Although Denver came away from their recent trip to Brooklyn without a win, they did leave town with a new veteran left-hander in their bullpen as they worked out a deal with the Aces (initiated by the Brooklyn front office) to send 26-year old right handed reliever Evan Perez, 25-year old first baseman Sean Wright, and 21-year old outfielder Bobby Bernstein to the Aces for veteran (36 year old) left handed reliever
Chris Pollack, a two-time All-Star, minor league reliever
Bobby Beggs, and 20-year old outfielder
Jim Scott.
The sense from Brewers insiders is that although Perez had been pitching somewhat better for the past month or so, the front office wasn't that thrilled with him and was ready to move on and saw in
Pollack a good short-term addition for the stretch run, given his experience and strong work habits and the fact that he adds a third left-handed arm to the 'pen. The Brewers also have plentiful good young first basemen and nowhere for them to go with
Brett Taranto firmly entrenched at that position on the big league club likely for years to come. In fact, the AAA Chester club still features two big league caliber 23-year old first basemen in
Bobby Stewart and
Richard Escamilla. Bernstein was just another of the plethora of fine young outfielders in the Brewers system and although he is a fine fielder and terrific leader, the feeling was that his bat would not play at the WPK level and his ceiling is as a 5th outfielder/defensive replacement.
Pollack is thought to be just a rental for the rest of this season, with several young talented relievers currently waiting down at AAA for their chance, several of whom have already served time in the Denver 'pen (
Walter Hackler,
Ryan Muilenburg,
Tim Reinecke,
Brandon Veach) and the recently acquired
Rand Pinti.
Beggs joins the mix of potential future Brewers relievers with his extreme groundball propensity and great stamina. With a bit more development of his second pitch, and already above average slider, he could be a solid middle reliever or long man at the big league level.
And
Scott becomes yet another in the large group of toolsy outfielders in the system, with his fine defensive skills and speed and good leadership abilities, and slots in at the lower levels of the organization as a development project for possible WPK entry in 3 or 4 years.