The Brewers enter 2026 with a good, if unusual, conundrum: they have two players who seem to have every right to close games.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not necessarily the closer(s) who will get a team to 90-plus wins. It\u2019s the other guys. Fortunately for the Brewers, they\u2019ve got other guys in spades, too.<\/p>\n
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Like every year, it\u2019ll take a bit to see how everything shakes out in the Milwaukee bullpen, but there is no shortage of good options here. Let\u2019s run them down.<\/p>\n
The Closer(s)<\/p>\n
Trevor Megill, working in place of the injured Devin Williams, saved 21 games in 2024 while pitching to a 2.72 ERA. He was even better in 2025, when he picked up 30 saves with a 2.49 ERA and upped his strikeouts by almost two per nine innings. He made the All-Star team. But then he got hurt; he went on the injured list with a somewhat troubling flexor strain (often a precursor to bigger, scarier injuries) in late August and made just one more appearance before the postseason started. But he was back in the playoffs, pitching wherever Pat Murphy asked him to \u2014 in his five appearances in the 2025 postseason, Megill appeared twice in the eighth inning, once in the seventh, once in the fifth, and once as the opener. He allowed one run on two hits with five strikeouts in four innings.<\/p>\n
Typically, you\u2019d just say that Megill \u2014 now recovered, and having done nothing but be a good sport since his injury late in the season \u2014 would step right back into the closer\u2019s role. But Abner Uribe, who filled in, is not just anybody. He is one of the best relievers in the sport. From Megill\u2019s last appearance before his IL stint on August 24 until the end of the season, Uribe was 5-for-5 in save chances, and he went scoreless in 12 of 13 appearances, the only blemish being a couple of runs in the top of the ninth of a tie game versus the Phillies on September 1.<\/p>\n
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Uribe continued in the closer\u2019s role in the postseason, too \u2014 he pitched the ninth in a four-run (non-save situation) game in game two of the NLDS, then picked up a two-inning save in a 3-1 game five victory. He did scuffle against the Dodgers; three walks and an earned run that proved meaningful in game one, and an RBI double to Enrique Hern\u00e1ndez in game two.<\/p>\n
But in the bigger picture, there\u2019s no question that Uribe got better results than Megill last season. In considerably more innings (75 1\/3 versus 47), Uribe pitched to a 1.67 ERA while striking out 90 batters. FIP, however, does slightly favor Megill, whose 2.50 mark was a quarter run lower than Uribe\u2019s 2.75. Both throw extremely hard (Megill averaged 99.2 mph on his fastball last season, Uribe 98.8, both in the top 2% of all pitchers), but Statcast\u2019s other underlying metrics tend to favor Uribe\u2014batters seemed to just find it impossible to square him up.<\/p>\n
Pat Murphy, when asked about this conundrum, said that Megill is likely to get the bulk of the save opportunities at the beginning of the year but that he\u2019s not really thinking of it as having a single closer.<\/p>\n
This is like when bad teams say they\u2019re using a closer-by-committee because they don\u2019t have anyone they trust, except good.<\/p>\n
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Other high-leverage options<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a quick appreciation of Jared Koenig, whose career was revived in Milwaukee in 2024 and has been nothing but nails ever since. Before coming to Milwaukee, Koenig had made 10 major league appearances, five of them starts, and he had an ERA of 5.72. He had turned 30 before the 2024 season and was surely wondering if it was ever going to happen for him.<\/p>\n
In the past two seasons, Koenig, a lefty, has thrown 62 and 66 innings, respectively. His ERA has been 2.47 and 2.86, a combined 156 ERA+. His strikeout numbers are pretty good. Statcast tells us that, like Uribe, hitters can\u2019t barrel him up. It\u2019s possible that some regression could be coming for the big lefty, but Koenig has been incredibly valuable to this team over the past two years, and I expect that will continue this year.<\/p>\n
But in this section of the preview, we should talk about the Brewers\u2019 bullpen\u2019s swiss army knife, a player with the potential to make a huge impact out of the bullpen akin to Josh Hader in 2018. It\u2019s very possible that Aaron Ashby starts the season in the starting rotation, but I don\u2019t expect him to stay there. He\u2019s got too much value as a guy that the Brewers can bring in whenever \u2014 whether that\u2019s the start of the game or the end of it \u2014 and pitch one, two, or three innings. Last season, Ashby threw 66 2\/3 innings in 43 appearances.<\/p>\n
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Ashby also didn\u2019t make his first appearance of last season until May 24. Is it a coincidence that, when Ashby debuted, the Brewers were 25-28, and they then went 72-37 for the rest of the season? I\u2019m not saying that Ashby was single-handedly responsible for the team\u2019s turnaround. But having a weapon like Ashby, who can be deployed whenever the need is urgent, is a tremendous luxury for a team like this. I get that some want to see Ashby start to better justify his rising salaries, but he\u2019s just so good out of the bullpen, and turning him into this kind of player could just be a different way of making him a star.<\/p>\n
The Newcomer<\/p>\n
