Dustin May has declined his half of a $20 million mutual option with the Milwaukee Brewers, electing free agency after collecting a $500,000 buyout.
The move, first reported by Jon Heyman of the New York Post, was widely expected.
Mutual options almost never survive to be exercised by both sides, and Milwaukee almost certainly would have passed on its end of the clause as well.
May arrived in Milwaukee at the trade deadline after signing a one-year, $12.5 million free-agent deal with the St. Louis Cardinals last winter.
The Cardinals dealt him along with reliever JoJo Romero in exchange for a pair of high-upside outfield prospects. Romero proved the more valuable of the two acquisitions, while May’s results were uneven.
In 36 2/3 regular-season innings with the Brewers he posted a 5.65 ERA, then allowed seven runs across 11 postseason frames.
Viewed across the full season, however, the picture is more nuanced. The 29-year-old right-hander combined for a 4.70 ERA while establishing a career high of 145 2/3 innings.
He struck out 23.2 percent of opposing batters against a near-average 8.1 percent walk rate. His six-pitch repertoire continues to draw interest around the league, and he averaged nearly 97 mph on his fastball.
Those tools, paired with his age and the innings total, give him a reasonable free-agent case even after the middling surface results.
May’s representatives are expected to seek a two- or three-year deal that tops the $12.5 million he earned in 2026. A return to Milwaukee would be surprising.
The club is celebrating its first World Series championship and has little incentive to re-sign a pitcher who was never more than a mid-rotation depth piece for them.
Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat has floated the possibility of a reunion with the Cardinals, who know May from his brief stint in St. Louis earlier this year.
The decision is the first of four option calls facing the Brewers this offseason.
They are widely expected to exercise a $14.5 million option on catcher William Contreras rather than risk an arbitration hearing, while buying out backup catcher Gary Sánchez and declining a $14 million option on reliever Antonio Senzatela.
Those remaining choices look straightforward compared with the May decision, which simply confirmed what both sides already understood: the mutual option was never a realistic path to a longer partnership.
May now re-enters a free-agent market that has repeatedly shown interest in his raw stuff, even when the results have not fully matched the velocity and pitch mix.
