Our Milwaukee Brewers sent eight representatives to the Fall League to suit up for Peoria (and later, a ninth player headed down to pitch for Mesa) so let’s take a moment to recap how well those players performed in the so-called “prospect finishing school.”

LHP Daniel Brown

Brown, a fastball-slider lefty who works in the low-to-mid-90s, enjoyed an excellent AFL. In nine appearances he covered 12.0 innings, allowing only eight hits, four walks, and a 3.00 Earned Run Average (ERA). Deserved Run Average thought his performance was nearly perfect; his DRA came in at 0.12 for a DRA- of 2.5! (DRA- measures DRA in league context, with 100 as average and the lower the number, the better).

RHP Bowdien Derby

The Javelinas used Derby as a starter in the AFL, and he toed the slab to begin seven games while logging 26.3 innings pitched. He did so with a modest 4.78 ERA, though DRA- (86) still assessed Derby as 14 percent better than the average pitcher on the circuit. Derby’s 18:9 strikeout:walk ratio wasn’t exactly inspiring, and we’ll see if the AFL performance that followed up a decent season as a swingman for Colorado Springs is enough to convince some team to pick him in this year’s Rule 5 Draft. Derby was left unprotected by the Brewers.

RHP Jon Olczak

Olczak turned in one of the most stellar campaigns of any reliever on the AFL circuit this year. He logged a 1.50 ERA across 12.0 innings, striking out 13 while allowing only eight hits and five walks. DRA- (45) valued his work as 55 percent better than his league-average cohorts. This comes after a terrific 73 DRA- in 56.3 innings for Double-A Biloxi during the regular season, and it wouldn’t come as a surprise to find out that the fastball/slider slinging Olczak (who sits 92-94 MPH) winds up generating plenty of Rule 5 interest in advance of next month’s draft.

RHP Miguel Sanchez

The 24 year old Sanchez put together a surprising pop-up season in 2018, advancing from Class A-Advanced all the way up to Triple-A before earning a shot at the Fall League. He continued to be effective in Arizona, posting a 3.60 ERA in 10.0 innings. He struck out eight while walking three, generating ground balls at a 65 percent rate. DRA- (74) saw his performance as well above average for the league.

RHP Aaron Wilkerson

After a truncated regular season split between Triple-A and the big leagues, the Brewers sent Wilkerson as a late addition to the AFL so that he could stretch back out in advance of pitching in winter ball in the Dominican Republic. Wilkerson joined the Mesa Solar Sox and appeared in three games, tossing four scoreless innings with three strikeouts and three walks.

C Mario Feliciano

Injuries limited Feliciano to just 46 games between the Arizona Rookie League and Class-A Advanced in 2018, so the Brewers assigned him to the Fall League to try and catch him up with some addition reps. It didn’t work out, though, as injuries unfortunately halted Feliciano’s progress once again. After only two games and six plate appearances (that included a hit and two walks), he was sidelined with discomfort in his throwing shoulder that led to arthroscopic surgery at the beginning of November. He should be ready to go again come next spring.

UTIL Weston Wilson

A jack-of-all-trades utility man, Wilson was highly impressive during the AFL campaign, batting .364 average /.462 on-base /.636 slugging percentage in 39 plate appearances for a True Average of .387. He clubbed a double, a triple, and two home runs, and even stole a pair of bases, too. A former 17th-round draft pick, more and more are coming around to the idea that the 24 year old Wilson has the ability to be a big leaguer after his terrific season between Class A-Advanced, Double-A, and the Arizona Fall League in 2018.

OF Trent Grisham

This former first-round pick, on the other hand, has plenty of people doubting that he’ll ever make it to The Show based on what he’s been showing lately (and really since being picked in 2015). Grisham’s passive approach has led to walks aplenty as a professional, but not much in the way of batting average of hard contact. Grisham hit .133/.304/.133 with 17 strikeouts in 57 AFL plate appearances, leading Mark Anderson of the BP Prospect Team to comment recently that “his comfort in the box and overall feel for hitting are seemingly non-existent at this point.”

2B Keston Hiura

Hiura is Milwaukee’s top prospect for good reason. Often described as a “hitting savant,” Hiura led the AFL in hits (31), RBI (33), and total bases (54). His five home runs were one off the league lead and his .934 OPS ranked sixth overall. Hiura’s overall slash was good enough for a .352 True Average, and he was so good so often that the BP Prospect Team seemed almost annoyed that they needed to keep writing about him. Hiura’s tremendous performance helped net not only the AFL Championship trophy, but earned him some well-deserved personal hardware, too.

#Brewers‘ hitting machine Keston Hiura is the 2018 @MLBazFallLeague MVP after hitting .323 with 5 homers and a league-leading 33 RBIs in 23 games. More from @wboor: https://t.co/Qbc6keDe54 pic.twitter.com/f47t6zO7fR

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) November 17, 2018

Ashby comes from a big league pedigree; he is the nephew of former MLB pitcher Andy Ashby, who also pitched at Crowder College before going on to a 14-year career that ended with a 4.12 ERA across more than 1,800 innings. Aaron himself finished with an impressive resume at Crowder, posting a 2.29 ERA across 74.2 innings in his final season while leading all Junior College pitchers in strikeouts (156) and strikeout rate (18.8 K/9). But his below-average control (5.18 BB/9) caused him to slip down to 125th overall, where he signed for a slightly above-slot $520,000 bonus.

