2022 Brewers Prospect Rankings

[CheeseheadInQC]

Also it’s one thing to walk guys while having high-octane stuff, but Small is a guy who’s not gonna blow guys away with pure stuff. If he can’t command his pitches, he’s gonna be in trouble once he’s in the majors.

 

Freddy Peralta

 

I don't think Freddy Peralta K'd less than 10 per 9 in any stop after he was a 20-year-old in high-A. Peralta might not hit 100 on the radar gun, but that doesn't mean the stuff isn't electric.

 

Small's walk rate did come down in winter ball, but the strikeout rates were closer to what he posted at AAA than AA.

[ARobsBrewCrew]

Also it’s one thing to walk guys while having high-octane stuff, but Small is a guy who’s not gonna blow guys away with pure stuff. If he can’t command his pitches, he’s gonna be in trouble once he’s in the majors.

 

Freddy Peralta

 

I don't think Freddy Peralta K'd less than 10 per 9 in any stop after he was a 20-year-old in high-A. Peralta might not hit 100 on the radar gun, but that doesn't mean the stuff isn't electric.

 

Small's walk rate did come down in winter ball, but the strikeout rates were closer to what he posted at AAA than AA.

 

Hey, fair point. It’s not like Small’s strikeout rate was 11 per 9 in 2021 or anything. That would’ve been nice.

[CheeseheadInQC]

I don't think Freddy Peralta K'd less than 10 per 9 in any stop after he was a 20-year-old in high-A. Peralta might not hit 100 on the radar gun, but that doesn't mean the stuff isn't electric.

 

Small's walk rate did come down in winter ball, but the strikeout rates were closer to what he posted at AAA than AA.

 

Hey, fair point. It’s not like Small’s strikeout rate was 11 per 9 in 2021 or anything. That would’ve been nice.

 

He struck out about 14 per 9 in double-A and about 6 per 9 in triple-A. If you think that the triple-A stats were a blip, then you probably have him higher. If you think he's going to have trouble missing bats against more advanced hitters, then you probably have him lower.

 

I'm not saying one or the other is correct, just that there is some evidence to back up concerns over his upside even if I think he probably at least becomes a Brent Suter type.

[clancyphile]

I don't think Freddy Peralta K'd less than 10 per 9 in any stop after he was a 20-year-old in high-A. Peralta might not hit 100 on the radar gun, but that doesn't mean the stuff isn't electric.

 

Small's walk rate did come down in winter ball, but the strikeout rates were closer to what he posted at AAA than AA.

 

Hey, fair point. It’s not like Small’s strikeout rate was 11 per 9 in 2021 or anything. That would’ve been nice.

 

He struck out about 14 per 9 in double-A and about 6 per 9 in triple-A. If you think that the triple-A stats were a blip, then you probably have him higher. If you think he's going to have trouble missing bats against more advanced hitters, then you probably have him lower.

 

I'm not saying one or the other is correct, just that there is some evidence to back up concerns over his upside even if I think he probably at least becomes a Brent Suter type.

 

Or Hader's replacement?

[nate82]

 

Or Hader's replacement?

 

No just no.

 

Small's value is higher as a #4 or #5 starter. Plus he doesn't really have the stuff to be a back end reliever. At worse he is similar to Suter and could be a pitcher who can bridge a couple of innings to your better relievers like Hader.

[ARobsBrewCrew]

 

Or Hader's replacement?

 

No just no.

 

Small's value is higher as a #4 or #5 starter. Plus he doesn't really have the stuff to be a back end reliever. At worse he is similar to Suter and could be a pitcher who can bridge a couple of innings to your better relievers like Hader.

 

Small is simply not that type of pitcher. His stuff is better and more effective as a starter. Also, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if Hader is traded this organization is hopeless. He, objectively, has had the greatest start to a career for a reliever ever. So, in my opinion, he shouldn’t need replacing until the day he is no longer effective or retires. Either way I hope Small is fully established in a different role at that point in time.

[ReverendBrewmeister]

 

Or Hader's replacement?

 

No just no.

 

Small's value is higher as a #4 or #5 starter. Plus he doesn't really have the stuff to be a back end reliever. At worse he is similar to Suter and could be a pitcher who can bridge a couple of innings to your better relievers like Hader.

