4:38pm: The two sides have a one-year, $2.5MM deal in place, pending a physical, per Jeff Passan of ESPN. Anderson could earn an additional $1MM in incentives.
4:36pm: The Brewers and free-agent left-hander Brett Anderson are “in serious discussions” on a contract, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets. Anderson spent last year with the Brewers.
Now 33 years old, the ever-promising Anderson overcame a spate of injuries earlier in his career to emerge as a solid back-end option over the past couple of seasons. Anderson tossed a career-high 176 innings of 3.89 ERA ball with the Athletics in 2019, and he parlayed that effort into a $5MM guarantee with the Brewers last offseason.
During his first season in Milwaukee, the soft-tossing Anderson turned in 47 innings in 10 starts and logged passable numbers for a No. 4/5 rotation option. He ended the year with a 4.21 ERA/4.40 SIERA and an exemplary 57.7 percent groundball rate. Although Anderson didn’t strike out many hitters (15.8 percent), he somewhat offset that by walking just 5.0 percent of the batters he faced. Anderson’s strikeout and walk numbers essentially lined up with the figures he has put up during a career that began in 2009 and has spanned 1,044 1/3 innings.
If he stays in Milwaukee, Anderson will vie for starts in a rotation set to include Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes at the top. Josh Lindblom, Adrian Houser and Eric Lauer will also compete for jobs, and the Brewers just added another candidate in veteran Jordan Zimmermann on a minor league contract.