Ashby began his career in the professional ranks in Helena, Montana, pitching for the Brewers’ Pioneer League affiliate. The bottom-line numbers say that he didn’t fare too well during his brief stint in rookie ball, as he worked to a 6.20 ERA while logging 20.3 innings. The Pioneer League is notoriously hitter-friendly, however, and the decent 19:8 K/BB ratio and 93 Deserved Run Average Minus (DRA- ) that he produced for Helena are probably more indicative of his true performance during those six outings (on a scale of 100, a DRA- below 100 is better than average). Ashby was never going to be long for rookie ball, and he was promoted to make his debut with the Class-A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers on July 29th.

Aaron would go on to make seven dazzling starts for Appleton to conclude his season, never allowing more than two earned runs in any of them. He tossed six shutout innings in his Midwest League debut against Kane County, and in back-to-back starts against Cedar Rapids on August 19th and Clinton on August 24th, he worked six innings while striking out 10 and 12 batters, respectively. All told, Ashby pitched 37.3 innings at Class-A with a 2.17 ERA, 47 strikeouts against a mere nine walks, and only one home run allowed. He limited opponents to a .233 True Average (TAv) even though he was stung by a .398 batting average on balls in play, and Ashby finished with a sterling Deserved Run Average that saw his work as 39 percent more effective than his Midwest League peers.

Free passes were Ashby’s biggest bugaboo as a collegiate hurler, but he was able to limit the walks quite well during his first 57.7 innings as a professional in 2018. His 2.7 BB/9 across two levels was nearly half his total during his last year at Crowder, though some scouts wonder how long that will continue as he begins to face more advanced hitters while climbing the minor league ladder. Ashby has a “funky,” high-effort delivery that makes it difficult for him to throw strikes at times, but it does add plenty of deception and helped him induce swings aplenty at pitches outside the strike zone against the Pioneer and Midwest League hitters.

The raw stuff is truly excellent, though. A moving fastball that routinely registers in the 91-94 MPH range; A plus curveball that has long been his go-to pitch and was graded by Baseball America as the best secondary offering of any Brewers’ pitcher drafted in 2018; A power slider that has “impressive depth and two-plane break,” that BA says Milwaukee’s development staff likes even better than the curve; and a changeup that doesn’t get used much, but projects as an average offering at maturity.

A role as a power reliever will always be there for Ashby to fall back on if the command issues creep back up in the future, but so long as he can continue refining his mechanics and adding strength to his 6’1″, 170 lb frame, Ashby could grow into a “really intriguing mid-rotation prospect” according to Baseball Prospectus’ Mark Anderson. He’ll no doubt be hoping to following the footsteps of fellow fourth-round pick Corbin Burnes, who also began as an intriguing prospect from a small college before blossoming under Milwaukee’s minor league coaching staff. Burnes fashioned himself into an integral part of Milwaukee’s big league roster within two years of being drafted; with some minor adjustments, Aaron Ashby could follow a similarly quick path to the majors.

His first go-round in the Southern League came in 2015, the inaugural season for the Biloxi Shuckers. He spent the majority of the year manning center field, but after posting solid True Averages (TAv) of .266 for Wisconsin in 2013 and .267 for Brevard County in 2014, Taylor could only manage to put forth a .260/.312/.337 slash for a TAv of .243. Power has never been a major part of Tyrone’s profile but what little pop he could boast all but evaporated, as he clubbed a mere three home runs while posting an .077 Isolated Power (ISO) mark.

It’s not uncommon for a player to struggle during their first exposure to Double-A, especially when they make it to the level by the tender age of 21. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when Taylor returned to the Southern League for a second time in 2016; his continued struggles were flummoxing. This time, he yielded a .232/.303/.327 batting line across 519 plate appearances, with his TAv of .244 almost mirroring his total from the year prior. Tyrone did run into a few more homers (9), but still posted an ISO below .100 and stole fewer than 10 bases (9) for the first time since debuting in full-season ball. Taylor was Rule 5 eligible for the first time that offseason, and he was left unprotected by the Brewers and unpicked by any other team around the league.

His prospect stock was already plummeting when hamstring issues began to plague Taylor during the following season in 2017. He wasn’t able to get on the field until late June, taking at-bats in the Arizona League for a couple of weeks before heading back to Biloxi for a third time. He wound up finding action in only 25 games for the Shuckers and again, failed to inspire any sort of confidence with his bat. Taylor ended 2017 with a .247/.316/.376 slash in 95 plate appearances, tallying a single home runs and two stolen bases. Another sub-.250 TAv, and Taylor was nowhere near the club’s top-30 prospect rankings and was once again passed over in the Rule 5 Draft.

Despite his struggles, there was at least one man within the front office who was still in Taylor’s corner. “Tyrone Taylor is a guy who really battled injuries last year. He’s fully healthy. He’s had a chance to get over into some big league games. The power stroke seems to be coming back. It’s just great to see him healthy. He’s been a sleeper in the past,” Farm Director Tom Flanagan told MLB Pipeline’s prospect team during Spring Training 2018. The Brewers remained steadfast in their belief that there was still untapped offensive potential within Taylor because of his bat speed and contact ability, and hoped that ability to pepper the gaps with line drives could translate into more home run power. So after three years if struggles in Biloxi, the org decided it was time for a new challenge and assigned Taylor to Triple-A Colorado Springs for the 2018 season.

