Brewers Acquire Jordan Lyles

The Pittsburgh Pirates have said good-bye to one of their right-handed pitchers.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic is reporting that the Brewers have reached a deal to acquire the right-hander Jordan Lyles from the rival Pirates. Milwaukee will send back Double-A pitcher Cody Ponce.

This is the second straight season that the Brewers have acquired Lyles, as they have also picked him up in an August waiver deal a season ago. Down the stretch last season for Milwaukee, he tossed 16 1/3 innings of 3.31 ERA and helped them get to the NLCS last season. He hit free agency in an offseason and ended up signing a one-year, $2.05MM deal with the Pirates. He's still owed $705K between now and when the season ends.

For the first few months of the season, it seemed like the Pirates had a steal in Lyles after he went with a 3.09 ERA with a 61-to-19 K/BB ratio in 57 innings. That went through the end of May but suffered a hamstring injury last month that sidelined him for a few games and since early June has struggled with control issues. Much of that is the reason why the Pirates slid out of the Wild Card in the middle of July. In the past seven outings, he has allowed 30 runs on 46 hits and 14 walks. Despite that, he maintained his strikeout tendencies of whiffing 34 hitters. Now with the Pirates out of the Wild Card picture, it looks like they were finally ready to see him head to a contender, which is definitely what Milwaukee is.

The ERA is not what the Brewers are putting into when they made this deal. They need a arm to help stabilize the rotation. Brandon Woodruff is out until September with an oblique strain, and Jhoulys Chacin just went on the injured list with a lat strain. Jimmy Nelson, another starter, is also out with an elbow issue, which made this deadline all the more important for Milwaukee to get an arm into that rotation.

As for the return for the Pirates, Cody Bonce is also 25 and was the Brewers' second-round pick back in 2015 but unfortunately, is not among the Brewers' top tier prospects. He was having a strong season, though, with Double-A Biloxi, having pitched a 3.29 ERA with a 44-to-12 K/BB ratio and a 56.5 percent ground-ball rate in 38 1/3 innings out of the bullpen. Within the Brewers organization, he was their No. 27 prospect, according to Baseball America. Because of that, it was why he was not highly regarded as a top tier prospect in their farm system. Now, he'll get a chance within the Pirates organization to see if he can get himself higher up in their prospect pool.

It was clear the Brewers need help and Jordan Lyles is a cheap option for them til they can get all of their starters back. Not only that, but he knows the Brewers system well and their coaches and I think he knows exactly what they need out of him in order to get further in the playoffs (the World Series). The Pirates were not going anywhere and based on the trade, it looked like they were just ready to give up on catching that Wild Card slot, so it made sense for him to go to a contender and prove that he can bring October magic to the Brewers once again.