A late-night trade the week of Thanksgiving may slide by the newswire, but the Brewers sent a message to their prospects with the Hunter Renfroe: we trust you.
General Manager Matt Arnold called the move “an opportunity for our group of exciting young outfielders to impact our Major League team in the near future.” We saw the quick spark Garrett Mitchell provided at the end of the season, and the Brewers currently have four more outfielders ranked as top ten prospects in the organization.
Sal Frelick, Esteury Ruiz, Joey Wiemer are immediate candidates to step in to Renfroe’s right field role. Oh, by the way, a top five prospect in all of baseball is only 19 in the Brewers farm in Jackson Chourio … who was honored with a minor league Gold Glove on Tuesday.
You have an exciting mix of prospects entering the fold when baseball could be rewarding a new style of baseball. Speed and contact could be making a comeback with shift bans, pickoff restrictions, and bigger bases. Ruiz led all of the minors in stolen bases last season, while Frelick and Wiemer each stole more than 20.
Then you have Chourio, a do-it-all wunderkind, looking to make a splash in maybe as soon as a year. He’s been compared to the talent of Ronald Acuna Jr from Atlanta.
Meanwhile, you can never have enough pitching, as evidenced by last season’s pitching staff injuries. Janson Junk adds starting depth, Elvis Peguero can be inserted straight into the bullpen, and Adam Seminaris is a lefty prospect starter the Brewers get to throw in the pitching lab.
This is a move that loses a little bit of power in the short-term, but it seems as though the Brewers are far from done from making calls this offseason.
