, including the Chicago Cubs, to re-up with the Brewers in large part because he felt he needed to pitch for Milwaukee again. This foray into the open market was different for Woodruff, more businesslike.
“I wouldn’t say it’s the [same] thing as the last time when I needed to throw on the uniform again,” Woodruff said. “I threw on the uniform again. I checked all those boxes. It was more about this team is really good, they gave me the opportunity to come back and I’m very grateful for that.”
In extending the offer to Woodruff, the Brewers expressed confidence in his ability to look more like his pre-surgery self in terms of velocity and stuff than the 2025 version. Woodruff was still excellent last year in his first dozen outings since September 2023, pitching to a 3.20 earned run average and 83 strikeouts compared to 14 walks. All his peripheral numbers back that performance as being legitimate, too.
He’s at the front end of a regular off-season, his first of the kind in three years, and expects to be a full-go at the start of spring training. A recent visit with his surgeon, Dr. Keith Meister, reaffirmed everything is on track after the lat strain suffered in September that shut Woodruff down for the rest of the year, including the playoffs.
“I’m two years post-surgery and the surgery really isn’t even a thought,” Woodruff said. “It’s my body. My body, I’m able to go through off-season workouts and not worry about other things that are bothering me or having been bothering me. I’m able to go do my thing and my program and have a good workout and feel good. I haven’t had that in a couple of years. That’s going to be massive going forward. I’m in the middle of my workouts, ramping up getting ready to start throwing here in a week or a couple weeks.”
At the top of Woodruff’s goals are getting through a full season healthy and being able to pitch in the playoffs for the first time since 2021 after having to sit out each of the last three trips to the postseason. If he’s able to regain his former velocity, there’s no reason to believe he can’t perform like a frontline starting pitcher once again. Even if he doesn’t, the way he pitched this past season with diminished velocity gives him confidence he can find a way to play at a high level regardless.
“I think I said last year with my velocity a couple ticks down, it’s just a matter of pitching and locating and mixing up speeds and moving the ball around,” Woodruff said. “That’s how you get major-league hitters out. I’ve always tried to pride myself on being a pitcher and I’ll carry that with me going forward. Hopefully the stuff does come back to full strength, but if it doesn’t I can rely on the experiences I had last year.”
It remains to be seen if the two sides are able to strike a multi-year agreement of any sort on top of the one-year deal currently in place. For now, Woodruff is happy to just be able to run it back at least once more with the Brewers. The new boat probably won’t hurt, either.
“I’m lucky and blessed to be able to come back to Milwaukee,” he said. “That frees me up to go play baseball.”