The news came out last night that Trevor Hoffman is on track to join the Brewers after tossing 18 pitches in a rehab assignment for Triple A Nashville in a successful outing. He should be on track to join the team this weekend in Houston if all goes according to plan.

As with any other reliever coming off the DL, this leaves the Brewers with a little bit of a decision to make as to who they demote back to the minors when Hoffman makes his next big-league debut. The most logical choice is R.J. Swindle, the LOOGY brought up when David Riske hit the DL last week, solely because he was the last man brought up to the team and should be sent down since he still has options remaining before he has to stick with a big-league team. Besides, the Brewers already have a LOOGY ready to go with the name of Mitch Stetter, so keeping Swindle is overkill.

Not so fast. Swindle is most likely going to be one of the most effective relievers the Brewers would have on the team. But how? He’s a lefty sidearmer with a fastball that tops out around 85 mph as well as a cutter, changeup, and my favorite pitch in the game, a 55 mph grandma curveball that’s sure to make even the most patient hitters walk the dog and take a nap before swinging at it. His cutter and changeup both stick in the 70 mph range. He has no dominant pitch. Despite this, he still has posted a career 2.32 ERA in the minors along with a spiffy 1.85 FIP that would make any team in need of a closer (hmm…who needs a closer right now?) salivate.

People tend to assume that Swindle is a LOOGY as well due to his awkward sidearm delivery. It’s true, he does get lefties out at an astounding rate (quick minor league numbers vs. lefties: 52 2/3 IP, 92 K, 9 BB, 0.55 FIP), he can also get righties out at a decent enough rate to justify keeping him in the lineup against them. He has more experience fighting off righties, tossing nearly 100 innings and putting together a sweet 6:1 K/BB ratio and a 0.98 WHIP and only 4 HRs in that same span. This guy is for real, as in a not-insignificant sample size he’s able to throw a 2.54 FIP to right-handed hitters and an incredible way of dominating lefties, and at 25 years old, he may not need any more seasoning in the minors anymore.

But how in the world can a lefty who can barely touch 85 on the gun be so effective? Shouldn’t hitters be able to catch up to his stuff sooner than later and turn him into a scrub in the span of a few games?

One of the things that Michael Lewis’ Moneyball touched on was pitcher deception. A pitcher’s raw stuff never equates to success in the major league level, but instead is correlated to how well you can deceive a hitter. To prove this point, they used pitcher Chad Bradford, a right hander with uninspiring stuff but an awkward delivery that caused hitters to think twice about the pitch and that slowed them down just enough to make Bradford effective. Swindle appears to be that type of pitcher; his fastball goes up and in to left-handed hitters and his awkward delivery screws with the hitter just enough to keep them on their toes. When scouts say he doesn’t have the stuff to stay on a major league roster, I’m inclined to disagree until I see him consistently be terrible in action.

But the opportunity for a dominant pitcher is just too great to ignore here.

Besides, there are much worse pitchers period that the Brewers could send down to Triple-A instead of Swindle. Jorge Julio is a prime example of everything that is wrong with Brewers pitchers right now: high ERA, high walk totals. His tmiserable 5th inning helped Philadelphia break the game wide open and Julio is notorious for blowing up the bases with free passes and that’s what made Julio a replacement-level pitcher over his career.

Dropping Jorge Julio would unquestionably make the Brewers a better team right now, but it’s not that simple. Swindle has minor league options remaining while Julio was signed on as a free agent at the beginning of this year and in order to get Julio off the 25-man roster he would either have to be placed on waivers or DFA’d outright, which means that he would likely not be a Brewer for much longer. This would be another hit to the depth of an already-depleted bullpen suffering from injuries enough as it is. There isn’t any additional depth in Triple-A.

Despite all this, I’d still be quite alright with sending Julio to waivers. Money’s not a big deal, since Julio doesn’t hit $1 million, and another replacement-level pitcher can be found in Triple-A. Not to mention that a scrub at Triple-A like Tim Dillard will knowingly be placed in mop-up duty and take less high-leverage innings away from awful pitchers like Julio. If tonight’s 5th inning was pitched entirely by R.J. Swindle I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t have been a 4-pitch walk to the pitcher. Walks are bad, mmkay?

So what do you think? Keep Swindle and DFA Julio? The other way around? Send down someone else?