Last Friday, the Milwaukee Brewers made the surprising decision to non-tender Brandon Woodruff, who has been a rotation stalwart for years.
Now, we are learning a bit more about the situation from Bob Nightengale of USA Today, who says that the Brewers tried to sign him to a two-year deal prior to doing that.
The Milwaukee Brewers tried to sign co-ace Brandon Woodruff to a two-year contract, knowing that he’ll likely miss the entire 2024 season with his shoulder injury. Yet, talks broke off, leaving the Brewers to non-tender him and make him a free agent. He was projected to earn $11.6 million in 2024 and would have been eligible for free agency after the season.
So a few things are interesting to note here:
1) Given that Woodruff is injured, it's understandable that the team didn't want to pay him that much to not pitch. It's also understandable that they didn't want to offer him a qualifying offer of more than $20 million after the season, given that he might accept. That would be $31 million over two years to a guy who didn't pitch one year and was a question mark the other.
2) That said, what was the offer that the Brewers made? Did the two-year deal they offered approach that or was it well short? If that's the case, it's understandable why Woodruff would turn it down. He can probably get a two-year deal from a lot of teams at this point, does he think he can get more than what Milwaukee was offering?
Though he battled injury in 2023, Woodruff still went 5-1 with a 2.28 ERA. Lifetime, he's 46-26 with a 3.10.
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