Two of the more important members of the Denver rotation for several years- Steve Alonso and Daniel Torres- announced their retirements shortly before the end of the WPK season, having found their careers stalled out in the minor leagues in 1973.
Alonso, who was acquired by the Brewers mid-season 1966 from the L.A. Spinners and later traded back to L.A. during the 1970 season, had most of his best seasons in a Brewers uniform. Between the two teams in 1966 Alonso had his best season, finishing with a 16-8 record, a 2.98 ERA, leading the league in K/9 at 8.0, with a career best 4.2 fWAR and 5.6 rWAR. Alonso's biggest weakness was a propensity to allow home runs but between 1967 and 1969 he was one of the Brewers most consistently reliable starters. He retires at age 36 with a career big league record of 92-83, a career ERA of 3.35, and 18.4 WAR.
Daniel Torres was a member of the Brewers for 6 of his 8 WPK seasons and for a few years was the clear ace of the staff. Before his career took a nose dive at the age of 37 in 1972, he had led the league in ERA for 2 seasons running. Unlike Alonso, Torres was very stingy with the long ball and led the league in HR/9 in 1968 at a miniscule 0.1, having allowed just 2 HR's in slightly more than 216 innings pitched. Torres often found himself in trouble due to his wildness but he had a knack during his Brewer career of working out of jams by inducing a rally-ending double play ground ball or timely strikeouts to escape unscathed a great deal of the time. Torres was one of the team leaders and a highly popular player during his Denver years. He finishes his career with a very respectable 98-59 record, a 2.59 ERA, and 27.4 WAR.