 

Small is simply not that type of pitcher. His stuff is better and more effective as a starter. Also, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if Hader is traded this organization is hopeless. He, objectively, has had the greatest start to a career for a reliever ever. So, in my opinion, he shouldn’t need replacing until the day he is no longer effective or retires. Either way I hope Small is fully established in a different role at that point in time.

 

Of the pitching prospects reaching the majors or very close to doing so, Aaron Ashby seems like he could have the potential to develop as a closer to replace Hader. That's if the organization wanted to convert him from starter to reliever. But it appears so far that they want to see if Ashby can make it as a starter first, which is the better course of action.

[markedman5]

"Small is simply not that type of pitcher. His stuff is better and more effective as a starter. Also, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if Hader is traded this organization is hopeless. He, objectively, has had the greatest start to a career for a reliever ever. So, in my opinion, he shouldn’t need replacing until the day he is no longer effective or retires. Either way I hope Small is fully established in a different role at that point in time"

 

Agree with you on Small......and you are right that Hader has had arguably the greatest start to a career ever for a reliever.

 

However the truth is that we will not be able to keep him until he "retires or is no longer effective"......the economics of baseball for teams like the Brewers and most others means you can't keep everybody.....he will want to be the highest paid relief pitcher....he has earned it.......that will in all likelihood means we either trade him at some point or let him walk like Fielder did.

 

We don't have to like it....but it is the reality of the situation.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Whether Hader gets traded before free agency or not probably depends on how the Brewers are doing during his last season of team control. If they are in contention Hader doesn't get traded before reaching free agency, otherwise he is traded at the deadline for a haul of prospects - at which point this board will debate for the next 6 seasons whether they could have gotten more in return for trading him a couple seasons sooner without acknowledging that the immense value the Brewers got by keeping him at the back end of their bullpen on teams trying to contend all the way through free agency probably outweighs any trade package difference between dealing him now vs in two seasons.

[sveumrules]

Ashby & Wiemer head up the FanGraphs Top 36 Prospects published today, with Valerio also getting his highest ranking thus far at #9...

 

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/milwaukee-brewers-top-37-prospects-2022/

 

Here's the System Overview...

 

Some of this is due to the process by which we tend to arrive at our rankings, but the Brewers have clearly made a concerted effort to build via hit-tool oriented up-the-middle players; eight of their top 11 prospects are either middle infielders or center fielders. When the Brewers deviate from an up-the-middle approach, they’ve tended to target hitters with one premium tool, typically measurable raw power.

 

Their acquisition of pitchers has been less traditional, and they’re perhaps the best club in the game at plucking interesting pitchers from independent ball, including Jake Cousins, who should have been on last year’s list. Many of their pitching prospects have extreme release points or pitch characteristics that are unique in some way, which has been true for most of the David Stearns era. The group is a little thin at present and the Brewers probably need more pitching depth than they currently have to sufficiently navigate the injuries that typically befall a big league staff.

 

Milwaukee was one of a number of teams that seemed less inclined to protect their fringe 40-man prospects ahead of the deadline. I mentioned missing data in Joey Wiemer’s blurb. I sourced some specific TrackMan data across the entire minors at the end of the season, and most of the Brewers’ A-ball hitters are missing from it. When I checked with a source from a different org on some of those names, they were experiencing a similar issue. It’s a glimpse into how haphazard the data-sharing aspects of ops seem to be, if nothing else.

[JosephC]

Looking at the combination of Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus and Fangraphs....if one could go to the front offices of all 30 MLB clubs and get a cumulative top 300 ranking, I would guess the Brewer prospects would slot in the following areas-

 

Ashby = Probably somewhere around #80

Frelick = Back end Top 100....probably somewhere between #90-#110

Mitchell = Same as Frelick...#90-#110

Turang = Somewhere in the #150-#175 region

Weimer = Somewhere in the #175-#200 region

Small = Somewhere around #250

Black = Somewhere around #275

Perez = Back end of top 300....#280-#300 region

 

That said, I'd put the following prospect surplus values on these guys, derived from Point of Pittsburgh's numbers from a few years back-

Ashby = 19.4 million

Frelick = 20.9 million

Mitchell = 20.9 million

Turang = 16.0 million

Wiemer = 14.1 million

Small = 8.0 million (the one definite HOLD for me, most under-valued player on the board)

Black = 7.4 million

Perez = 5.9 million

 

The role-player prospects = 5.5 million. That would likely extend to the next 11-15 players on the list. Then fringe prospects after that = 2.2 million.

