{"id":677875,"date":"2026-04-17T20:42:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T20:42:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/677875\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T20:42:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T20:42:27","slug":"grading-brewers-trade-for-flamethrower-junior-fernandez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/677875\/","title":{"rendered":"Grading Brewers Trade for Flamethrower Junior Fern\u00e1ndez"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Milwaukee Brewers swung a deal for veteran reliever Junior Fern\u00e1ndez earlier in the week. It was a quiet swap, in large part because he was down in the Arizona Diamondbacks’ farm system. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good deal. <\/p>\n

We’ve already talked about the player<\/a>. But what about the deal itself? Let’s examine and grade the trade itself. <\/p>\n

Grading Brewers-Diamondbacks Junior Fern\u00e1ndez Trade: B\"Arizona<\/p>\n

Feb 18, 2026; Scottsdale, AZ, USA; Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Junior Fernandez (53) poses for a photo for MLB media day at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. Mandatory Credit: Allan Henry-Imagn Images | Allan Henry-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Full Trade Details:<\/p>\n

Brewers Acquire: Junior Fern\u00e1ndez<\/p>\n

Diamondbacks Acquire: Cash considerations (reportedly<\/a>) <\/p>\n

Breakdown: It has been reported that the Diamondbacks received cash considerations for Fern\u00e1ndez. While the exact dollar figure isn’t out there, it isn’t likely to be very high. Fern\u00e1ndez didn’t make the Diamondbacks’ big league roster and was placed on the Development List by the club on March 27, per his official MLB.com profile<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The reason why this deal is graded as a “B” is because of the potential. He’s just 29 years old and has 50 big league appearances under his belt, although he hasn’t pitched in a major league game since 2022<\/a> as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates. But he has something that not every pitcher out there does.<\/p>\n

He has a blistering fastball that is actually among the best in the league. In 2022, he finished the season in the 98th percentile<\/a> in fastball velocity with an average of 98.7. Since then, he hasn’t been in the majors. But he still has that fastball. That’s the key to this deal. The Brewers reportedly are paying some cash to put an elite-level fastball down in Triple-A to see if they can get something out of him. <\/p>\n

Milwaukee has had success making deals just like in the past. The Brewers’ calling card in recent memory is development and hitting on cheap deals. For example, Jos\u00e9 Quintana was a steal last season just before the campaign kicked off. That was in free agency, not the trade market, but it is an example of the Brewers being able to identify talent at a low cost. <\/p>\n

Maybe that ends up being Fern\u00e1ndez now. He’ll be down in Triple-A trying to work his way back to the majors. If he does, then the Brewers will get some firepower in the big leagues. If he doesn’t make it to the majors, the price tag isn’t anything to worry about. This deal isn’t higher than a “B” because there’s no way to know if he’ll capture lightning in a bottle and return to the majors. But it’s higher than a grade like a “C,” for example because there is upside with a low cost. <\/p>\n

\"\"Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Milwaukee Brewers swung a deal for veteran reliever Junior Fern\u00e1ndez earlier in the week. It was a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2401],"tags":[5,136,843,59,4280,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-677875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-milwaukee-brewers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-brewers","10":"tag-milwaukee","11":"tag-milwaukee-brewers","12":"tag-milwaukeebrewers","13":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116421993888483783","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677875","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=677875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}