Milwaukee Brewers trade deadline addition Nick Mears is currently struggling. The reliever has surrendered five earned runs over his last two outings and since joining the Brew Crew he has pitched to a 6.75 ERA across 10.2 inning that includes giving up four home runs. Despite this there are reasons as to why his he may be retained on the roster. Here we take a look at two of those reasons.
Reason #1 why a struggling Nick Mears won’t be removed from the Milwaukee Brewers active roster.
When the Brewers acquired Nick Mears from the Colorado Rockies they gave up a top 30 prospect in pitcher Bradley Blalock as well as another pitcher in Yujanyer Herrera who had been over performing in Single-A. Milwaukee’s decision to invest in Mears by surrendering two prospects means that they strongly believe he can be a key bullpen player for them. It seems highly unlikely that Matt Arnold and company would give up on Mears less than one month after acquiring him.
Related: Nick Mears learned that he was tipping pitches prior to the All-Star break.
Reason #2 why a struggling Nick Mears won’t be removed from the Milwaukee Brewers active roster.
The way MLB rosters work is that the active roster consists of 26 players (exception is during the month of September when this expands by two players) and players must be on the 40-man roster in order to be on the active roster. Players can be sent to the minor leagues without being subject to waivers so long as they have options. Unfortunately when the Brewers acquired Nick Mears all of his minor league options had been used up. Despite struggling on the mound Mears has enough potential that trying to remove him from the active roster would be risky and he likely would be scooped up by another team.
Between Nick Mears costing two prospects, his inability to be optioned to the minor leagues, and the fact that he has only been with the Milwaukee Brewers for less than a month it seems likely that he won’t be losing his spot with the team. One exception to this would be an injury that requires a stint on the injured list.
On the contrary prospect Jacob Misiorowski is knocking on the door of the big leagues and if the Brew Crew want to put their best team in the playoffs they may have to expose Nick Mears to waivers.
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