It was Taylor’s first subjection to the highest level of the minor leagues, and at age-24 he was nearly two and a half years younger than the median age for the Pacific Coast League. The outfielder was anything but overmatched, however. It was quite the contrary, in fact, as Taylor put together an offensive season like he’d never produced before. The Sky Sox outfield featured several MLB veterans throughout the course of the season (including Domingo Santana, Keon Broxton, Rymer Liriano, Quintin Berry, Brett Phillips, and Nate Orf, among others) and yet Taylor still saw his name etched on the lineup card nearly everyday, appearing in 119 games. In 481 trips to the plate, he hit .278/.321/.504, translating to a .265 TAv that was his highest in four years. And, as Flanagan and the Pipeline scouts intimated, the power finally showed up: Tyrone launched 20 balls over the fence after never hitting even double-digit dingers in a single season previously.

The key for Taylor appears to have been a successful indoctrination into the ranks of the “fly ball revolution.” Early on in his career, his batted ball profile resembled that of most speedsters; plenty of ground balls, relying on his fleet feet to beat out base hits. But things began to shift during his injury-shortened season in 2017, as Taylor (who posted fly ball percentages around 38, 30, and 39 percent, respectively, from 2014-16 in AA) hit 65 percent of his batted balls in the air during his rehab stint in Arizona.Taylor then produced nearly 45 percent flyball rate during his 25 games for Biloxi. In Colorado Springs, his fly ball rate jumped up again, this time close to 50 percent. Taylor hit the ball in the air nearly half the time last season, and his 11 percent HR/FB ratio was double his previous career rate.

Perhaps most impressive is that Taylor was able to add more loft to his swing and dramatically improve his power without sacrificing any of his bat-to-ball ability. He posted a .226 ISO and mashed those 20 taters while striking out in only 15.4 percent of his plate appearances, and he’s never whiffed at higher than a 19 percent clip at any level of the minors.

Taylor may have added a newfound power stroke to his tool box in 2018, but the speed and defense part of his profile is still indeed present. He once again swiped double-digit bases, nabbing 13 bags on 17 attempts. He’s also a capable defender at all three outfield spots and spent a majority of his time (56 appearances) in the premium position of center field this season. Taylor piled up 8.9 Fielding Runs Above Average in a shade over 950 innings in the field this season and was credited with a whopping 18 outfield assists, including four double plays.

Tyrone Taylor would have been eligible to become a minor league free agent this fall, but as a reward for his breakout campaign in Colorado Springs, the Milwaukee Brewers purchased his contract and made him a member of the 40 man roster earlier this week. A fallen prospect whose career appeared to be on life support just one year ago, Taylor now seems destined to make his MLB debut at some point in 2019. Milwaukee’s backup outfielder mix could be in a bit of flux this winter, as both Keon Broxton and Domingo Santana will be out of minor league options heading into camp next spring. With his right-handed bat, ability to go out and get it at all three outfield spots, and full slate of minor league options, Tyrone Taylor could wind up playing a meaningful role for the Menomonee Valley Nine next season.

Woodruff debuted in the big leagues last season and didn’t exactly light the world on fire, posting a 4.81 ERA and an ugly 123 DRA- across eight starts and 43.0 innings. He was ranked as Milwaukee’s #7 prospect to begin the year by Baseball Prospectus, and the knock against him was that “the stuff doesn’t jump off the page—or scouting sheet—and he may lack a consistent swing-and-miss offering in the majors…and the command profile is only average. Woodruff might be better served airing it out in short bursts.” Perhaps those evaluators were on to something.

Woodruff did begin the year in the starting rotation, but ended up as one of the club’s many rotating, optionable arms on the shuttle between Colorado Springs and Milwaukee. He finally started to come into his own during the final month of the season, when he was brought back to the big leagues and plugged into a multi-inning role within Milwaukee’s vaunted “run prevention system.” He ended the regular season with an improved 3.61 ERA while tossing 42.3 innings, though this time his work came across 19 appearances (four starts). He struck out 47 batters for the highest strike outs per nine innings (10.0 K/9) he has ever posted in the majors or minors. A sparkling Deserved Run Average valued his overall production as 30 percent better than that of a league-average pitcher. Woodruff has now made three postseason appearances, logging 10. and 1/3 innings with a 2.61 ERA and 15 strikeouts against two walks.

Perhaps predictably, it seems that a move to the bullpen has allowed Woodruff’s stuff to play up a few ticks. He saw a significant improvement on his fastball velocity, per Brooks Baseball, jumping from an already-hard 94.81 MPH in 2017 all the way to 95.96 MPH during the 2018 regular season and playoffs. He’s added about 40 RPM of spin to his four-seamer and another inch of armside movement, as well, and has joined the growing group of hurlers that focus predominantly on working the pitch up in the strike zone, generally keeping it inside on right-handers.

Woodruff’s fastball improved from -1.2 runs in 2017 (according to linear weights from Pitch Info) to +4.5 runs in 2018. Batters have hit only .207 against it this season, a vast improvement over the .302 average the posted in 2017. The righty boosted his whiff rate with the offering by a couple of points and uses the four-seamer as his go-to pitch with two strikes, especially to left-handers; 37 of Woodruff’s 60 punchouts between the regular season and playoffs have come on his fastball.

