I bought in. And I still haven't given up. But at some point history has to play into my perspective.

I bought into the idea that this crop of Brewers "Freshmen" would be different. I hoped, and still have hope, that the Brewers team this year and for years into the future would contain starting position players that were drafted/signed, developed and promoted to become impactful major league players for this team for the next five or six years.

So far it isn't happening. Mitchell has shown the most promise but has some peripheral stats that could be red flags and he may be injury prone. Turang has somehow found out how to strike out a lot at the MLB level. And Weimer isn't Hunter Pence and perhaps shouldn't attempt to swing like him.

Their defense is great. Their hitting is suspect at best at this point in their development.

This leaves me wondering if the Brewers are truly inept at producing hitters? So I did a little research on the question of when did they start not developing position players well?

Since 2011, the Brewers have produced four MLB position players that have spent more than three years with their major league club:

Logan Schafer premiered in 2011 and was a serviceable fourth outfielder.

Orlando Arcia debuted in 2016 and was the starting SS for a period of time

Keston Hiura debuted in 2019 and has been trying to redo his swing every eight months ever since.

Tyrone Taylor debut was also in 2019.

This isn't to say that there are not other MLB position players that began in the Brewers system and have found success for other teams -- there are. But considering the Brewers troubles in developing players that stay in Milwaukee, I don't think it is fair to give the Brewers system credit their development. More likely we should consider their time with the Brewers franchise as an obstacle in their development that the player overcame after joining another organization.

For those four that did make it to the Brewers and stuck around for more than three years, they were never consistently good enough hitters to be fulltime players.

So I would like to maintain optimistic about Weimer, Turnang and Frelick. I really would. I want to get excited about the next wave of Chourio, Quero and Black. But this doubt keeps creeping up into my head.

That doubt is because the Brewers have, over the last 15 years, been the absolute worse team in baseball at developing impactful position players for their organization.

And so far this year, the doubt just keeps getting louder.