{"id":347825,"date":"2025-12-14T07:26:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T07:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/347825\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T07:26:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T07:26:11","slug":"brewers-to-trade-isaac-collins-to-royals-for-angel-zerpa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/347825\/","title":{"rendered":"Brewers To Trade Isaac Collins To Royals For Angel Zerpa"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Brewers are sending outfielder Isaac Collins<\/a> and right-hander Nick Mears<\/a> to the Royals, reports Robert Murray of FanSided<\/a>. Left-hander Angel Zerpa<\/a> is heading to Milwaukee in the swap, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kansas City entered the offseason with a plan to add outfielders. The club made good on those intentions this week. After signing Lane Thomas<\/a> on Friday, the Royals now add the switch-hitting Collins to the outfield mix. The cost is a controllable lefty reliever, though they get a bullpen piece back in return. Milwaukee clears some of its outfield glut while adding a hard-throwing reliever who is just now hitting arbitration.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old Collins went from relative obscurity to an integral part of Milwaukee\u2019s offense last season. He made the team out of Spring Training and emerged as the club\u2019s primary left fielder. Collins delivered a 122 wRC+ across 130 games. He finished fourth in NL Rookie of the Year voting, just behind teammate Caleb Durbin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Brewers were reportedly<\/a> looking to move some of their outfield depth, with Collins and Blake Perkins<\/a> mentioned as potential candidates. Jackson Chourio<\/a> and Sal Frelick<\/a> are entrenched as everyday options, with Christian Yelich<\/a> factoring in when he isn\u2019t DHing. Collins, Perkins, Garrett Mitchell<\/a>, and\u00a0Brandon Lockridge<\/a> were in the mix behind that trio. Milwaukee also added\u00a0Akil Baddoo<\/a>\u00a0on a\u00a0split deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Zerpa popped up in trade discussions last offseason, but ultimately remained in Kansas City. He reached 60 appearances for the second straight season, posting a 4.18 ERA over 64 2\/3 innings. Zerpa pushed his solid ground ball rate to league-leading levels in 2025. He\u2019d always been more of a grounder-getter than a strikeout guy, but his 63.7% ground ball rate ranked in the 99th percentile last season.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old Zerpa\u2019s 3.97 career ERA doesn\u2019t jump off the page, though his underlying numbers paint a better picture. The lefty posted a career-best 3.38 SIERA in 2025, bringing his career mark down to 3.67. He had a solid 3.50 xFIP this past year. Zerpa has recorded a BABIP above .320 in back-to-back seasons. His ground ball approach can lead to some batted ball variance, but that number could regress in future seasons.<\/p>\n

Mears came to Milwaukee in a trade from Colorado in July 2024. He struggled mightily in his first partial season with the team, but provided solid results as a middle relief option in 2025. Mears faltered down the stretch, allowing five earned runs in five September appearances. He also missed time with back tightness that month. Mears tossed 1 1\/3 scoreless innings in the NLDS but was left off the NLCS roster.<\/p>\n

Kansas City has been linked to several outfielders in the trade market, including Teoscar Hernandez<\/a>, Jake Meyers<\/a>,\u00a0and Brendan Donovan<\/a>. They were connected<\/a> to Jarren Duran<\/a> earlier today. Harrison Bader<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Austin Hays<\/a> have been mentioned as free agent possibilities for the Royals. They entered the offseason with an unproven group of \u00a0Jac Caglianone<\/a>,\u00a0Kyle Isbel<\/a>, and\u00a0John Rave<\/a> in the outfield, with Tyler Tolbert<\/a> and Dairon Blanco<\/a> as bench options.<\/p>\n

Thomas and Collins aren\u2019t Duran-level additions, but they\u2019re improvements on the in-house choices. The former Brewer should help in particular against right-handed pitching. Collins slashed .280\/.390\/.415 over 295 plate appearances from the left side. He showed some power as a righty, but hit just .232 with a pedestrian .324 OBP. Thomas will likely grab playing time against lefty starters.<\/p>\n

Zerpa is an intriguing fit in what projects to be a lefty-heavy bullpen. Milwaukee already has Jared Koenig<\/a> and Aaron Ashby<\/a> locked into leverage roles, with Rob Zastryzny<\/a> in a middle relief gig and DL Hall<\/a> as the long guy. Trevor Megill<\/a> and Abner Uribe<\/a> should soak up the majority of the save opportunities, with Koenig as the situational closer if multiple lefties are coming up. Zerpa might need one or two of those relievers to get dealt to factor into a late-inning job.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Benny Sieu, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brewers are sending outfielder Isaac Collins and right-hander Nick Mears to the Royals, reports Robert Murray of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[173615,21296,59655,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-347825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-angel-zerpa","9":"tag-isaac-collins","10":"tag-nick-mears","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}