But it isn’t just Woodruff’s heater that has improved. He’s added a mile-per-hour to his slider and changed the shape of it, turning into more of a 3-t0-9 pitch (reading numbers on a clock) rather than the 2-to-8 movement he was getting on it in 2017. Batters are now whiffing at the pitch more than 14 percent of the time, where it was below 10 percent in 2017. The movement and velocity on Woodruff’s chanegup are similar to 2017, but the results are not; opposing hitters whiff on the pitch nearly 16 percent of the time and have batted .273 with a .000 SLG against it, whereas those numbers were 9.89 percent and .316 (.632 SLG) in 2017. After punching out a measly 6.7 batters per nine with an 8.4 percent swinging strike rate in his previous campaign, Woodruff is striking out batters like never before while generating swinging strikes at a robust 10.4 percent clip.

In addition to his pitches having a little bit more zest, Woodruff has also worked to address his other perceived shortcoming: he’s throwing more strikes. The righty’s walk rates have been similar across the last two seasons (2.93 BB/9 vs. 2.98 BB/9), but his zone rate has improved from 48.6 percent up to 51.1 percent. Called Strike Probability is a metric that attempts to quantify how skilled a player is at working in and around the strike zone; it is meant as a measure of control, and Woodruff’s Called Strike Probability jumped from 0.46 in 2017 all the way up to 0.50 in 2018. In terms of control, Woodruff ranked among the top 20 percent of MLB pitchers (minimum 42 innings, for a total of 382 pitchers).

The Milwaukee Brewers will undoubtedly continue to blur the lines between “starter” and “reliever” with their 27-outs approach going forward, and that could benefit Brandon Woodruff over the long term. Without the pressure of having to work deep into a ballgame, Woodruff has been able to “let it eat” over shorter, multi-inning stints, which has led to improved stuff and results across the board. It seemed at times like Woodruff’s future with Milwaukee was up in the air while he was yo-yo’d around during the regular season, but it now appears that he will be an integral part in the pitching plans for David Stearns and Craig Counsell in the years to come.

Milwaukee would not be in the position that they are without Yelich, who was a stud for the Miami Marlins before fashioning himself into a bonafide superstar during the 2018 campaign. His .326 batting average /.402 on-base percentage /.598 slugging percentage slash line earned him the National League batting title (Milwaukee’s first ever) and he was this close to the first NL Triple Crown since 1937, tallying 36 home runs and 110 runs batted in (Yelich finished behind Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story in home runs, and Javier Baez for runs batted in). His superlative performance yielded a .356 True Average (TAv) and 7.7 Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) in his age-26 season, and he’s become the odds-on favorite to capture the league’s Most Valuable Player award.

Thinking back to January 25th, 2018, not everyone was thrilled when Slingin’ David Stearns signed off on the trade that sent four prospects to the Little Havana neighborhood in Miami. At the time, he gave up Milwaukee’s number one, three, and six prospects (according to Baseball Prospectus) along with a pitcher who Stearns himself had called one of his favorite arms in the organization. So as we bask in the glow of the first playoff victory our local club has produced in seven long years, let’s take a moment to check in on the guys that Stearns have up to help get us here:

OF Lewis Brinson
For most fans, Brinson was the player that stung most to lose. He was considered top-25 talent league wide, a potential five-tool center fielder who offered a few glimpses of his potential during a brief MLB trial in 2017. Miami handed Brinson a regular role at the big league level to begin the year, and he responded by putting together one of the least productive campaigns of any player in 2018. Brinson hit only .199/.240/.338 in 109 games and 406 plate appearances, good for an anemic TAv of .220. He did pop 11 long balls (including a mult-homer game against Milwaukee) and tallied 3.0 FRAA, but on the whole he was valued as a sub-replacement level player, tallying -0.3 WARP.

OF Monte Harrison
After a breakout season in 2017 between Appleton and Carolina, Miami tasked Harrison with one of the toughest challenges a minor leaguer will face: the jump from Class-A Advanced to Double-A. His slash line for Jacksonville of the Southern League wasn’t too bad at .240/.316/.399, which translated to a better-than-average .272 TAv on the pitcher-friendly circuit. Harrison again showed off his tantalizing power/speed combination, swiping 28 bases to go along with 19 dingers in 583 plate appearances. But the outfielder was also by far the league leader in strikeouts, whiffing an astonishing 215 times, or 37 percent of his trips to bat.

2B Isan Diaz
Like Harrison, Isan Diaz was assigned to Double-A Jacksonville to begin his time in the Marlins organization after finishing 2017 in Class-A Advanced. Diaz had a fair amount more success in the Southern League, however, producing a nifty .245/.365/.418 slash with 10 homers and 10 steals for a .294 TAv. After 83 games he earned a promotion to Triple-A New Orleans, and his numbers cratered at the highest level of the minors. In 36 games and 155 plate appearances, Diaz could manage only a .204/.281/.358 slash (.217 TAv). Strikeouts remain a concern for the infielder as well, as he whiffed a total of 140 times in 119 games between the two affiliates.

