Brewers: 3 Prospects Who Could Make an Impact in 2021 Season

We are officially nearing the end of the first month of January, which means it is prospect rankings and hype season across fan sites league wide. In this article I am going to examine three Milwaukee Brewers prospects whom we could see in the big leagues this upcoming season.

Let’s begin.

1) C Mario Feliciano

Hype has been surrounding Feliciano for quite some time now, in large part due to his stellar 2019 season with the Carolina Mudcats in which he slashed .273/.324/.477, clobbered 19 home runs, and had 81 runs batted in. Despite no 2020 minor league season he did spend his time at the alternative training site for the Brewers.

On Feliciano’s 22nd birthday this year he received a much anticipated phone call that informed him that he was being added to the Brewers 40 man roster. With being Rule 5 draft eligible this off-season, the Brewers felt it was necessary to protect Feliciano from potentially being drafted to another team.

As for what to expect from Feliciano, in a recent interview with MLB.com it was revealed that he has been training daily with long time rival catcher Yadier Molina. While hearing Molina’s name still makes me cringe, I do know that man is full of tons of baseball knowledge, tips, tricks, and Feliciano is getting to pick his brain daily!

In the video Feliciano’s addresses that in 2019 he was still striking out at a higher clip than the standard he holds himself to. In 2019, he struck out in 28.8% of his at bats. This will be one area to monitor in his offensive game moving forward.

The Brewers 40 man roster currently has a plethora of catchers on it, six to be exact. Manny Pina and Omar Narvaez likely will get the first opportunities at catcher in 2021. Pina is generally a solid player year in and year out, especially defensively but Narvaez may be on a short leash given his disappointing offensive performance in 2020. This could potentially open up an opportunity for us to see Feliciano with the Brewers if Narvaez does indeed struggle again.

In the end, the bat is definitely Feliciano’s calling card. As a high ranked prospect in the Brewers system, there is a chance that he does indeed make his MLB debut in 2021 and if depending upon how things go, he could stick around as well for many years to come.

3) RHP Justin Topa

At 29 years old, Topa does not fit your typical “prospect” mold, but given he has just 7.2 career MLB innings, all coming in 2020 with the Brewers, he very much is still a prospect for the purpose of this article.

With coming onto the Major League scene last season, many fans are familiar with how this former Indy-Ball pitcher was discovered by the Brewers. In case you are not familiar the answer is Twitter.

The Brewers decided to take a chance on Topa after seeing his sinker/slider combo videos spread about the Flatground platform on Twitter. Once signed in the spring of 2019, he spent his first season with the Brewers in the Advanced-A and Double-A levels. In total he pitched 40 innings, struck out 41 batters, and had a 3.38 ERA.

In 2020, with expanded rosters, Justin Topa was invited to the Brewers alternate training site. Despite not being a high ranked prospect, Topa made noise and eventually got the call up to make his MLB debut on September 1, 2020.

Unfortunately in his first inning of work he surrendered two hits including a two run home run courtesy of Victor Reyes of the Detroit Tigers. However, in five more appearances throughout the year he did not allow any more earned runs and his 97 MPH sinker and low 80s, huge breaking slider combination showed promise to be a very deadly combination for years to come.

The most interesting aspect to Topa’s game is his slider. Per baseball savant, of the 36 sliders he threw in 2020, that pitch averaged 15.6 inches of horizonal break.  When compared to other pitchers at a similar velocity, Topa’s slider had 136% more inches of break.

It’s fair to say that the Brewers value uniqueness in pitches. With teammate Devin Williams’ changeup in conjunction with Justin Topa’s slider, opposing batters are not use to seeing that much movement on those respective pitches. It’s something new and hitters still need time to adjust to it in attempts to ‘figure it out’.

Topa is set to join the bullpen next season with other flame throwing arms in Josh Hader, Devin Williams, Freddy Peralta, and Drew Rasmussen. This group of players, Topa included, is set to be a force opposing teams don’t want to reckon with.