Image credit: IMAGE IMAGES via Reuters Connect
Around the start of the playoffs I did a deep dive into three of my favorite 2027 starting pitcher candidates. One of the pitchers I was thinking about writing about at the time — and I was obviously hoping for, since he spent the last month following the exit of Andrew Miller, and then some of the best teams in baseball — was Aaron Ashby, the Brewers’ multi-talented left-hander. So now we’re going to focus on another aspect of Ashby: his career, the reason he’s starting next year, and the reason he’s going to continue to reap the benefits of the guys in the pen.
Background
Ashby was a 2018 fourth-round pick out of Crowder College in Missouri. This is the same junior college that would produce Jacob Misiorowski four years later, in case you didn’t know how good the brewers were at the unique act of finding bottles outside in out-of-the-way places. He started developing immediately after the draft, struggling some at the rookie level of the National League, but then developed brilliantly through seven starts in Belgian-A, accounting for a 47-to-9 K:BB. He came back in 2019 and proved that the end of that season wasn’t a fluke, as A-ball continued at both levels. He placed third in the Milwaukee system entering 2020; We’ve described him as a “crafty lefty” with more curve and an above-average fastball, but it’s worth noting that he ends up on the ball or twice-per-mass given command issues. That didn’t happen during his minor-league season, but he was impressive in the alternate position and pitching, holding down the mid-90s and hitting 98 mph in the alternate position and running at full throttle. He would make six strong starts in Triple-A to open the 2021 season, became famous by throwing a four-pitch mix (if a little slowly and still with the lease issues), and then started bopping to the bullpen in preparation for a call-up.
He then settled into the majors in mid-2021 and all of 2022, with a lot of strikeouts and a few too many walks. The Brewers signed him to a cheap extension in mid-2022, anticipating a Freddy Peralta-like breakout: five years and $20.5 million with options for 2028 and 2029. Unless Peralta’s breakout style went bad, he missed most of 2023 with shoulder injuries. When he returned at the end of that season, he walked the ballpark in the minors, and did so as the absolute worst pitcher in the Triple-A International League in 2024 through the end of July. Without the contract, it is possible that he would not have saved the MLB season, but he was included in a short relief in Triple-A, found success for a few weeks and received a recall. Well, he’s been relieved of his mid-pressure relief after returning to the majors in late August.
Like Adrian Morejon, Ashby’s last – for now at least – conversion was more about relief than injury. The Brewers entered 2025 treating him as rotation depth, but he pulled his oblique in spring training and needed work in the bullpen when he returned around Memorial Day. He was one of the best relievers in the NL, and this October he turned into the master and ruler of the baseball world, blowing through some of the best hitters in the league as a category five. He now has the longest streak of any reliever in baseball history, drawing comparisons to Hall of Famers like Rivera, Gossage, and Fingers.