The Milwaukee Brewers have been one of the most progressive, analytically driven organizations of the last decade in terms of identifying unique players that fit that player development strengths. They’ve extended the competitive window over a long period with more exciting players on the horizon waiting to debut in 2025. And the team will need it.
Presumably losing Willy Adames will hurt. And the departures of Colin Rea, Frankie Montas, Joe Ross, and Bryse Wilson leave a boatload of innings to replace this winter. While that trio of arms was far from dynamic in 2024, starting pitchers are expensive and Milwaukee will have to get creative this winter to keep payroll in check as many expect they’ll look to do. And there aren’t many internal options coming.
The team has bats on the farm in spades, many of which are on the precipice of beginning their big league careers. But what was once a farm system consisting of an army of arms locked, loaded and ready to deploy is now thinned considerably.
DEVELOPMENTS
While top prospect Jeferson Quero missed the season with a shoulder injury, Cooper Pratt shot up the system and ended up playing in the Double-A playoffs, batting second and going 2-for-8 with a home run.
He just turned 20 in August — he was the club’s over-slot pick in Round 6 in 2023 and had a terrific first full season.
Infielder Jesus Made torched the Dominican Summer League with a .331/.458/.554 slash, including 21 extra-base hits and 28 stolen bases in 51 games. Made will not turn 18 until next May.
Corner infielders Tyler Black (.258/.374/.429, AAA) and Mike Boeve (.338/.415, .471, A+, AA) hit their way to promotions. Black got the call and played in 18 games in the majors.
Brock Wilken, the Brewers’ first-rounder in 2023 (18), struggled to hit and make consistent contact, slashing .200/.314/.365 in 109 games, a season that began with the Wake Forest alum taking a pitch off his face in Game No. 5. He missed three weeks and the impact of the nature of the injury may have guided the remainder of his season.
Wilken did hit 17 homers and draw walks at a high rate, however.
Right-hander Logan Henderson has put himself in a position to debut in 2025 after a 19-start performance this past season in which he walked only 15 of 317 batters faced (4.7%) against a 33% strikeout rate.
Henderson has one of the best changeups in the minors. The slider lags behind and his fastball is average.
Eric Bitoni smacked 16 homers and slugged .544 in 79 games split between the ACL and Single-A, and he made the best of the contact he made batting .282 for the year. The 28% strikeout rate remains a development point, but the power is unmistakable.
Right-hander Craig Yoho split his 2024 season between three levels, landing in Triple-A Nashville to continue his dominance. Yoho struck out 101 batters in 57.2 innings (42.4%) and did not allow a home run all year.
He doesn’t throw all that hard — 91-94 mph with a sinker — but his upper-80s cutter keeps hitters off the heater, and his 77-80 mph changeup misses bats. He also has a 76-79 mph curveball. Sounds like a big-league middle reliever, doesn’t it?
QUESTIONS
Filling out a competitive rotation in 2025 is going to be a challenge for the Brewers, assuming they don’t splurge on exciting players on the free-agent market. The team returns Freddy Peralta, Tobias Myers, and Aaron Civale next year amongst a bunch of unproven young arms looking to stake their claim on a rotation spot.
The DL Hall experiment in 2024 was mostly a failure as he missed almost the entire summer with two separate injuries and only started three games from August onward. He completed five innings of work just twice in seven starts this season. Elsewhere, Robert Gasser is down in 2025 with Tommy John.
So all that begs the question. Who’s next?
Carlos Rodriguez should get another go at some of those starting pitcher innings next season. He got hit around a bit in three starts with the Brew Crew at the end of the season and has generally demonstrated fringy control of the strike zone throughout his minor league career.
It should be expected that 2022 second-rounder Jacob Misiorowski will compete for a rotation job next spring. The former junior college blue chip started 19 games at Double-A and pitched to a 3.50 ERA in 79.2 innings before being promoted to Triple-A for the homestretch. Misiorowski was used more in a bullpen role there. It remains to be seen if he’s capable of throwing enough strikes to start at the highest level. His 60 walks across 97.1 innings this season is not a sustainable trend once he arrives at the big leagues. Still, given the unicorn nature of his stuff, Milwaukee will likely give it a go in 2025 and keep him at Triple-A to develop further if he proves incapable of making the opening-day roster.
