Last season, the Milwaukee Brewers stunned the baseball world by winning the National League Central and making a run all the way to the NLCS, coming within just one game of a World Series appearance.
One of the most notable reasons for Milwaukee's success was the dominance of their bullpen unit, which ranked fourth in the MLB in fWAR and ranked third in xFIP, according to FanGraphs.
In fact, manager Craig Counsell was so reliant on his bullpen come October that he pulled starting pitcher Wade Miley after just one batter in Game 5 of the NLCS, knowing that he had converted starter Brandon Woodruff waiting in the wings.
However, things have changed in Milwaukee. Woodruff and Corbin Burnes have moved into the starting rotation, while the team also lost Joakim Soria and Dan Jennings in free agency.
A shortage in depth was recently made worse by Corey Knebel's decision to undergo Tommy John surgery, which will sideline him for the rest of the season.
With Jeremy Jeffress also starting the year on the Injured List with shoulder soreness, a once-dominant bullpen does not look nearly as imposing.
But the Brewers signing free agent closer Craig Kimbrel could end up being one of the most consequential moves in baseball.
Kimbrel fits in perfectly
Part of Milwaukee's dominance in relief stemmed from the three-headed monster of Josh Hader, Knebel and Jeffress. All three had K/9 rates of 10.4 or higher, with Hader and Knebel posting 14.0 or higher in that category.
However with Knebel out for the year and Jeffress a likely candidate for regression given both his track record and the nature of his injury, Hader is the only real flamethrower left in that bullpen.
Kimbrel has a career K/9 of 14.7, making him a natural fit to slide in behind Hader. His combination of velocity and a wipeout slider is much like Hader's, which would give Milwaukee practical mirror images from the left and right-hand side of the rubber.
And while this may seem arbitrarily cliche, Kimbrel “grinder” mentality also fits in well with the Brewers from a team identity standpoint. Milwaukee has never quite been as prominent a franchise as the Cubs or Cardinals, yet they have fought their way back into a position of consistent contention.
Kimbrel has been through the end of the glory days in Atlanta, a failed rebuild in San Diego and a World Series in Boston. He has been equally as persistent in his pursuit of greatness.
He would take pressure off of Hader
Perhaps the most important benefit to signing Craig Kimbrel would be the massive amount of mileage and pressure that his arrival would take off of Josh Hader.
One of the concerns with respect to Knebel and Jeffress' injuries is that they are correlated with the incredibly high usage rates and number of innings that both have pitchers racked up in the past two seasons.
Given that Hader is arguably the most dominant relief pitcher in the game, they can ill afford to overwork him as well.
Similarly, Hader is best when deployed at any given time in the ballgame. But with Jeffress out, there is a lot of uncertainty at the end of games for the Brewers, which could force Counsell into saving him for six-out saves more often than he might like.
Signing Craig Kimbrel would give Milwaukee a bona fide closer at the end of the bullpen, a guy that Counsell can immediately slot in for the ninth inning. This–plus Jeffress' eventual return–would give Hader even more flexibility to come out of the pen for long relief or even to allow for some extra days off.
With the season already underway, the Brewers have one of the best pitches to offer Kimbrel in terms of personal fit as well as playing for an established contender. They are also well under the $206 million luxury tax threshold and project to stay well below in the coming years, so they have options at the negotiating table.
Milwaukee is 6-1, but a +3 run differential is hardly sustainable without a deeper bullpen.
The pitcher with the highest ERA+ in MLB history is still on the market, and signing Craig Kimbrel could put the Brewers over the top in the National League.
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