The Brewers are designating left-hander Clayton Andrews for assignment, per Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. That move will open up a spot on the 40-man for right-hander Jakob Junis, who was reported to have signed with the club earlier this week. That deal is now official.
Andrews, 27, just got to make his major league debut last year in cup-of-coffee fashion. He was added to Milwaukee’s roster at the start of July and then was shuttled to Triple-A Nashville and back frequently, getting optioned four times in the back half of the season. He managed to make four major league appearances in there, allowing 10 earned runs in 3 1/3 innings with four strikeouts and two walks.
That’s a tiny sample of work and he spent far more time in Triple-A. He tossed 57 innings at that level last year, allowing 2.53 earned runs per nine innings. His 31.1% strikeout rate was quite strong and he got grounders on 45.7% of balls in play but he also issued walks to 13% of hitters that came to the plate against him.
That walk rate is certainly troubling but Andrews may have been shaking off some rust after a lot of time off. The minor leagues were canceled by the pandemic in 2020 and then Tommy John surgery prevented Andrews from throwing for much of the two following seasons.
His first outings in the majors weren’t great but he had a pretty solid showing in the minors last year, after three years of not being able to pitch much at all. He still has a couple of option years remaining and clubs are often on the lookout for left-handed relief depth. The Brewers will now have one week to try to work out a trade or pass Andrews through waivers. Since he has neither a previous career outright nor three years of service time, he wouldn’t have the right to reject an outright assignment. That means he would stick with the Brewers as non-roster depth if he were to pass through waivers unclaimed.