SURPRISE, Ariz. -- Pat Murphy’s list of the five best things so far about Brewers camp wound up stretching to seven, but he’s the manager so he makes the rules around here.
It’s not an exhaustive list, since Murphy is surely pleased to see Christian Yelich hitting home runs coming off back surgery, Brandon Woodruff preparing to pitch in a game for the first time in more than 16 months, and many other developments this spring. But here are some of the players and developments that specifically garnered Murphy’s mention this weekend:
1. The way Cooper Pratt made the most of his first big league camp before the 20-year-old shortstop prospect -- ranked as the No. 3 Brewers prospect and No. 56 overall by MLB pipeline -- was returned to Minor League camp on Friday.
2. “What Capra is doing,” as in Vinny Capra, the 28-year-old, out-of-options infielder who has put himself on an inside track for a bench job.
3. The arrival of Jose Quintana for rotation depth. Murphy had been a proponent of adding the veteran left-hander.
4. Sal Frelick’s “pasta-based exit velo.”
5. Craig Yoho’s Cactus League brilliance. Spring Training performance isn’t everything, Murphy has cautioned, but Yoho’s exceptional changeup has garnered notice.
6. “Don’t sleep on that Lara kid,” meaning Luis Lara (No. 21 prospect), who was also returned to Minor League camp on Friday.
7. Right-hander Elvin Rodriguez, who looks like a good bet at this point to crack the Opening Day roster.
“It’s been better than I thought,” Murphy said. “We had a role for him coming in, so it could be a bigger role. Everything’s better than I thought. If you’re talking about the five most exciting things in camp, Elvin is one of them.”
Until the Brewers inked Quintana last week, the 26-year-old Rodriguez was the club’s only free agent who garnered a contract beyond one year -- he got one plus a club option after pitching the past two seasons in Japan. Before that, Rodriguez pitched briefly for the Rays in 2023 (one outing) and for the Tigers in ‘22 (seven outings, five starts).
The Brewers could use him as a starter, a reliever or both, and Murphy loves that Rodriguez got experience in Japan, where he had a 2.78 ERA in 65 games (seven starts) overall, including a 2.77 ERA in 39 appearances at the top level of Japanese baseball.
“I’m surmising that you go over there and there’s kind of a freedom, like, ‘I’m getting paid, nobody knows me over here and I’m doing my thing, and I get to work out some stuff,’” Murphy said. “There’s a different type of game being played there that for a pitcher, yeah, you don’t give up the same kind of damage, but it teaches you to navigate within the zone. How to induce soft contact. How to keep guys off the barrel. And then you have success so you stay out there, and you get more innings. I think that’s kind of a bridge that’s really helpful.”
Rodriguez’s most recent Cactus League outing was his poorest statistically -- he surrendered four earned runs on five hits including a pair of home runs in 2 1/3 innings against the Angels on Saturday -- but outings like that can bear the most fruit during Spring Training, pitching coach Chris Hook said.
The idea in spring, Hook said, is for a pitcher to go out and work, then analyze the results in a meeting of pitchers, catchers and coaches the following morning. Rodriguez had that conversation on Sunday.
Most encouraging, according to Hook: Rodriguez’s four-seam fastball topped out at 22 inches of induced vertical break. That’s elite, and creates the rising effect explained in this story from last year about Cubs starter Shota Imanaga’s fastball.
“He’s a guy who’s had some success in Japan and the ball comes out clean,” Hook said. “We’re going to build him up [as a potential starter] here and see where that goes. It’s a live arm.”
Rodriguez used his time in Japan to work on a split fastball, though it never became a reliable part of his repertoire. More than that one pitch, he honed his sequencing, built endurance and shed his habit of picky eating by developing a taste for sushi and wagyu beef.
Asked what surprised him most about the Japanese style of play, Rodriguez said, “They don’t strike out a lot. They just swing the bat, it doesn’t matter the count, 3-and-0, they swing. And they run a lot. … I went there to learn something new, and come back and compete at the highest level, which is MLB.”
If things continue to go right, that’s where he will pitch this season.