MLB Pipeline releases Milwaukee Brewers top-30 prospects list

MLB Pipeline has released their top 30 prospects for the Milwaukee Brewers. This list is often the most anticipated and the most utilized when grading prospects from across baseball. The farm of course took some hits due to the Yelich trade and is officially out of baseball’s top-10 as decided by MLB Pipeline. Despite the hit to the overall talent, there is still plenty to love about the farm. Before taking a deeper look, let’s took at the top 30 and the Overall Future Potential grades given to them:

1. Keston Hiura, 2B OFP: 55
2. Corbin Burnes, RHP OFP: 55
3. Brandon Woodruff, RHP OFP: 55
4. Lucas Erceg, 3B OFP: 50
5. Luis Ortiz, RHP OFP: 50
6. Brett Phillips, OF OFP: 50
7. Corey Ray, OF OFP: 50
8. Trent Grisham, OF OFP: 50
9. Tristen Lutz, OF OFP: 50
10. Freddy Peralta, RHP OFP: 50
11. Mauricio Dubon, SS/2B OFP: 45
12. Marcos Diplan, RHP OFP: 45
13. Adrian Houser, RHP OFP: 45
14. Cody Ponce, RHP OFP: 45
15. Mario Feliciano, C OFP: 45
16. Jean Carmona, SS OFP: 45
17. Caden Lemons, RHP OFP: 45
18. Taylor Williams, RHP OFP: 45
19. Jake Gatewood, 1B/OF OFP: 45
20. Kodi Medeiros, LHP OFP: 45
21. KJ Harrison, C OFP: 45
22. Troy Stokes Jr., OF OFP: 45
23. Trey Supak, RHP OFP: 45
24. Jorge Lopez, RHP OFP: 45
25. Zack Brown, RHP OFP: 45
26. Carlos Rodriguez, OF OFP: 45
27. Jacob Nottingham, C/1B OFP: 45
28. Je’von Ward, OF OFP: 45
29. Larry Ernesto, OF OFP: 45
30. Brendan Murphy, LHP OFP: 45

Best Tools for Fielders

Hit: 65 - Keston Hiura
Power: 55 - Erceg, Lutz, Gatewood, Ernesto
Run: 60 - Ray, Dubon, Rodriguez, Ward
Arm: 80 - Phillips
Field: 60 - Rodriguez

Best Tools for Pitchers

Fastball: 60 - Woodruff, Ortiz, Peralta, Diplan, Houser, Lemons, Williams, Lopez
Curveball: 60 - Houser, Brown
Slider: 60 - Ortiz, Diplan, Williams, Medeiros,
Changeup: 55 - Peralta, Murphy
Control: 60 - Burnes

From the end of 2017 to this new 2018 list, the Brewers went from having 13 top 30 prospects with OFP grades of 50 or higher to 10. The 2017 grades don’t include the players traded to Miami for Yelich, just shows lower evaluations by the writers at MLB Pipeline. For instance, Dubon, Diplan and Supak went from an OFP of 50 to 45.

A couple of more well-known prospects failed to make this year’s list. Former top-100 prospect Phil Bickford is most noteworthy, but also included are Josh Pennington and Carlos Herrera.

According to Mike Rosenbaum, the players who just missed (in no particular order) are Carlos Herrera, Josh Pennington, Payton Henry and Antonio Pinero. The just missed the just missed list players are Phil Bickford, Chad McClanahan, Karlos Morales and Nathan Kirby.