Brewers avoid arbitration with left-hander who finished with 1.82 ERA

The Brewers and left-hander Hoby Milner have avoided arbitration, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. The southpaw will make a salary of $2.05M in the upcoming campaign.

Friday is the deadline for clubs and arbitration-eligible players to submit salary figures, with hearings set to take place in late January. Many cases will be resolved as that deadline approaches, such as this one.

Milner, 33 in January, first qualified for arbitration last year and made a salary of $1.025M. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected him for a bump to $1.7M in 2024, but he will beat that by a bit. He will be eligible for one more arbitration raise in 2025 before he’s slated for free agency.

He is coming off an excellent season in terms of run prevention, finishing with a 1.82 earned run average over 73 appearances out of the Milwaukee bullpen. He was likely helped by a .254 batting average on balls in play and 84.2% strand rate, both of which are on the lucky side of average. But he still had strong peripherals, with a 23.4% strikeout rate, 5.2% walk rate and 50.9% ground ball rate. ERA estimators like his 3.13 FIP and 3.43 SIERA suggest he wasn’t quite as dominant as the ERA makes it look, but they still suggest it was a good performance nonetheless.

He projects to be the top lefty in the Milwaukee bullpen in 2024, with depth options like Ethan Small, Clayton Andrews and Bryan Hudson also on the 40-man roster.