Former Orioles starter lands in Milwaukee on short-term deal

On Thursday afternoon, the Phillies picked up former Orioles' reliever Nick Vespi on a minor league deal with an invite to spring training. Just hours later, another former Orioles pitcher worked his way into a minor league deal, this time with lefty Bruce Zimmermann heading to Milwaukee with an invite to spring camp.

Initially reported by Brewers' beat writer Adam McCalvy, Zimmermann will head to Milwaukee after spending the entirety of 2024 in the minor leagues. The lefty pitched with the Orioles from 2020-2023, getting shuttled back and forth between Baltimore and Triple-A Norfolk a number of times during that stretch.

Zimmermann threw 80 innings in the Orioles' system this past year but was designated for assignment back in August in order to make room for infielder Emmanuel Rivera. Zimmermann cleared waivers and finished the year at Norfolk with a respectable 4.34 ERA. In total, he leaves Baltimore with an 8-10 record and a career 5.77 ERA.

Former Orioles' lefty Bruce Zimmermann signs minor league deal with Brewers

Originally drafted by the Braves back in 2017, Zimmermann was acquired as part of the Kevin Gausman trade the following year. He looked sharp at lower levels of the minors early on in his career and peaked at number 28 on the Orioles' top prospects list ahead of 2020. The COVID year was Zimmermann's debut season and the lack of consistency was surely detrimental to his further development.

After posting a 7.71 ERA in just 7 innings with the Orioles in the shortened season, he never quite got his career back on track. He stagnated a bit in the high minors and his stuff never fully translated to success at the major league level. He worked as a fill-in starter between 2021-2022 before getting relegated to Triple-A depth in 2023.

All that said, there's still an interesting pitcher under the hood heading to Milwaukee. The Brewers are more than likely going to shift him to the bullpen at this point. He doesn't quite have the control or the velocity to make it work, but they have a proven pitching lab that's churned out a significant number of successful major league arms in recent years.

Zimmermann has leaned heavily on the sinker of late, especially since losing a couple ticks of velo on his fastball. He was sitting 89-90 in Triple-A this year, which isn't good enough. Realistically, he probably ought to ditch the fastball and rely on the sinker, slider, changeup combo to get whiffs and induce weak contact. We'll see if the Brewers are able to get him on track with a mid-career renaissance. He's still just 29 so it's definitely not too late.