Beyond Misiorowski you have to dig a bit deeper. 2021 fourth-round pick Logan Henderson is slated to make a run at a rotation job in 2025 after pitching 23.2 innings at Triple-A Nashville this season. It’s reasonably generic stuff, though Henderson does possess the best changeup in the Brewers system. He’s dealt with nagging elbow woes throughout his professional career, only compiling 92.2 innings in three seasons prior to the 2024 campaign. He was able to log 81.1 innings last season across four levels, but durability will have to be monitored.
Other names to keep an eye on include righty Brett Wichrowski, K.C. Hunt, and Coleman Crow. All three have made it to Double-A and Crow is expected back to full strength next spring after undergoing Tommy John surgery in the summer of 2023.
Replacing Adames will be of paramount importance too. There are few internal options to do so.
| LEVEL | TEAM | W-L | TOP PROSPECT |
|---|---|---|---|
| AAA | Nashville | 78-68 | Jeferson Quero, C |
| AA | Biloxi | 66-69 | Jacob Misiorowski, RHP |
| A+ | Wisconsin | 77-54 | Cooper Pratt, SS |
| A | Carolina | 78-51 | Jesus Made, SS |
| R | Brewers | 28-32 | Johan Barrios, SS |
| DSL | Brewers 1 | 32-23 | Luis Pena, SS |
| DSL | Brewers 2 | 30-23 | Jorge Quintana, SS |
ADDITIONS & SUBTRACTIONS
The Brewers got the movement started in May when they swapped RHPs Thyago Vieria and Aneuris Rodriguez for RHP Garrett Stallings in a trade with the Baltimore Orioles. Then the club acquired SS Casey Martin from the Philadelphia Phillies in June.
July was busier but didn’t subtract from the farm as much as one might expect. They sent two major leaguers (RHP Jakob Junis, OF Joey Wiemer) to the Cincinnati Reds for Montas, then acquired RHPs Bradley Blalock and Yujanyer Herrera from the Colorado Rockies for RHP Nick Mears.
Right-hander TJ Shook cost the club LHP Tyler Jay, and in a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays — because it’s the law, every club has to make a deadline deal with the Rays — Milwaukee exchanged SS Gregory Barrios for RHP Aaron Civale.
Civale made 14 starts for the Brewers down the stretch.
Tod Johnson and the Brewers had a solid draft, going upside with four of their first five selections — three arms and an outfielder — and their comp pick at No. 34, first baseman Blake Burke, is among the most decorated bats in SEC history.
In 15th-round pick Travis Smith out of Kentucky, Milwaukee added a Top 200 player at pick No. 455.
Braylon Payne, the first-rounder (17), was an under-slot signing as one of the younger players in the class. Second-round selection Bryce Message, a right-hander from The Pennington School (NJ) is a polished, 6-4, 220-pound prep arm who could move relatively quickly.
GRADUATIONS
Jackson Chourio, OF
Joey Ortiz, IF
Hall, LHP
Ethan Small, LHP
Oliver Dunn, 2B
Myers. RHP
Chourio was very good in Year 1, as was Joey Ortiz, who may get back to the middle of the field in 2025 with the expected departure of free agent Adames.
BIG-LEAGUE RADAR
Misiorowski, RHP
Quero, C
Wilken, 3B
Boeve, 1B
Henderson, RHP
Wichrowski, RHP
Yoho, RHP
Crow, RHP
SCOUT SAYS
“You see this org find a way to compete and win as much as they have and then notice how their roster is built… that gets your attention.
“They’ve done very well finding players on the brink and finishing the job with them. They did it with the (Corbin) Burnes trade. (Joey) Ortiz was big for them this year. They’ve consistently put their young players on the right path and timeline. (Brice) Turang, (Garrett) Mitchell, Jackson (Chourio), Tobias Myers… all recipients of the Brewers high-level development planning and execution, and that’s why they’re good.”
