Brewers reacquire Jeremy Jeffress
Former pitcher returning after trade with Rangers
Jeremy Jeffress is coming home – again. The right-handed reliever was acquired by the Milwaukee Brewers from the Texas Rangers in their only deadline-day trade Monday. Going to Texas in the deal was right-hander Tayler Scott, a reliever at Class AA Biloxi.
Outfielder Kirk Nieuwenhuis was designated for assignment to make room for Jeffress on the 40-man roster.
“Always. Always,” Jeffress said when asked in a phone interview if he felt like he was returning home. “It’s amazing. I love it.”
Jeffress was traded by the Brewers along with catcher Jonathan Lucroy last Aug. 1. In exchange for the pair, Milwaukee received its current No. 1 prospect, outfielder Lewis Brinson, along with one of its top pitching prospects in right-hander Luis Ortiz.
Brinson is on the Brewers’ 25-man roster and serving as the primary centerfielder.
A third player acquired in that trade, outfielder Ryan Cordell, was traded to the Chicago White Sox last week for reliever Anthony Swarzak.
Jeffress, who will turn 30 on Sept. 21, was in the midst of a career year when he was traded to the Rangers in 2016. He emerged as the Brewers’ closer after Will Smith – expected to serve as co-closer with Jeffress – injured his knee late in spring training.
Jeffress posted a 2.22 earned-run average while saving 27 games in 47 appearances. He didn’t experience
the same success in Texas, going 1-0 with a 2.70 ERA in 12 appearances on a team that fell short of an expected World Series run.
He also was arrested for DWI in Dallas less than a month after the trade. He spent 22 days in a rehab facility afterwards, and ultimately was not suspended by Major League Baseball.
In 39 appearances this season for the Rangers, Jeffress was 1-2 with a 5.31 ERA and a WHIP of 1.67. He also has 29 strikeouts in 402⁄3 innings.
According to Fangraphs.com, his average fastball velocity has dipped to a career-worst 95 mph.
“I can’t put a finger on it. I’m baffled myself,” Jeffress said, referring to his drop in production and velocity.
“Baseball’s a crazy game. You work hard from Day 1, even in the off-season, then you come into camp thinking that you’re ready. You try your hardest and whatever happens, happens.
“To be honest, I think it was a little mental. But I think I’m in a good place now.”
The Brewers and Jeffress have a history that dates to 2006, when the team drafted him 16th overall out of South Boston, Va.
He was suspended several times for drug abuse, nearly completely derailing his career before eventually being traded to the Kansas City Royals in the 2010 offseason as part of a megadeal for Zack Greinke.
Jeffress bounced from Kansas City to the Toronto Blue Jays and then eventually back to Milwaukee in April 2014 after the Blue Jays cut ties with him.
Jeffress was back in the major leagues with the Brewers by late July of that season, and he went on to pitch in a career-high 72 games in 2015 before becoming the Brewers’ full-time closer last year.
“Coming home, it’s going to be great,” he said. “I feel like this is where I need to be.
“It’s all about being comfortable, man. And I feel like Milwaukee’s always been that way. Everybody in the clubhouse, everybody up top in the front office – everybody’s comfortable with everybody.”
Arbitration-eligible through 2019, Jeffress is playing on a one-year deal that’s paying him $2.1 million.
“I think Jeremy looks at Milwaukee as home, and we largely do, too,” general manager David Stearns said. “Obviously he had a really good run as a Brewer. Things have not gone as well for him since we traded him last year to Texas, but his arm strength is still there, he’s still the same guy, we still think he can get big outs.
“The goal here is to get him back to a comfortable setting and a place where he’s performed well, and get that level of performance back.”
Essentially it’s a lowcost, low-risk gamble for the Brewers, who are hoping Jeffress can return to his former success in a comfortable environment. Even better from the team’s perspective is the fact it didn’t have to part with any of its highly regarded prospects to acquire Jeffress.
“I don’t even care right now,” Jeffress said when asked what he thought his role would be. Corey Knebel is the unquestioned closer, while Anthony Swarzak, Jacob Barnes and Josh Hader are hard throwers who slot well into high-leverage roles.
“I just want to pitch,” he added. “I want to make sure that when my name is called, I get the job done. Worrying about being in a certain role is frustrating, and I think that’s kind of part of what happened here.
“Just worrying about being in a set role kind of frustrated me a little bit, and I was thinking too much and trying to do too much instead of when my
name was called being a closer in that inning.”
Bolstering a bullpen that leads the major leagues in losses with 27 has been a focus for the Brewers, who started by acquiring Swarzak. They’ve also shuffled several other pieces since then, bringing up minor-leaguers Paolo Espino and Wei-Chung Wang and designating Wily Peralta for assignment.
“We think we’ve added two arms that can help in various situations,” Stearns said of Swarzak and Jeffress. “It helps lengthen out our ‘pen and it gives us more options as we get into the middle and late innings of the game.
“We’ve had periods over the year where we’ve used our ‘pen quite a bit and we’ve asked a lot of those guys – especially those pitching late in the game. Now to add Anthony and Jeremy, it hopefully diversifies that load a little bit and gets guys a little more rest.”
In another interesting twist on that 2016 Lucroy-Jeffress trade, the Rangers traded Lucroy to the Colorado Rockies on Sunday for a player to be named later.
“The best outcomes
are deals that work out for both sides,” said Stearns. “Where you can look back a year later or five years later and say that transaction benefitted both organizations.
“I think we’ve had some of those over the last 18 months or so and I’m sure we’ll have more as we go forward.”
Scott, 25, is 4-6 with a 2.34 ERA in 42 appearances for Biloxi. He’s also struck out 63 in 612⁄3 innings. He was a fifthround draft pick of the Chicago Cubs in 2011, and signed as a minor-league free agent by the Brewers early last July.
As for other potential trades that were close to being consummated, Stearns would only say the action was brisk right up to the 3 p.m. Central deadline.
Stearns did note the possibility of talks continuing in the next month, a period during which players need to clear waivers before being able to be traded.
The Brewers nearly pulled off a blockbuster at last year’s August deadline, but a deal centering around Ryan Braun going to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Yasiel Puig failed to go through.