Major League Baseball’s trading season is about to begin, and one team reportedly open to making a big splash might surprise you.
The Milwaukee Brewers are one of baseball’s biggest surprises this season, and the Brew Crew looks like it will be a buyer as the July 31 deadline approaches. Milwaukee already has begun “background work” on a pair of starting pitchers: Oakland Athletics right-hander Sonny Gray and Chicago White Sox lefty Jose Quintana, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi reported Friday, citing sources.
The Brewers stormed out of the gates to start the season and eventually came back to earth a little bit, but a four-game winning streak entering Friday has them at 48-40, 4 1/2 games ahead of the defending World Series champion Chicago Cubs. The National League Central certainly is in a down year — Milwaukee is the only team above .500 — and adding a quality arm like Gray or Quintana could solidify the Brewers as the division favorite able of withstanding a stretch run from the Cubs.
Milwaukee certainly is set up to be a buyer at the deadline. The Brewers have one of the best farm systems in baseball, thanks in part to some shrewd trades at the deadline last year and this offseason. They aren’t able to spend like bigger market clubs can, but players like Gray and Quintana have manageable salaries and would be perfect targets for a team like Milwaukee.
Making a deadline splash isn’t totally foreign for the Brewers, either. In 2008, they acquired CC Sabathia from Cleveland at the deadline and rode the southpaw hard down the stretch. Sabathia went 11-2 in 17 starts, with seven of those starts coming in the club’s final 26 games.
Thumbnail photo via Neville E. Guard/USA TODAY Sports Images
