Brewers DFA Lindblom, hope to retain him

MILWAUKEE -- The Brewers gambled that Josh Lindblom’s success in South Korea would translate back to Major League Baseball, but their bet hasn't paid off.

On Wednesday, Lindblom was designated for assignment by the Brewers, less than halfway into his three-year, $9.125 million contract. The club is on the hook for about $4.6 million left on the 33-year-old’s deal, except in the scenario they find a team to trade for him within the next seven days.

Brewers president of baseball operations David Stearns indicated he’d had a “constructive” conversation with the player, who agreed to accept an outright assignment to Triple-A Nashville in the likely event he clears waivers.

“This makes sense for everyone,” Stearns said. “He's going to start games in Triple-A and get on a regular schedule. Hopefully, we can get him going.”

The Brewers cut Lindblom loose from the 40-man roster to free a spot on the active roster to recall left-hander Eric Lauer to start Wednesday against the Padres at American Family Field.

? Injuries and Roster Moves

“It just hasn’t gone great for Josh this year, unfortunately,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “He’s an incredibly hard worker, a great teammate. He’s tried to figure it out. It just unfortunately hasn’t been going his way this year. At this point, we just needed to get more production out of that spot, and so we designated him for assignment.”

Lindblom pitched for the Dodgers, Phillies, Rangers and A’s from 2011-14 before becoming a bona fide star over parts of five years in the KBO, pitching for Lotte and Doosan. He won that league’s equivalent of the Cy Young Award in 2018 and ’19, and also picked up league MVP honors in ’19 after going 20-3 with a 2.50 ERA and 189 strikeouts in 30 starts.

The Brewers analyzed the data and video and believed Lindblom had developed the weapons to have success in the Majors, so they signed him to a three-year deal at the 2019 Winter Meetings. But Lindblom never found a foothold.

In a total of 62 innings for the Brewers over the past two years, Lindblom had a 6.39 ERA and surrendered 65 hits, including 11 home runs.

“Obviously, we signed him because we thought he was going to pitch well here,” Counsell said. “If I would point to one thing, I think Josh is the type of pitcher that has to get hitters into swing mode, and then he’s a pitcher that’s executing on the edges of the plate with multiple pitches while they’re in swing mode, and so he generates some weak contact like that. He did last year do a good job of generating swing-and-miss with his slider. That’s what’s got to work for him.

“I think if anything, too often the hitter was given some ‘pitches off,’ if that makes any sense -- it wasn’t that close, swing-at-that-pitch type of offering. That’s tough to do for any pitcher, really. …

“[This year] he was in the long role, and those games don’t sequence the right way all the time. There was a stretch where he went 10 days off, and that doesn’t help a pitcher and that makes it challenging for him, especially for a pitcher like Josh that’s really relying on execution on the edge of the zone, has four to five pitches in his repertoire that he needs to be able to execute -- and that just wasn’t conducive to being able to perform as that type of pitcher. That did hurt him early in the season, for sure, and it got him kind of behind and then we could just never get him that regular work that I think he needs, a guy like him needs to be effective.”

In the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Lindblom was 2-4 with a 5.16 ERA in 10 starts plus a pair of relief outings. He began this season as the Brewers’ long reliever and posted a 9.72 ERA in eight appearances out of the bullpen, with most of the damage coming in a 3 2/3-inning emergency relief appearance against the Cubs on April 23, when he surrendered eight earned runs. Lindblom spent the next three weeks on the 10-day injured list in late April and early May with fluid on his right knee.

His final Brewers appearance was Tuesday, when Lindblom didn’t allow a hit in two innings, but surrendered a run on a walk, a stolen base and a run-scoring wild pitch. All told, he was charged with earned runs in six of his eight Major League appearances this season.

“I think what's been surprising is the hurdle has been strike throwing. And I think that's surprising for Josh, as well,” Stearns said. “It's something he has excelled at his entire life, and certainly he excelled at that in Korea. That's what has surprised us, and it's something he now can work on.

"Hopefully, he can get back to the type of control he demonstrated for most of his career. If he's able to do that, I think he'll be able to help us.”

Last call
? With city of Milwaukee pandemic policies relaxing as of June 1, the Brewers are amending many of the health and safety measures put in place this season at American Family Field. Notably, fans who are fully vaccinated no longer will be required to wear masks as of that date. The team also is returning to a more liberal carry-in policy and will begin accepting cash at some concession stands.

? After walking nine batters over seven total innings in his past two starts, Adrian Houser has been working on the timing of his delivery ahead of his scheduled start against the Padres on Thursday.

“My arm hasn’t been in the right spot sometimes,” he said. “Just been really working on getting that rhythm and timing back and getting comfortable back out on the mound. I think we’re headed in the right direction.”

? The Brewers and the city of Milwaukee Health Department hosted a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination clinic prior to Wednesday’s game and will do the same Thursday from 9:10 a.m.-noon CT. No appointments are necessary, and every vaccinated individual will get two tickets to the Padres-Brewers series finale. The Health Department is distributing both the Johnson & Johnson and the Pfizer vaccine. The only charge is for parking.