 

No great trade chips, but 5 pretty decent ones that I wouldn't hesitate to deal in an effort to win this season.

[sveumrules]

Yeah, I think the consensus Top 6 at this point are Ashby, Turang, Small, Mitchell, Wiemer & Frelick.

 

Specific organizations will value them differently based on their preferences, but there is enough there to make a competitive offer on say, Matt Olson for instance.

 

Of the six, I'd most like to hold onto Ashby (best stuff, MLB success already) Wiemer (best power prospect in system) and Small (success at AAA with high floor, thin organizational pitching depth).

 

Mitchell/Frelick bring similar skill sets & OF is pretty deep in the system, so dealing one of them wouldn't hurt too much. I like Turang too, but with Adames under control the next few years & Zamora/Garcia behind him, SS depth is pretty solid too.

[umphrey]

I'm pretty excited that Fangraphs called us an average system. There are a number of players with big 2021 seasons that they aren't buying, though. Gray, Howell, Warren for example.

[MVP2110]

It is super interesting seeing how different sites seem to have a pretty wide variety in how they rank our system

[CheeseheadInQC]

Between the lack of data he cited and the lack of instructs, it does feel a lot less interesting than Fangraphs' ones have in the past and in some instances predictable (he's going to be lower on Perez than most, higher on Lazar than most, and there will be a Cam Robinson mention), but you still see at least a sentence on a lot of guys that seem unlikely to be in any of the other system overviews (an Alexander Cornielle note!). And he is not averse to including bullpen prospects.

[ARobsBrewCrew]

Honestly, behind Ashby, I see no problem calling Lazar the #2 pitching prospect in the organization. There will be question marks coming off Tommy John and there’s still a lot of development needed but he flashed some electric stuff in 2019.

[Austin Tatious]

The fangraphs write up is really interesting and detailed so I give the author credit. At the same time, he uses his experience to form a ton of assumptions and speculation. This leads to substandard and unreliable analysis. For the lawyers out there, he wouldn’t pass a Daubert challenge. Not even close. So he ends up with some bizarre outcomes. I suspect that he will whiff a lot because of his reliance on assumptions.

[ClosetBrewerFan]

I like the fangraphs rankings. They do a good job balancing performance and potential. I think Baseball America weighs potential too high as they often will list teenagers in the top 10 even before they have played pro ball. This results in too much turnover from year to year.

 

There are a couple of factual errors in fangraphs "Other prospects of note" section. Strzelecki is listed as having dominated AAA. He primarily played in AA, with only 5 IP at AAA. I doubt he makes this list if they realized it was a 26 old in AA that did the dominating. Not sure I would call a 1.26 WHIP dominating either. Jesus Chirinos is listed as a C, and I dont think the Brewers see him in that position anymore. He did play a little of catcher in 2019 but none last year, splitting time between 1B/DH. He was also downgraded because he has "... spent four years in rookie ball — which Chirinos has if you count a lost 2020". This in incorrect, he spent 2019 and 2021 in rookie ball (ages 17 and 19) and 2018 in DSL. That's a pretty normal progression for a latin teenage signing (COVID notwithstanding), so I dont know what they are saying. I like Chirinos as we dont have a lot of 1B prospects so he rates relatively high on my prospect list (in the 40s). He is just so far away and is Rule 5 eligible already.

 

These are minor quibbles but are easy to check by simply looking at their stat lines. Kinda hard to complain too much over a free list. Overall, I like fangraphs prospect lists the most of all the online reviews. The Cam Robinson and Hobie Harris mentions are cool. I did not realize Hobie threw that hard. And I am excited about Cornielle and the Edwin Jimenez.

[Mass Haas]

Prospects 1500 - Milwaukee Brewers Top 50 Prospects (2022)

[Madhawk23]

I see that Baseball America recently released their Top 100 prospects. I don't have a subscription to their online publication, so just curious if anyone can at least share which Brewers prospects made the cut and at what ranking? I see they also just tweeted out 15 prospects that just missed the Top 100, with a Carolina Mudcats player being profiled on the tweet. But, I can't really make out which player it is?

