Another shoe has dropped in the wake of the Brewers’ signing of Akil Baddoo: Isaac Collins, last year’s key left fielder for much of the season, has been traded to the Kansas City Royals, along with Nick Mears, who has pitched 76 times for the Brewers since reaching the 2024 trade deadline. Returning to Milwaukee is left-handed reliever Angel Zerpa.
Arguably the Brewers’ biggest strength right now is their depth at almost every position on the diamond. But at a certain point that depth creates blockages; after Baddoo signed, the Brewers had nine different outfielders on the 40-man roster who played at least some time in the Majors last season. Collins had a magical summer and some unforgettable moments in a Brewer uniform, but faded severely along the way and barely played in the postseason. Mears got a lot of support from Pat Murphy last season – he was the go-to person to get out of ugly trouble – and pitched quite well, with a 3.49 ERA (119 ERA+) and 3.86 FIP in 63 games. But Mears has had trouble with the long ball since coming to Milwaukee, and he was never quite able to match the tantalizing peripherals that accompanied him from Colorado.
So the Brewers consolidated Collins and Mears in a deal for Zerpa, who throws a hard sinker (average velocity of 96.5 mph last season, 84th percentile) and a tons of ground balls: His 63.7% ground ball percentage was in the top one percent of the league last year. With the Brewers’ excellent defense in the field, there’s a good chance the gap between Zerpa’s 4.18 ERA and 3.86 FIP in 2025 (scarily the exact same FIP as Mears) will go the other way next season. Zerpa combines that sinker with a slider that scores nicely in the “Stuff+” metric (126), mixing in the occasional four-sieve and even more occasional changeup.
Despite interesting stuff and high speed, Zerpa hasn’t been a high strikeout pitcher in his Major League career. In the two seasons he pitched as a high-volume reliever, he posted nearly identical strikeout and walk numbers (8.2 and 8.1 K/9 to 3.2 and 3.1 BB/9 in 2024 and 2025, respectively). Home runs have been a bit of an issue, as Zerpa’s career home run rate is 1.1 per nine, and he has never had a season where he allowed fewer than one homer per nine innings (not counting the five shutout innings he pitched in his debut – and only – appearance in 2021).
Zerpa has performed 148 times since that debut. He is in his first year of arbitration in 2026; Spotrac predicts his salary will be around $1.25 million, which is slightly less than the $1.5 million it predicts for Mears. With Collins also out, the Brewers will save about a million dollars.
Zerpa is also left-handed, giving the Brewers another option from that side of the mound to go alongside Jared Koenig, Aaron Ashby and the grab bag of DL Hall, Rob Zastryzny, Robert Gasser (if he doesn’t start) and Sammy Peralta.
This could be seen as a disappointing return for the Brewers, but it’s clear they see something they like in Zerpa, and this suggests they think Collins was more real at the end of the season than Collins was in July and August. We’ll see how it plays out, but at this point the Brewers’ pitching scouts have probably earned the benefit of the doubt. According to Curt Hogg, there could be more to come:
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