Are you ready for J.A. Happ rumors round two? In 2018, the Milwaukee Brewers were reportedly interested in J.A. Happ (Please ignore that I said that Bob Nightengale made a good point). New York Yankees were seen as the biggest threat to the Brewers’ chances at Happ. This turned out to be accurate as New York traded then signed Happ to a short-term deal. The 37-year-old lefty had a rough 2019 season, and it appears he’s on the trading block to clear money after the Gerrit Cole megadeal.

Now, Happ had an awful 2019 season. I tried to look for an encouraging sign from Happ’s year to explain what might have happened, I have none. There is not something where he had an awful first half then turned it around in the second half or had one month where he gave up a ton of home runs. The one thing that did stand out to me is his strikeouts went down significantly from last year. He had 193 strikeouts, which was a career-high then only struck out 140 batters last season. That’s nearly 50 outs. In 2018, he gave up a ton of home runs but they were offset with strikeouts. He gave up homers this season too, but the strikeouts were not there.

Could the Brewers find a way to fix Happ? They’ve had reclamation projects throughout the last few years. Derek Johnson is attributed to most of that, but regardless, he would likely come cheap considering the year he had last year. He could be a solid addition to the Brewers rotation. While he’s not an ace, Happ can provide some reliability in the rotation. It would be interesting to see Brewers add multiple lefties this season to their rotation after not having one all last season.

Happ is a bit expensive as he comes in with a 17 million dollars for 2020 and 2021 if he pitches 165 innings or 27 games in 2020. Now, the Brewers could DFA him if Happ struggles to avoid paying that vesting option. There is a way to be creative about avoiding Happ’s second year of 17 million at age 38.

We’ll see if Happ becomes an option for Milwaukee again.

Charlie.