RHP Jordan Yamamoto
Yamamoto was stung by the injury bug this season, not taking the mound until late May and then missing another month of action between July and August. As a result, the righty made only 13 appearances and tossed 68 and 2/3 innings on the year, split between rookie ball, Class-A Advanced, and Double-A. In those innings, however, he put together a sparkling 1.68 ERA. Batters hit only .176 against the Hawaiian right-hander, and he struck out 84 (11.14 K/9) versus just 14 walks (1.83 BB/9). The profile is still more smarts and guile than it is pure stuff, leading to questions about how his game will play at the highest levels. Of the four prospects in the deal, though, Yamamoto is the only one who surely improved his stock heading into 2019, and the Baseball Prospectus team cited his ability to change speeds as one reason for rising prospect stock.

So, given these reports, have you been talked into a do-over on the trade? 

Pitching at Security Service Field, the highest-altitude ballpark in the country, was a nightmare for just about any hurler that took the mound. Just ask Taylor Jungmann or Jorge Lopez (or maybe don’t). According to the latest three-year minor league park factor data available online (covering the 2014-16 seasons), no ballpark in the Pacific Coast League, or Triple-A baseball in general, was more conducive to run-scoring than Security Service Field. Though the park plays close to neutral in terms of home runs, base hits, including those for extra bases, have been more likely to fall in at Security Service Field than any other ballpark at the highest level of the minor leagues. The park factors in play in Colorado Springs make it difficult to evaluate pitchers, who don’t get the same break on their offerings at altitude, but also the hitters. The inflated batting statistics made journeymen like Nate Orf and Christian Bethancourt look like stars this season, and a previous study indicated that playing in an extreme hitters park can be negative for the offensive development of younger prospects.

Beyond the on-field issues, there were some logistical problems with the Colorado Springs location as well. Milwaukee obviously utilizes a good amount of their minor league depth and has constantly sent players back and forth from Triple-A to the big leagues over the past few years. Players that got the call to Milwaukee would have to drive more than an hour to get to Denver, and then from there they would have to catch a flight to either General Mitchell Internationa; (in Milwaukee) or O’Hare International (in Chicago). The led to a lot of long travel days for individuals like Adrian Houser, who vomited on the mound at Miller Park after enduring the journey. The altitude also had negative affects on player’s bodies. Manager Rick Sweet once noted that it could take up to a week for a player to re-acclimate to being so far above sea level, but that the team was rarely there long enough for an individual to complete the process of re-adjusting to the low oxygen environment before heading out on another road trip.

Going forward, however, Milwaukee won’t have to deal with having their highest affiliate in Colorado Springs any longer. The Elmore Group, owners of the former Sky Sox franchise and a few other minor league ballclubs, have done some shuffling of their assets. Their Double-A team in San Antonio is moving to a new park in Amarillo for 2019, so the group decided to pack up the Sky Sox and move them into the old facility in San Antonio. There the team is being re-branded as the new Missions, effectively elevating the franchise that existed as a Double-A affiliate for 50+ years to a Triple-A club. Though Milwaukee’s player development contract with the old Sky Sox expired after this season, the front office’s relationship with the Elmore Group helped the two sides broker a new two-year PDC that will keep the Brewers’ top affiliate in San Antonio for the next two years.

No longer will the minor leaguers have to deal with acclimating to the high altitude, or long drives to catch even longer flights when getting the call to The Show. And no longer will the players be trapped in one of the most challenging playing and evaluating environments in the country. Nelson W. Wolff Municipal Stadium figures be a significant departure from the high-scoring environment in Colorado Springs, as the park factors actually favor pitchers a bit more than they do hitters. Only Arkansas was less conducive to scoring among Texas League affiliates from 2014-16, and the park in San Antonio was also less apt to allow base hits than the average Texas League park. San Antonio has tended to be very suppressive to home runs, again coming in ahead of only Arkansas according to the park factors.

The Pacific Coast League still favors offense on the whole, but at least at when they are at home, Milwaukee’s scouts will be able to get a much more accurate read on their pitchers than they could in Colorado Springs. The minor league hitters may benefit from the change of scenery, too, at least from a developmental standpoint. The only real drawback to the move is that Wolff Stadium isn’t considered to be a “state of the art” facility, and the Elmore Group has been seeking a new stadium in San Antonio for nearly a decade now. The city has steadfastly refused to kick in any money for a stadium, however, as their eye is on a possible MLB club if the long-rumored expansion ever comes to fruition.

As part of the PDC, the Elmore’s have at least committed to investing in few million dollars worth of upgrades to the existing facility to get it up to the Triple-A standard. With a fluid ballpark situation, Milwaukee’s stay as an affiliate in San Antonio may not last longer than the two years of the contract that they just signed. But rest assured, the situation ought to be a monumental improvement over Colorado Springs.

The Brewers selected Olczak out of NC State in the 21st round back in 2015, Ray Montgomery’s first year back with the organization and running the draft. He missed plenty of bats and prevented runs well during his junior season, posting a 2.55 ERA with 47 strikeouts in 23 appearances and 42.0 innings, but his struggles with command led to questions about how his game would translate to the professional ranks. He issued more than six walks per nine innings during his final collegiate season for the Wolfpack, but chose to put his fate in the hands of Milwaukee’s coaching staff rather than return for his senior season and try to improve his draft stock.

