SAD NEWS: Four Brewers key players announced departure today after…………….

In addition to Joe Ross (who was already there) and Devin Williams (transferred there from High-A Wisconsin), the Brewers sent Jared Koenig and Gary Sánchez on rehab assignments to Triple-A Nashville this weekend. It’s possible that all four of those players will return to the team at or before the end of the month. Williams is the biggest name, of course, and could be the biggest difference-maker in the mix, but Pat Murphy confirmed Saturday that the team still wants Ross as a fixture in the starting rotation.

No matter who pitches where or for how long, the team has some huge and fascinating roster decisions to make in the coming days. Presumably, they will further add to a team that is well-positioned to reach the postseason and has earned a chance to get there with some momentum and a real opportunity to reach the World Series. If they do, though, they’ll be stuffing more talent into a vessel already packed pretty tightly, and there will be some good players lost if more are to be gained.

The bullpen has pitchers (Joel Kuhnel and Rob Zastryzny) who were never meant to be long-term fixtures, and right now, there are only four players (Freddy Peralta, Aaron Civale, Colin Rea, and Tobias Myers) written into the team’s starting rotation in front of Ross. The tricky part is figuring out who the third pitcher off the current roster would be. Kuhnel can be optioned to Nashville, and Zastryzny would be an unsurprising designee for assignment. Right now, though, both Ross and Williams are on the 60-day injured list, so whenever they’re reinstated, the team will need to create two 40-man roster spots, not just one.

They also face the problem of needing to create a third 26-man roster spot, but having most of their lower-leverage bullpen arms (Jakob Junis, Joel Payamps, Bryse Wilson) be out of options. We might see Elvis Peguero optioned to Nashville, and with Williams, Trevor Megill, and Bryan Hudson as the main trio of high-leverage workers, that could be fine, but again, any further external upgrades would mean expelling someone else.