[wibadgers23]

I see that Baseball America recently released their Top 100 prospects. I don't have a subscription to their online publication, so just curious if anyone can at least share which Brewers prospects made the cut and at what ranking? I see they also just tweeted out 15 prospects that just missed the Top 100, with a Carolina Mudcats player being profiled on the tweet. But, I can't really make out which player it is?

 

Ashby at #37 and that’s it. A bit surprising to be honest.

[jay87shot]

I kind of wish that places would rank prospects differently. I know the 80 scale is traditional but I kind of would make like a multi score composite ranking that finds a way to sort out potential/floor/position or versatility. For example, relievers get put way down on prospect list but can be way more important than most guys above them. Take Luke Barker (AAA reliever) a guy who will never appear on a top 30 list going through the minors but will likely have more value to the big league team than someone like Tristen Lutz (at this point in his career) however Lutz is much higher on most every list based on assumed potential.

 

Here is my attempt at this 1st Stageman (I want credit if this takes off) Scouting Score

I will use the current top 10 players as example and if this comes out well I may have to expand my idea. So the top 2 numbers will be a floor/potential and I will probably expand this idea as I think on it.

 

Floor- The floor number will be based more on the likelihood that the player is a key contributor to the major league team than if they don't reach potential. So if this based on a 100 point scale someone like Aaron Ashby would get a very high rating because he has shown that he can be a good reliever at least, so he gets maybe a 90. Brice Turang who has been solid and will undoubtedly get to the majors but there is doubt about if he will be more of a utility guy, solid starter, or All-Star SS maybe gets a 75. Someone like Joey Weimer gets like a 50, say Jefferson Quero gets like a 35, and Jackson Chorio gets like a 20.

 

Potential= This would be more traditional so a superstar gets 100, All-Star=85, high end everyday player=70, everyday starter=55, platoon/utility=40, 25= AAAA type player.

 

Mitchell 50/80= Composite Score= 65

Frelich 45/80= Composite Score=63

Turang 75/65= 70

Perez 40/90=65

Small 75/65=70

Quero 35/85=60

Black 40/65= 53

Ashby 90/85= 88

Gray 45/75=60

Kelly. 40/70=55

 

You could then sort lists based on potential (more traditional) or composite= more modern team value.

Maybe I need to add a 3rd component that adds a bit more value to a high potential prospect or 1 with a unique high end rare ability that will value a player more to other teams in a trade.

 

Thoughts?

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Relievers rarely appear on Top 30 lists because the majority of MLB relievers were starters in the minors. Rarely do you see strict relievers who are actual prospects.

 

Also, Luke Barker will be 30 years old in about a month and a half. That's why he isn't considered a prospect. Tristen Lutz is 23. Age plays a role in prospect status.

[umphrey]

I see that Baseball America recently released their Top 100 prospects. I don't have a subscription to their online publication, so just curious if anyone can at least share which Brewers prospects made the cut and at what ranking? I see they also just tweeted out 15 prospects that just missed the Top 100, with a Carolina Mudcats player being profiled on the tweet. But, I can't really make out which player it is?

 

Ashby at #37 and that’s it. A bit surprising to be honest.

I feel like that's not that far off and Ashby is the clear headliner. I think Wiemer and Small would bring top 100 trade value though. Brewers pitchers have turned into a desirable commodity and every team would to bring in an upside guy like Wiemer.

[CheeseheadInQC]

While I agree relievers are undervalued prospect-wise, I don't know that pitchers who come up as relievers are necessarily "safer" because as soon as these prospects reach the level of "safe," they are up in the majors as they aren't generally fully blocked or held back for service time reasons. Cousins progressed from indy signing to surprise NRI to the big league roster so fast (allowing for COVID year) that even Fangraphs, the outlet that had Uribe 12th, Topa 28th and judging by his ranking at midseason probably would have had Reifert in the top 30 as well, ended up issuing a little mea culpa for not mentioning him last year.

 

With Barker, the fact that the Brewers haven't really treated him like a prospect certainly should be taken into account in considering his likelihood of contributing in Milwaukee, although I would like to see him get a shot in the majors somewhere, even if it isn't with the Brewers.