It didn’t take long for Olczak to start finding the strike zone more consistently once he started getting paid to pitch. The righty immediately slashed his walk rate during his first professional season in 2015, doling out only five of them across 27.7 innings split between Milwaukee’s two rookie-level affiliates. His command hasn’t been quite that good in the years since, but he’s been able to hover in that 3.0 BB/9 range in each of the past three seasons. That is certainly a palatable number for a reliever.

If it wasn’t for the walks, batters would hardly ever reach base against Olczak. He has allowed only 7.2 hits per nine innings in the minor leagues, a number that is inflated by the 11.5 hits per nine (and .397 Batting Average on Balls in Play [BABIP]) he posted in 2017 when a lat strain limited him to 22.0 innings and diminished his overall effectiveness. This past season for the Double-A Biloxi Shuckers, batters recorded only 36 hits in 56.3 innings for an average of .180. Olczak is a fly-ball pitcher who has shown to be adept at producing pop ups; he generated infield flies at a terrific 19.4 percent rate this season and was between 24-30 percent at the lower levels.

Olczak was a revelation in the bullpen for the playoff-bound Shuckers this season, joining the team after two early-season appearances for the Class-A Advanced Mudcats. As mentioned he tossed 56.3 innings for Biloxi across 42 appearances, and in that time he yielded only a minuscule 1.44 ERA. He struck out 60 batters while issuing only 19 free passes, and only one opposing batter took him deep all season. Jon’s walks and hits per innings pitched (WHIP) was stellar at 0.977; his True Average allowed of .205 is perhaps even more impressive. Olczak’s DRA- of 73 means that Deserved Run Average views his work as 27 percent better than his Southern League cohorts this season; outside of his injury hiccups in 2017, Olczak has posted far better-than-average Deserved Run Average totals at every level he’s pitched at.

The 24 year old (25 in November) isn’t just some experienced collegiate arm using his guile to outsmart inexperienced minor league hitters, either. Olczak’s raw stuff is pretty nasty, by all accounts. Olczak has an easy, fluid delivery and releases the ball from a fairly standard high three-quarters arm slot. He can crank his fastball up to 95 MPH, but more typically sits in the 91-93 MPH range along with a sharp-breaking curveball in the high-70s MPH that flashes plus at times. He’s been known to manipulate the shape of his breaking pitch, sometimes showing batters more of a slurvy action with it.

The Brewers will have a decision to make on Jon Olczak during the upcoming offseason, as the relief ace will be Rule-5 Draft eligible for the first time. The fact that he’s solely a bullpen arm could work against him in his quest for a 40-man roster spot with Milwaukee, although there could be a better chance for Olczak now given that the org shipped out several other guys with upcoming Rule-5 decisions during their July and August trades. The statistical and scouting profiles say that Jon Olczak should be getting guys out at the game’s highest level in the near future, perhaps even as soon as next season. A strong showing in the Arizona Fall League could go a long way towards convincing the powers that be that his destiny ought to lie with the Menomonee Valley Nine.

Perrin has the build to start, as he stands 6’5″ and weighs in at 220 lbs. Although he doesn’t overwhelm with his stuff, he mixes his four pitches well and can throw his fastball, curveball, slider, and changeup all for strikes. He was scouted in the lower levels as having the potential upside of a mid-to-back of the rotation starter, so it seemed a bit curious when the Brewers converted him to full-time relief to begin 2018. The right started the year with Colorado Springs and authored a 2.59 ERA across 24.1 innings, but was sent back down to Biloxi while guys like Alec Asher and Paolo Espino received turns in the Triple-A rotation. Perrin continued to pitch out of the bullpen for the Shuckers until the trade, which GM David Stearns classified as “allowing Jon to get a little bit of a fresh opportunity.”

Perrin is Rule-5 eligible this fall and given how the org treated him this season, it was probably unlikely that he was going to net a 40 man roster spot. The rebuilding Royals are devoid of pitching talent, and therefore can offer Perrin a better opportunity to not only reach the majors more quickly, but to get there as a starting pitcher. The 25 year old has been pitching in the rotation for Double-A Northwestern Arkansas since the swap, posting a 3.21 ERA across 14.0 innings covering three starts.

In exchange for Perrin, the Brewers received a 22 year old right-hander who, according to Slingin’ Stearns, has “some ingredients to turn into a prospect.” Sal Biasi was an 11th-round pick of the Royals just last summer in 2017 and inked for a $125,000 bonus, the maximum slot value for a pick in rounds 11-40. Baseball America described the stocky right-hander as “a near-average athlete with functional body control and looseness to his delivery” while evoking a George Costanza comp, but a scout I spoke with indicated that Biasi is someone that the Brewers have liked for awhile and that he deserves more credit than that for his athleticism. The Penn State product had an offer to walk on to Villanova’s basketball team before electing to pursue baseball with the Nittany Lions.

Biasi has a pretty simple delivery, pitching exclusively from the stretch while releasing the ball from a standard high three-quarters arm slot. His arm action and head tilt creates a little bit of deception and can make it a bit tougher for hitters to pick the ball up out of his hand. His fastball is his best pitch, sitting in the low-90s with the ability to run up to 95 MPH. Both Baseball America and my scouting source thought Biasi’s secondary pitch, a curveball in the 79-82 MPH range, was a below-average pitch when he was drafted. Those factors, along with the idea that Biasi is a bit undersized at 6’0″ and 190 lbs, lead most to believe that his future will ultimately be in the bullpen. He’s pitched predominantly as a reliever since joining the professional ranks, starting only eight of 44 appearances over the last two seasons.

