Brewers Continue Offseason Makeover, Trading Kolten Wong To Seattle For Jesse Winker

Matt Arnold was surprised that people were surprised when he picked up a $10 million team option on second baseman Kolten Wong in November.

If he thought that move surprised people, this one will be a doozy.

On the eve of baseball’s annual winter meetings, Arnold dealt the two-time Gold Glove winner to Seattle for outfielders Jesse Winker and Abraham Toro.

“Certainly obviously Kolten was a big part of some really good Brewers teams and always tough to move on from a guy like that,” Arnold said Friday evening. “I spoke to him earlier and he had great things to say about our organization and I feel really good about what he was able to accomplish here for us. At the same time, for us to be able to access guys like Jesse Winker and Abraham Toro is something that’s exciting for us, to help us in our quest of what we want to accomplish here in bringing a championship here to Milwaukee. We’re excited to have these two guys with us here and it’s been a long process, but we’re thrilled to have them.”

Wong, 32, played eight seasons for the St. Louis Cardinals before signing a two-year, $18 million deal with Milwaukee in February 2021. The move represented a commitment to run prevention as Wong was coming off back-to-back Gold Glove-winning seasons at second base.

He lived up to his billing as a defensive superstar during his first season with the Brewers. He made just two errors all season while finishing with six defensive runs saved but also provided a big boost offensively with career-highs for home runs (14), doubles (32) and extra-base hits (48) despite being limited to 116 games by oblique and calf strains.

Wong topped his home run total last season with 15 while putting up another solid offensive season (.251/.339/.430, .770 OPS) but his defense fell off considerably with a career-high-trying 17 errors, minus-9 outs above average and minus-1 defensive runs saved.

That fall-off, combined with a $10 million price tag and the presence of top prospect Brice Turing, made it unlikely that Milwaukee would pick up his 2023 option but doing so became one of Arnold’s first official moves after taking over for David Stearns.

“I’m actually surprised that it would be considered a surprise,” Arnold told a select group of reporters following the decison. “He’s been a really good player here for a number of years. We felt like this is a championship-caliber player who can be part of a really good team here.”

Instead, he’ll join a championship-caliber team in Seattle, where the Mariners are looking to take another step forward after snapping a two-decade playoff drought last season but were swept in an AL Wild Card series by the eventual World Series winning Astros.

Winker was not on Seattle’s roster for that series. His season came to a premature end because of knee and neck injuries that limited him to 136 games and a slash line of .219/.344/.344 with 14 home runs and a .688 OPS — a far cry from 2021 when he earned his first career All-Star invitation and slashed .305/.394/.556 with 24 homers, 71 RBIs and a .949 OPS in 110 games for the Reds, who traded him to Seattle along with Eugenio Suarez in March.

In all Winker spent six seasons with Cincinnati, hitting 80 home runs with an .836 OPS. He did a significant amount of that damage against Brewers pitchers (.322/.409/.605, 13 HRs, 1.013 OPS) and was especially dangerous at American Family Field where he slashed a whopping .344/.440/.591 with a 1.032 OPS in 32 games.

Winker turned 29 in August and will earn $8.25 million this season, his last before becoming eligible for free agency. He expects to resume baseball activities in January and be ready to go by Opening Day.

“I didn’t have a good year,” Winker said. “I had a bad year. So I got some things taken care of and I’m looking forward to being healthy and I’m just really excited to be a Milwaukee Brewer and to move forward.”

Toro, meanwhile, is only 25 and became eligible for arbitration for the first time this wniter as a Super 2 player. He’s played parts of four seasons with the Astros and Mariners, slashing .206/.276/.345 with 26 home runs and a .621 OPS in 913 plate appearances.

He appeared in 109 games for Seattle last season, batting .185 with 10 home runs. Toro still has one minor league option remaining so Milwaukee could send him down to Triple-A Nashville for seasoning and to provide depth with a number of outfielders at that level expected to find themselves on the big-league roster come April.

“There are a lot of really interesting ingredients,” Arnold said. “The performance that he’s had across his minor league career has been very positive and it’s something where we believe that will translate to major league production. That plus his ability to play all over the diamond and then what kind of person he is. This is a guy that’s a very unique person, a guy that brings a ton of energy to the field every day, a guy that we believe will enhance our culture in a great way. So for a lot of reasons we felt like he was a really, really good fit.”

The potential of trading Wong had been the subject of several reports leading up to the winter meetings, which begin Sunday in San Diego. There’s also been chatter about the Brewers looking to potentially deal one of their ace starters, Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff, or shortstop Willy Adames.

All three are still under team control for two more years and while Milwaukee would love to work out long-term deals with all three, it may be a tough task from a financial standpoint.

Arnold wouldn’t say for certain that any of those players were off limits or the subject of discussions but made it clear that all three are considered key pieces to the Brewers plans next season, when they look to return to the postseason after missing out in 2022.

“What I can say is that those are guys that are very core to our franchise and we intend to build around that group to do the best we can here in 2023,” Arnold said.