MILWAUKEE — The Milwaukee Brewers added some depth to their injury-riddled pitching staff Tuesday by acquiring 2015 AL Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel, who has spent all of this season in the minor leagues.
Milwaukee added the 36-year-old left-hander from the Seattle Mariners in exchange for cash. Keuchel has gone 7-4 with a 3.93 ERA in 13 starts with the Mariners’ Triple-A affiliate in Tacoma this season.
“The expectation is you don’t sign him to keep him in the minor leagues,” Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy said before the Brewers’ Tuesday night game with the Texas Rangers. “We’re not looking for minor league depth.”
Keuchel last pitched in the majors with the Minnesota Twins in 2023, when he went 2-1 with a 5.97 ERA in 10 appearances.
“The fact that he still wants to play, the fact that he still wants to do it after all he’s accomplished, I think that sends a message right there,” Murphy said. “He’s a ballplayer.”
Keuchel owns a 103-92 record and 4.02 ERA in a major league career that includes two All-Star appearances, in 2015 and 2017. He went 20-8 with a 2.43 ERA with the Houston Astros in his Cy Young Award-winning season of 2015.
But he has tailed off quite a bit over the last few years while struggling to stick with multiple teams.
The Brewers needed to add some starting pitching depth as they deal with numerous injuries to their pitching staff. Milwaukee leads the NL Central despite getting just 375 1/3 total innings from its starting pitchers through Monday to rank next-to-last in the majors, ahead of only San Francisco’s 371 2/3 innings.
Milwaukee traded 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes to the Baltimore Orioles before the season and knew going into the year that two-time All-Star Brandon Woodruff wouldn’t pitch at all in 2024 while recovering from offseason shoulder surgery.
Wade Miley and Robert Gasser have undergone Tommy John surgery and will miss the rest of the season. Other Brewers pitchers on the injured list include Joe Ross (lower back), Jakob Junis (right shoulder), DL Hall (left knee), Taylor Clarke (toe), JB Bukauskas (right lat) and two-time All-Star closer Devin Williams (back).
In other moves Tuesday, the Brewers transferred Gasser to the 60-day injured list, selected right-hander Joel Kuhnel from Triple-A Nashville and optioned right-hander Carlos Rodriguez to Nashville.