Baltimore Orioles: Finding a trade partner for Alex Cobb

The Milwaukee Brewers pushed deep into the 2018 postseason with one of the best bullpens in baseball and the National League MVP in Christian Yelich leading the way, despite having a patchwork rotation for much of the season.

The Brewers expect to have Jimmy Nelson back healthy in 2019 but he missed all of last year recovering from a torn labrum/rotator cuff, and you just never know with shoulder injuries.

At first glance, losing Wade Miley doesn’t feel like much, but Miley threw 80.2 innings of 2.57 ERA baseball for the Brewers in 2018; those innings won’t be easy to replace, nor will they be relatively cheap if they try to replace them via the free agent market.

The Brewers are sure to rest their hopes on Freddy Peralta and Brent Suter again, but depending on how much they trust Jhoulys Chacin and Zach Davies, they could be in search of an upgrade.

There’s a chance the Brewers head into 2019 with the staff they currently have and wait until the trade deadline to find an upgrade for the rotation if they need one, but Cobb would represent a bit more security on the mound than they had last year, and they have payroll flexibility with just $78 million committed to 2019.

Brewers GM David Stearns and Mike Elias worked under Luhnow in Houston from 2012-2015; would the familiarity there help them strike a deal? That’s probably wishful thinking. But if the Orioles could acquire someone like Hernan Perez or Keon Broxton in a deal with the Brewers, it could prove to be worth it.