The Milwaukee Brewers are giving Garrett Stallings another opportunity in the big leagues, a late-season move for a 29-year-old right-hander whose path has been shaped by delays, trades and a long climb through the minors. With 15 games left in the regular season and the club having used 57 different players during the 2026 season, the Brewers are turning again to depth they have spent months building.
That is why Stallings is being searched now. His name has surfaced as the Brewers sit with the best record in baseball and keep leaning on almost anyone capable of giving them innings or filling a role, a reminder that the last two weeks of a season can reward persistence as much as pedigree. For Stallings, this is not a sudden rise. It is the latest turn in a career that has moved forward in fits, then stalled, then started again somewhere else.
He was drafted by the Los Angeles Angels in 2019, but the canceled 2020 minor league season wiped out a key development year before he had even made his debut. When he finally reached the minors in 2021, he was already doing so in the Baltimore Orioles' farm system after a trade in December 2020. He spent three years there, and in late May of 2024 he was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers for Thyago Viera.
That sequence matters because it explains why a player can seem to disappear even while he is still in the game. Stallings did not take the straightforward route from draft day to the majors. He had to restart after the lost 2020 season, then navigate another organization, then another trade, all while trying to keep his career from flattening out. Before the Brewers acquired him, his chances of reaching the big leagues had looked as if they were slipping rather than building.
The Brewers' decision is a vote of confidence in that slower path. It also fits the way they have managed this season, using depth not as a backup plan but as a core part of how they have stayed on top. For Stallings, the next step is the one that has been waiting on him for years: whether this opportunity becomes a stay.