There\u2019s really only one new face who figures to factor into the Milwaukee bullpen early this season, and that\u2019s \u00c1ngel Zerpa, who was acquired in a trade with the Royals. Zerpa is somewhat of a mystery to Brewers fans \u2014 he was okay last season with Kansas City, but if you were to just glance at surface-level stats, you might ask why the team traded Nick Mears, who had an ERA almost 0.75 better than Zerpa\u2019s in 2025, for him, much less Mears and a starting outfielder in Isaac Collins.<\/p>\n
But we\u2019ve come to learn that when the Brewers see something they like, we should trust them, and there was obviously something they liked when it came to Zerpa. Aside from the fact that even basic underlying numbers, such as FIP, suggested that Mears and Zerpa were much closer together than their ERAs would suggest (hello, Brewers defense), Milwaukee was also clearly drawn to Zerpa\u2019s 99th-percentile ground ball rate.<\/p>\n
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The Brewers look smart, thus far. In two February spring training appearances, Zerpa went six-up, six-down. He then went to pitch for the World Baseball Classic champs, for whom he pitched 5 1\/3 scoreless innings over six appearances while striking out eight. It\u2019s just spring, but it\u2019s encouraging to see Zerpa pitch well in as high-leverage a situation as you\u2019re going to find as a middle reliever in March.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m fighting the urge to just believe that Zerpa will be a complete lights-out arm. It feels like the Brewers know something about him that others don\u2019t and that he\u2019ll immediately be a stud. Maybe! But he also just might be a perfectly fine middle reliever, which would also be fine.<\/p>\n
Other options<\/p>\n
The Brewers return a few more players who pitched out of the pen at times last year: Grant Anderson, who will be a tough-on-righties option; DL Hall, who has to stay healthy and prove something but who could end up being a valuable long-relief option; and Easton McGee, whose opportunities last season were limited to 14 2\/3 innings but didn\u2019t look too bad despite a tough-luck 5.52 ERA.<\/p>\n
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Craig Yoho is still around waiting for another major league opportunity, but he\u2019s a little behind after a calf injury delayed his schedule; he\u2019s expected to be fully ready by the middle of April, but probably would have started in the minors even if he were fully healthy. Rob Zastryzny is out of minor league options, but the Brewers were able to push back making any decisions on him, as he will start the season on the injured list after a shoulder injury picked up while he was with Team Canada. Sammy Peralta is another guy the Brewers picked up over the offseason, but he\u2019s had a bit of a rough spring and will start in the minors.<\/p>\n
The other consideration here is whether any of the starting pitchers who aren\u2019t pitching in the rotation end up in the bullpen. Milwaukee didn\u2019t shy away from this option at the end of last season, as they used both Chad Patrick and Jacob Misiorowski as high-leverage long relievers in the playoffs. But right now, the numbers suggest none of the extra options for Milwaukee\u2019s rotation will start in the bullpen; as of Sunday evening, Logan Henderson, Robert Gasser, and Shane Drohan had already been optioned and Quinn Priester was headed for the injured list, leaving the Brewers with five big-league starters, presumably (Brandon Woodruff, Brandon Sproat, Patrick, Misiorowski, and Kyle Harrison).<\/p>\n
Where does that leave us?<\/p>\n
It looks like the Brewer bullpen to start the season will consist of the following players:<\/p>\n
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High-Leverage: Trevor Megill, Abner Uribe, Jared Koenig, Aaron Ashby
Middle Relief: \u00c1ngel Zerpa, Easton McGee, Grant Anderson
Long Relief: DL Hall<\/p>\n
Things will certainly change over the course of the season. Relieving is fickle and difficult to predict, even for players like Koenig who\u2019ve had multiple good years in a row. Ashby or Hall might be needed in the rotation at some point. Someone we\u2019re not expecting could impress in Nashville and earn an opportunity in the big leagues.<\/p>\n
But the Brewers have generally been good at going with the flow in the bullpen, and they\u2019ve got a handful of \u201ctent post\u201d types that we can be pretty sure they can rely on. In general, the bullpen should be a strength.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brewers enter 2026 with a good, if unusual, conundrum: they have two players who seem to have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2131,1110,28235,5,6303,127,4838,3924,83,1517,39,13079,1152,4362,11714,7881,1109,2123,2168,10679,843,59,4,4363,6077,40,2248,12324,12052,14417,44914,1094,1519],"class_list":["post-638777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-aaron-ashby","tag-abner-uribe","tag-angel-zerpa","tag-baseball","tag-brandon-sproat","tag-brandon-woodruff","tag-chad-patrick","tag-craig-yoho","tag-devin-williams","tag-dl-hall","tag-dodgers","tag-easton-mcgee","tag-enrique-hernandez","tag-isaac-collins","tag-jacob-misiorowski","tag-jared-koenig","tag-josh-hader","tag-kansas-city","tag-kyle-harrison","tag-logan-henderson","tag-milwaukee","tag-milwaukee-brewers","tag-mlb","tag-nick-mears","tag-pat-murphy","tag-phillies","tag-quinn-priester","tag-rob-zastryzny","tag-robert-gasser","tag-sammy-peralta","tag-shane-drohan","tag-trevor-megill","tag-wisconsin"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}