The Brewers announced that right-hander Joel Payamps has been designated for assignment. Left-hander Bruce Zimmermann’s contract was selected from Triple-A in the corresponding move, and he’ll replace Payamps on both the 28-man and 40-man rosters.
This is the second time Payamps has been DFA’ed this season, and his first designation resulted in Milwaukee outrighting the reliever off the 40-man roster and down to Triple-A Nashville. The Brewers selected Payamps’ contract back up to the big league roster at the start of September, and while he posted a 3.38 ERA over 5 1/3 innings after his return, it wasn’t enough to keep Payamps from being sent back to the waiver wire.
Payamps was one of the more underrated relief arms in baseball in 2023-24, recording a 2.78 ERA and 48 holes over 129 2/3 innings out of Milwaukee’s bullpen. Payamps appeared in 137 games over those two seasons plus three more appearances in the playoffs, and it is possible this workload simply caught up to the righty in 2025.
Over 23 2/3 frames and 28 games this year, Payamps struggled to a 7.23 ERA, 20.4% strikeout rate, and 8.3% walk rate. A 4.24 SIERA is a more flattering look at Payamps’ performance, as he received some bad luck on both the strand rate (58.7%) and batted-ball luck (.361 BABIP) fronts.
However, these caveats weren’t enough for the Brewers to keep him around, and Payamps’ status is complicated by his lack of minor league options. The Brew Crew have therefore been forced to DFA the reliever rather than just send him to Triple-A, and because Payamps has been outrighted once, he can now elect to reject any future outright assignments in favor of free agency.
Should he clear waivers after this DFA period, Payamps could leave the Brewers organization altogether. A parting of the ways this winter seems likely anyway, as Milwaukee will probably decline to tender Payamps a contract. He is earning $2.995MM in 2025, and is eligible for arbitration for the third and final time this offseason.
Zimmermann signed a minor league deal with the Brewers back in December, then opted out of that contract in July only to sign a fresh new deal with the club a few days later. After almost a full season in Nashville, Zimmermann now gets a chance to log his first big league innings since the 2023 season, when he was a member of the Orioles. All four of Zimmermann’s MLB seasons came in a Baltimore uniform, as the southpaw posted a 5.57 ERA over 158 1/3 innings and 38 games (27 stars) for the O’s from 2020-23.
The left-hander spent the entirety of the 2024 season in the Orioles’ farm system before moving to the Crew, and Zimmermann has a 4.11 ERA and an impressive 5.2% walk rate across 138 innings in Nashville. Zimmermann has worked as both a starter and as a long reliever this year, so the Brewers could use him to soak up some late-season innings to keep other pitchers fresh for the playoffs.
