Brewers release Opening Day starter Jhoulys Chacin

In just about five months, Jhoulys Chacin has gone from Opening Day starter to looking for work.

The Brewers released Chacin today after designating him for assignment over the weekend.

With no August trading period anymore, it’s something we’ve seen happen quite a bit this year. Teams have been more willing to just cut players loose to allow them an opportunity to catch on elsewhere instead of hanging on to them or sitting them at the end of the bench, especially with those (like Chacin) who are free agents at the end of the year anyway.

There’s a chance that, if he’s healthy, someone will give him a shot to fill a rotation spot for the final month of the season and hope he can rediscover the slider that abandoned him this year and led to a good part of his struggles. It might even be another team in a playoff chase, similar to how Atlanta picked up Francisco Cervelli after he was released in similar fashion by Pittsburgh.

Chacin officially ends his Brewers tenure with a 4.22 ERA in 54 starts, well worth the meager total of $15.5 million he was signed to over the past couple years. He was especially good in the Brewers’ postseason run last year, throwing 5 shutout innings against the Rockies in Game 2 of the NLDS and throwing another 5.1 shutout innings against the Dodgers in Game 3 of the NLCS before giving up 2 runs in 2 innings before being removed in favor of Josh Hader in Game 7.

Still just 31, Chacin could end up landing a similar contract in free agency again this year and prove to be a solid back-end starter for someone. He just happened to be miscast as a front-end starter for the Brewers.

Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference