Brewers offseason FAQ: Key dates and more

This story was excerpted from Adam McCalvy's Brewers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter_, click here. _And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

This week’s newsletter is all about the offseason business at hand. Here are the dates and details you need to know as the Brewers dive into their first winter with GM Matt Arnold at the helm.

What are the key dates?

• First day after the World Series: Teams can trade Major League players again, and eligible players become free agents. That starts a “quiet period” in which free agents may negotiate only with their own team.

• Fourth day after the World Series: Last date to request waivers on draft-excluded players until next spring.

• Fifth day after the World Series: Last day to reinstate players from the 60-day injured list. The “quiet period” ends and Major League free agents are free to sign with any club as of 4 p.m. CT. Minor League players become free agents at 4 p.m. CT, if applicable. Also the deadline for clubs to tender qualifying offers to eligible free agents and the last date to outright potential Minor League free agents before tendering them a contract.

• Nov. 7-10: GM Meetings in Las Vegas.

• Nov. 15: Deadline for players to accept qualifying offer is 3 p.m. CT.

• Nov. 15: The deadline to add players to the 40-man roster to protect them from the Rule 5 Draft is 5 p.m. CT.

• Nov. 18: Tender deadline. Often referred to as the non-tender deadline, 7 p.m. CT is the deadline by which teams must formally tender 2023 contracts to unsigned players, including their arbitration-eligible players. If a player is non-tendered, he becomes a free agent.

• Dec. 5-7: Winter Meetings in San Diego, including the new MLB Draft lottery on Dec. 6 and the Rule 5 Draft on Dec. 7.

• Jan. 13, 2023: Eligible players and their teams exchange arbitration figures.

• Jan. 15, 2023: Start of the new international signing period.

• Feb. 13, 2023: Brewers pitchers and catchers begin to report for Spring Training.

Who are the Brewers' free agents?

OF Andrew McCutchen
C Omar Narváez
INF/OF Jace Peterson
LHP Taylor Rogers
RHP Trevor Rosenthal

Will any of them get a qualifying offer?

No. This year’s figure reportedly is a record at $19.65 million.

What about contract options?

2B Kolten Wong: $10M club option ($2 million deferred buyout)
RHP Brad Boxberger: $3 million club option ($750,000 buyout)

Wong set a career high with 15 home runs, and his 116 wRC+ was his highest for a full season in the big leagues, but he performed below expectations in the field and it might be tough to fit $10 million into the puzzle, given the Brewers' other payroll obligations for 2023.

“Defense was a minus for me. I need to get that cleaned up,” Wong said. “I think without the shifts, it’s going to help me a lot. I felt like when we started shifting a lot more, I started to get more timid and looking at the player next to me more than the ball. It put me in bad situations. It wasn’t a proud year for me; no excuses, I just need to get better. But on offense, I thought I had a decent year.”

A better bet might be Boxberger, who led the Brewers in appearances each of the past two years.

Who is arbitration eligible?

Who isn’t arbitration eligible? The Brewers have 18 players in this category, including some of their biggest stars.

SP Corbin Burnes
SP Adrian Houser
SP Eric Lauer
SP Brandon Woodruff
RP Matt Bush
RP Trevor Gott
RP Jandel Gustave
RP Hoby Milner
RP Luis Perdomo
RP Brent Suter
RP Devin Williams
SS Willy Adames
UTIL Mike Brosseau
C Victor Caratini
UTIL Keston Hiura
OF Hunter Renfroe
1B Rowdy Tellez
INF Luis Urías

Williams and Hiura are arbitration-eligible for the first time and will see their salaries jump from near the minimum. Burnes, Woodruff, Adames, Lauer, Houser and Tellez all have two years of club control remaining. At the press conference in which former president of baseball operations David Stearns handed over the reins, Arnold said that exploring extensions for certain players was a high priority this offseason. If the Brewers want to keep Burnes, Woodruff and others beyond their arb seasons, this might be the window to get it done, before they get within one year of free agency.

Of those 18 players, Burnes, Woodruff, Renfroe and Adames figure to carry the highest price tags when this process is done, with potentially eight-figure annual salaries. Renfroe is arbitration-eligible for the final time after earning $7.65 million last season and leading Brewers regulars in OPS.

Are any of those players non-tender eligible?

Yes, though it’s always tricky to predict whom. Teams sometimes use the threat of a non-tender to sign players for less than they might be projected to earn should they go through arbitration, and those discussions sometimes inform decisions. Last year, the Brewers non-tendered first baseman Daniel Vogelbach and reliever John Curtiss at that date.

What's the payroll situation?

The Brewers have three players on multiyear contracts who are already signed for 2023: Christian Yelich ($26 million), Freddy Peralta ($3,734,960) and Aaron Ashby ($1.2 million).

How much more is added to that $31 million or so depends on which of the arbitration-eligible players they retain, but one popular estimate projected that figure as high as $79 million and change for a total north of $100 million before pre-arbitration players and potential offseason additions are figured in. If the Brewers keep all of their arbitration-eligibles and pick up every club option, FanGraphs projects the payroll to top $138 million at the moment. That’s already higher than the website’s estimate of $137 million to finish 2022.

Who needs to be added to the 40-man roster this offseason?

Generally speaking, players who signed with their current club at age 18 or younger and have five years of experience or signed with their current club at age 19 or older and have four years of experience, and are not currently protected on 40-man rosters, are eligible to be plucked away in December’s Rule 5 Draft.

With a tip of the cap to Jim Goulart of the indispensable Brewer Fanatic forum, here are the members of MLB Pipeline’s Brewers Top 30 prospects list who would be Rule 5 Draft-eligible if not added to the 40-man roster (with their Pipeline rank in parenthesis):

INF Brice Turang (No. 4)
INF Felix Valerio (No. 14)
INF Eduardo Garcia (No. 21)
RHP Abner Uribe (No. 26)
RHP Cam Robinson (No. 27)
OF Carlos Rodriguez (No. 28)
RHP Victor Castaneda (No. 30)

Other notables who are outside MLB Pipeline’s current list, but who either once ranked in the Brewers' Top 30 or gained exposure in the prospect-rich Arizona Fall League: Pitchers Clayton Andrews, Dylan File, Taylor Floyd, Justin Jarvis and Max Lazar, catcher Nick Kahle, first baseman Thomas Dillard and outfielders Micah Bello, Eduarqui Fernandez, Joe Gray Jr., Tristen Lutz and Je’Von Ward. Plus infielder Cam Devanney, who was featured in this newsletter along with Robinson two weeks ago.

Turang is a lock to be protected on the Brewers' 40-man roster after reaching Triple-A in each of the past two seasons. Uribe is a tough call. The Brewers thought he had a chance to jump all the way to the Majors by the end of 2022, but he suffered a season-ending knee injury in April and missed the rest of the Minor League season; now he’s getting innings in the Arizona Fall League. Would a team be willing to dedicate a roster spot to a player with those question marks? Robinson is another interesting call because he’s the type of reliever who could immediately help a Major League team.