MLB Pipeline releases updated Milwaukee Brewers top-30 prospects list

Just one year ago, the Milwaukee Brewers had one of the most highly regarded farm systems in baseball. What a difference one year makes. The farm system is now consistently ranked at the lower end: Baseball Prospectus - #29, Bleacher Report - #27, Keith Law - #25, and MiLB.com - #15 (obviously this is the best and most accurate ranking system). With that in mind, MLB.com just released their version of Brewers’ top 30 prospects for 2019.

1. Keston Hiura
2. Corey Ray
3. Brice Turang
4. Tristen Lutz
5. Mauricio Dubon
6. Zack Brown
7. Joe Gray
8. Lucas Erceg
9. Aaron Ashby
10. Payton Henry
11. Trey Supak
12. Braden Webb
13. Troy Stokes Jr.
14. Mario Feliciano
15. Adrian Houser
16. Jacob Nottingham
17. Marcos Diplan
18. Carlos Rodriguez
19. Eduardo Garcia
20. Pablo Abreu
21. Micah Bello
22. Eduarqui Fernandez
23. Je’Von Ward
24. Larry Ernesto
25. Caden Lemons
26. Bobby Wahl
27. Adam Hill
28. Jake Gatewood
29. Tyrone Taylor
30. Trent Grisham

While it is discouraging to see the Brewers minor league system being ranked near the bottom in most cases, the Brewers’ prospects highlighted on MLB.com offer plenty about which to be optimistic.

Reasons for optimism:

1. At the top, the Brewers have an absolute hitting stud that SHOULD perform at the major league level. Keston Hiura is the consensus top prospect in the system, and the only one in the top-100. Most Brewers’ fans know the scouting report. He combines explosive bat speed, excellent raw power, tremendous bat-to-ball skills, and barrel awareness to generate loud contact on a consistent basis.

2. There is a ton of very young talent at the lower levels. Thirteen of the top-30 Brewers’ prospects are 20 years of age or less, including #3 Brice Turang, #4 Tristen Lutz, #7 Joe Gray, #9 Aaron Ashby, #14 Mario Feliciano, #16 Eduardo Garcia, #18 Carlos Rodriguez, #20 Pablo Abreu, #21 Micah Bello, #22 Eduarqui Fernandez, #23 Je’Von Ward, #24 Larry Ernesto, and #25 Caden Lemons. The younger the prospect, the tougher to project, but Brewers’ low-A and high-A teams should be interesting follows in 2019.

3. Former highly touted prospects primed for resurgence. The second ranked prospect in the system is Corey Ray. Yet after being named Southern League Player of the Year, he was still unable to crack the top-100. He will have to prove himself even more to re-establish his once-heralded prospect position. It must start with more contact to go along with his power and speed combination. Other once heralded prospects that have fallen could still become quality major league players. Gatewood coming back from injury, Taylor maintaining his 2018 performance level after disappointing results, and Grisham finding something that clicks and leads to the results his potential portends are all possible.

4. At 26 years old, a couple of older prospect could make significant contributions this year. Adrian Houser and Bobby Wahl have the stuff to be outstanding bullpen pieces. Could they make the next step and become the next Corey Knebel?

It is always fun to see the prospects highlighted at MLB.com every new season. The past couple of years, we’ve watched as the talent in the minor leagues became more and more talented both by quantity and quality. The Brewers are doing a bit of a reboot with the farm system, but there are still a few players ready to contribute soon. In a couple of years all of the younger talent could form another very strong system. For now, we will just have to follow the development of some of these kids. More importantly we will just have to enjoy watching the Milwaukee Brewers contend for a championship.