NEWSLETTER
Last season ended with shoulder surgery for Brewers righty Brandon Woodruff, who was subsequently non-tendered by the team. He wound up re-signing with Milwaukee on a two-year, $17.5 million deal, which was heavily backloaded.
At the time of the surgery and through the offseason, Woodruff’s situation was described as him missing most of the 2024 season, if not all of it. The hope, I think, was that he might be able to join the team very late in the year as a roster supplement/down-the-stretch contributor.
It sounds like that is no longer the hope, though. Woodruff himself told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that he will miss all of 2024 while rehabbing from the shoulder surgery:
I wouldn’t say this changes the Brewers’ 2024 outlook too much, since they were never COUNTING on Woodruff to return and contribute. And it could wind up that taking the entire year off, with a specific focus on being ready for 2025, will put Woodruff in a much better place to be impactful for the Brewers at that time. Woodruff would be 32 at that time.
Woodruff’s is a pretty extreme demonstration of how quickly everything can change in this game. It was barely more than six months ago that this was a guy who had put up a 2.76 ERA over the most recent four seasons, and was heading into his final arbitration year with a massive contract on the horizon. Just like that, the shoulder goes, surgery comes, and it suddenly becomes a question of whether he’ll contribute again at all, at any level of effectiveness, much less that level of dominance. Now he’ll have to show he’s good to go right out of the gate in 2025 after the rehab in order to try to secure a big contract ahead of his age-33 season. I have no love for the Brewers, but I do think that really sucks for him.
