The Brewers have signed right-handed pitcher Kevin Herget to a minor league contract. He is in major league camp and made his spring debut yesterday, pitching a scoreless inning of relief with two strikeouts against Texas.
Herget became a minor league free agent at the start of the past offseason. The 32-year-old had a career-high MLB workload with the Reds a season prior. He appeared in 14 games and recorded 24 1/3 innings of largely low-leverage relief. He allowed 5.18 earned runs per nine innings and struck out 12.4% of the time, which was considerably below average. Herget missed more bats at Triple-A, where he struck out 22.7% of opponents in 47 1/3 innings. His 5.13 ERA in the minors wasn’t far off from his major league work, mostly due to an
Herget, a former 39th-round draft pick, has a decade of professional baseball experience with five different organizations. He made his major league debut with the Rays two seasons ago, appearing in three games. Herget has thrown 31 1/3 innings of 5.74 ERA ball at the top level. He has a 4.25 ERA in portions of six seasons in Triple-A.
Herget has plenty of upper minors experience to the Milwaukee camp. He’ll likely begin the season as a long relief depth option at Triple-A Nashville. He still has two minor league options, so the Brewers may easily shift him between the majors and Nashville if he is added to the 40-man roster at any time.
