Around the beginning of the playoffs, I did a deep dive into three of my favorite 2027 starting pitcher conversion candidates. One of the pitchers I considered writing about then—and obviously deeply wish I had, given he’s spent the last month going Andrew Miller Mode and then some on some of the best teams in baseball—was Aaron Ashby, the multi-talented Brewers left-hander. So let’s take another dive now into Ashby: his background, the case to start him next year, and the case to let him continue mowing dudes down in the pen instead.

Background

Ashby was a 2018 fourth-round pick out of Crowder College in Missouri. That’s the same junior college that four years later would produce Jacob Misiorowski, in case you didn’t know how good the Brewers were at the particular act of finding outlier stuff pitchers in off-the-map places. He was rolled out as a starter immediately after the draft, struggling some in the rookie level Pioneer League but then pitching brilliantly for seven starts in Low-A, racking up a 47-to-9 K:BB ratio. He came back in 2019 and proved the end of that season was no fluke, pitching well at both A-ball levels. He ranked third in the Milwaukee system entering 2020; we described him as a “crafty lefty” with a plus curve and above-average fastball, but noted that he might end up in the bullpen or a twice-through bulk role given command issues. That minor-league season didn’t happen, but we reported that he was impressive at the alternate site and in instructs, holding mid-90s and touching 98 mph at the alternate site and running out a full mix. He would make six strong starts at Triple-A to open the 2021 season, throwing the four-pitch mix he’d become famous for (if a bit slower and still with location issues), and then started bopping to the bullpen in preparation for a call-up.

He then settled into a swing role in the majors in the second half of 2021 and all of 2022, with a lot of strikeouts and just a few too many walks. The Brewers signed him to a cheap extension in the middle of 2022, anticipating a breakout similar to Freddy Peralta: five years and $20.5 million with team options for 2028 and 2029. Except instead of a Peralta-style breakout, he got hurt badly, missing most of 2023 with shoulder injuries. When he came back at the end of that season he was walking the ballpark in the minors, and he continued to do so as the absolute worst pitcher in the Triple-A International League in 2024 through the end of July. Were it not for the contract, it’s possible he wouldn’t have kept getting MLB chances, but instead he got shuttled into short relief in Triple-A, found success for a few weeks, and got called back up. He pitched well in low-to-medium leverage relief after coming back to the majors in late-August.

Like Adrian Morejon, Ashby’s final—at least for now—conversion to relief was a matter of timing on injuries more than anything. The Brewers entered 2025 treating him as rotation depth, but he pulled his oblique in spring training and he was needed in the bullpen when he came back around Memorial Day. He’s been one of the better relievers in the NL since, and this October he turned into the master and the ruler of the baseball world, blowing through some of the best hitters in the league like a category five hurricane. He has now completed the greatest postseason of any reliever in baseball history, garnering comparisons to Hall of Fame greats like Rivera, Gossage, and Fingers.

The Case To Start Him