A Minor Review of 2018: Milwaukee Brewers
Welcome back to my annual off-season series that has a quick-and-dirty review of all 30 minor league systems around baseball. This feature began way back in 2008.
If you were perusing this series back in 2015 you would have read this:
The Tumbler: Taylor Williams, RHP: Williams, not 24, has pitched just 174.2 innings in his three-year professional career, thanks to injuries. He missed all of 2015 due to an elbow injury and the concern is that he may eventually require Tommy John surgery, thus costing him even more development time. With a strong focus on obtaining pitching through the draft and via trade, Williams has slide down the Brewers’ pitching depth chart. The right-hander has good stuff — and with the durability concerns — he may be better suited for the ‘pen.
Now on to the new stuff:
First Taste of The Show: Corbin Burnes, RHP: The Brewers received some key innings from a number of young arms in 2018. Freddy Peralta pitched the most innings but Burnes arguably has the higher ceiling. The latter pitcher worked his way through the minors as a starter but pitched 30 games out of the bullpen for the Brewers in 2018. He has an excellent fastball-slider combo and does a nice job inducing ground-ball outs. His stuff may not be quite as crisp if he moves back to the starting rotation and he’ll have to continue to work on the changeup, which was mostly forgotten while he worked out of the ‘pen. If he sticks as a reliever, he has high-leverage potential.
