The Milwaukee Brewers have bolstered their pitching staff.
MLB insider Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic revealed the Brewers have acquired right-handed starter Dustin May and left-handed reliever JoJo Romero from the St. Louis Cardinals.
May signed a one-year, $12.5 million deal with the Cardinals this offseason. He has a mutual option for $20 million next season. The right-hander adds some much-needed depth to the Brewers’ rotation, which was a major need.
May is 5-7 with a 4.38 ERA in 21 starts this season. He’s pitched for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox and is a solid No. 4 or No. 5 starter.
Romero, meanwhile, is an impact reliever and should be a high-leverage arm for the Brewers. The left-hander is a pending free agent and is 1-3 with a 3.35 ERA in 33 games this season. He’s currently injured but is expected to be back by mid-August.
The deal is the first trade between the Brewers and Cardinals since the Jonathan Broxton for Malik Collymore deal at the 2015 MLB Trade Deadline.
What Did Brewers Give Up for Pair of Pitchers?
Milwaukee filled two needs in the trade with the Cardinals to acquire them, but they did pay a hefty price to acquire them from their rival.
The Brewers traded 10th-ranked prospect Josh Knoth, who’s a right-handed pitcher currently in High-A. Knoth was selected 33rd overall in the 2023 MLB Draft out of Patchogue-Medford HS. He’s 3-2 with a 3.79 ERA in 12 games, including 11 starts this season in High-A.
Milwaukee also dealt 24th-ranked prospect Coleman Crew, who’s a right-handed pitcher currently playing in Triple-A. The 25-year-old made his MLB debut earlier this season, so he could make an impact at the MLB level for the Cardinals.
Crew is 0-1 with a 5.40 ERA in 5 games, including 4 starts in the MLB this season. In Triple-A, he’s 5-1 with a 4.12 ERA.
Milwaukee Was After Pitching
The Brewers are once again one of the top teams in the NL, and they were after pitching.
Milwaukee was linked to Tarik Skubal, but he went to the Los Angeles Dodgers. After the move, Brewers manager Pat Murphy made it clear he wasn’t concerned about it.
“I can’t worry about what the Dodgers do,” Murphy said. “They’ve got a great organization, won back-to-back World Series, and they’re trying to do everything they can to compete at the end. I can’t worry about that. I need to worry about what we’ve got to do.”
Murphy, meanwhile, was confident that the front office would help improve the roster.
“I trust our front office, and it does feel like there’s a clear message out there that we’re not going to be passive in this thing. We’re going to be aggressive,” Murphy said. “But it still has to make sense. It still has to be responsible. … Hopefully not too responsible.”
The Brewers are 69-42 and are 6.5 games up on the Chicago Cubs for the top spot in the NL Central.
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