Biasi posted a nifty 2.41 ERA while tossing 56.0 innings across two rookie levels in his debut season of 2017, though peripherals like DRA didn’t exactly support that level of run prevention. His numbers have come back down to Earth during his first exposure to full-season ball in 2018. Biasi owns a 4.73 ERA in 51.3 innings for Milwaukee’s and Kansas City’s Class-A affiliates this year, though he has allowed only three earned runs in 8.7 innings so far for Wisconsin. He’s missed plenty of bats this season, whiffing 9.3 batters per nine innings, and his 3.9 BB/9 is a palatable number.

Since taking over in 2016, the Stearns regime has done an incredible job developing and deploying their pitchers. Milwaukee’s track record with their arms and their highly-respected cadre of pitching coaches, led at the MLB level by Derek Johnson and filtering throughout the org, gets me automatically interested in just about every pitcher that the front office specifically targets and brings into the fold. After all, this is the org that has coaxed ace-level run prevention from Junior Guerra and Chase Anderson, resuscitated the career of Wade Miley, taught veteran hurlers Jeremy Jeffress and Jhoulys Chacin a split-finger pitch that has become key to the success of both pitchers, and developed Freddy Peralta from teenager to rookie strikeout sensation.

So maybe Sal Biasi, who you won’t find on any top-30 prospect lists, is just a future reliever. Maybe the main driver of this deal was that unlike Jon Perrin, he happens to have another two years until he needs to be protected from the Rule 5 Draft. Or, maybe the “ingredients” are indeed there for Sal Biasi to turn into more. Maybe his track record of pitching multiple innings means he can stretch out to be a starter. Maybe the org can help him improve the bite on his curveball a bit, and perhaps he learns the signature Milwaukee splitter to give him a three-pitch mix. Maybe the Brewers have some sort of biomechanical analysis that will help him thrive even with fringe to below-average command grades, like Guerra and Chacin and Peralta before him.

The “maybes” are the fun part about dreaming on prospects. Now all we have to do is watch how things play out.

Yesterday at the lowest rung of the minor league ladder in the Dominican Summer League (DSL), however, the DSL Brewers no-hit the DSL Rangers (2) behind stellar work from starter Alexis Ramirez and reliever Jose Alberro. The 19 year old Ramirez tossed seven frames while allowing only two walks and striking out six before Alberro came on to close out the contest, tossing two clean innings with a couple of strikeouts. The Brewers won, 5-0, with most of the offense coming thanks to Oswel Leones, who hit a homer and had three RBI in the game.

That game was just one of a half-dozen no-hitters that the Brewers have recorded organization-wide since the start of this decade. Prior to yesterday’s game in the Dominican, the last no-no in the org was just last summer at Double-A Biloxi. The Shuckers had a doubleheader on August 14th, 2017, against the Tennessee Smokies, thanks to a postponed game the day before due to rain. MiLB doubleheaders feature two scheduled seven-inning games, so Hiram Burgos got the start in the seven-inning affair and started by tossing two clean innings with a couple of punchouts. Then came Forrest Snow, who was awarded the winning decision after pitching innings three through five, allowing one walk and four whiffs. Lefty hitting-convert Nick Ramirez threw the sixth while allowing a walk, and Jorge Lopez worked a clean seventh to finish up the no-no and record his fifth save of the year. The Shuckers won, 1-0, thanks to a first inning dinger by Troy Stokes.

Before the Biloxi no-hitter, you have to go all the way back to 2012 to find the previous one. The team that would eventually move to Biloxi, the Huntsville Stars, faced off against the Chattanooga Lookouts on August 4th. A familiar name got the start for Huntsville that night: Jimmy Nelson, worked the first four innings with four walks and four strikeouts, but no hits. Then came reliever Dan Merklinger, who was pitching in his final professional season. He walked four batters and allowed a run during his 2/3 of an inning before getting bailed out by La Crosse native R.J. Seidel. Seidel tossed an inning and a third while issuing two more free passes and was credited with the winning decision. Righty Darren Byrd worked two scoreless innings and then future big leaguer Brandon Kintzler came on for the save. Huntsville hurlers issued 11 walks in the contest but zero hits, and won 3-1 on a three-run homer by Brock Kjeldgaard in the third inning.

That wasn’t the only no-hitter the org registered in 2012. On May 4th, the Class-A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers defeated the Clinton LumberKings 5-0 while keeping their opponents out of the hit column. Chad Thompson, a 27th-round pick in 2011, got the start in that game and threw the first five innings with three walks and six punchouts. He would go on to miss all of 2013 with injury and was out of baseball after the 2014 season. His tandem partner, Mark Williams, came in to finish the context with four scoreless frames while walking one and striking out three. A former undrafted free agent, Williams hung around affiliated ball until 2015 but never made it past Double-A. 2010 24th-rounder Gregory Hopkins had the big hit, a three-run homer in the first inning, to power Wisconsin’s offense in the no-hit victory. He hung around the org until 2014 before playing a year in independent ball and hanging up the spikes.

We head back to the DSL to remember Juan Francisco’s seven-inning “gem” on August 15th, 2011. The DSL Brewers defeated the DSL Mariners by a score of 2-1, with Francisco tossing a complete game no-no. Francisco walked six batters while striking out only two during the highlight of his brief career, which lasted from 2010-12 and never got higher than the Dominican Summer League. Raul Mondesi, Jr. (the other one) and Jose Pena recorded the Brewers’ two runs batted in during the game, while a young Orlando Arcia took an 0-for-3.

The franchise’s first no-hitter of the decade took place on August 24th, 2010, in a Midwest League game between the Timber Rattlers and the Cedar Rapids Kernels. Jake Odorizzi got the start for Wisconsin and dominated, going eight innings with ten strikeouts versus only one walk. He was relieved by Adrian Rosario, who completed the no-no by throwing a scoreless ninth, walking one and fanning two. Both pitchers were dealt not long after. Odorizzi was sent to Kansas City in the famed Greinke deal and is currently enjoying a solid big league career. Rosario was a part of the 2011 K-Rod trade, and his career flamed out in the Mets’ organization in 2013. But both pitchers brought their best stuff that night, and thanks to RBI hits by D’Vontrey Richardson, Kentrail Davis, and Joey Paciorek, the T-Rats emerged victorious by a score of 3-0.

So there you have it, the six minor league no-hitters that the Milwaukee Brewers can claim since the start of 2010. Hopefully some of that good fortune will shine on the big league team soon, and help spawn the future broadcasting career of whatever backup catcher who may wind up calling pitches behind the plate for Milwaukee’s next MLB n0-no.

Perez is the very definition of a “flyer.” He will turn 21 later this year and has spent the last two years pitching in the Dominican Summer League, the lowest rung of the minor league baseball ladder and a circuit typically populated by teenagers. He’s got some nice surface stats this year (2.01 Earned Run Average (ERA) and 10.5 strike outs per nine innings in 40.3 IP) but doesn’t possess impressive raw stuff. The fastball from Perez sits only in the 88-91 MPH range and he’ll mix in a cutter, curve, and changeup. For Chicago, the true prize in the deal is Medeiros, Milwaukee’s first-round pick at #12 overall in 2014.

Medeiros was a divisive prospect going back to the day he was drafted, with many scouts sticking the “future reliever” label on him right away. But getting pegged as a bullpen arm isn’t the denigration that it used to be given the way that baseball has changed and emphasized the importance of a good relief corps. It’s been an up-and-down developmental road for the southpaw, with the lowest point coming in 2016 when he walked nearly as many batters (63) as he struck out (64) in 23 appearances for Class-A Advanced Brevard County. He’s bounced back well statistically since then, however, and this season he produced a 3.14 ERA with 107 punchouts against 45 walks in 103.3 innings for Double-A Biloxi before being dealt.

The Brewers stayed steadfast in developing Medeiros as a starter despite the obvious issues with his profile. These are commonly noted: the funky arm slot and high-effort delivery, the below-average command, the platoon issues, and the lack of a third pitch to play off his fastball/slider combination. The White Sox are expected to keep him in a similar capacity for the time being, but the scouting consensus continues to form around a relief role. Following the trade announcement, Eric Longenhagen of Fangraphs tweeted out that Medeiros “should be premium lefty bullpen weapon at maturity.”

For a reliever of Soria’s ilk (2.56 ERA, 45 DRA-(!), 49:10 strike outs to walks in 38.7 IP) under control for potentially 1.5 seasons, the trade price of Medeiros seems fair. Sure, the lefty’s skill-set is quite intriguing, and if you squint just right, you can see a Hader-esque upside in a fireman role. But Medeiros isn’t the flamethrower that he once was; his stuff has backed up a bit since high school and he’s now closer to the 88-93 MPH range with his heater than the mid-90’s fire he once possessed. He didn’t even garner a mention in Baseball Prospectus’ top Brewers prospect list at the beginning of the year, nor did his improved performance push him into the midseason update of Baseball America’s top prospect list for Milwaukee. MLB Pipeline had him at #13 in Milwaukee’s system before the trade with an Overall Future Potential (OFP) of 45, and he now slots in at #19 overall among Chicago’s farmhands. The Brewers would have faced a difficult decision about whether or not to protect Medeiros from the Rule 5 Draft (among a host of other notable prospects) this winter, and now that will be the White Sox problem.

The only real complaint I saw regarding this deal was a fan lamenting that “another first-rounder didn’t pan out.” In this case, though, that’s the wrong way to think about it. Yes, the Brewers have had some notable whiffs at the top of the draft, such as Eric Arnett, Jed Bradley, Victor Roache, and so on. But Medeiros was drafted at 12th overall, signed and then developed to the point where he became a desirable commodity for other franchises. His future potential was leveraged into present production in the form of Joakim Soria to better fit with Milwaukee’s current competitive window. There is more to valuing a prospect than the Wins Above Replacement that he produces on the field for the franchise that drafts/signs him, and I would argue that using Medeiros as a chip to bring in a reliever performing at an elite level for the rest of this year and possibly next season is plenty valuable. Now the risk of completing his development and extracting big league worth falls upon the White Sox staff.

It’s not difficult to envision a future in the big leagues for Medeiros, but an average left-handed reliever seems like the most plausible outcome at present. Given where the team is at in the standings and the upcoming 40 man roster crunch, that’s something that Milwaukee could afford to part with.