Brewers News: No. 1 Prospect Garrett Mitchell Out With a Minor Injury

You didn’t think the minor leaguers would be immune to the Milwaukee Brewers’ battle with the 2021 injury bug, did you?

The Minor League baseball season began across the country on Tuesday and a majority of Brewers fans’ eyes were on 2020 first round pick Garrett Mitchell‘s professional debut with the High-A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. Sure enough, he got his 2021 season off to a quick start.

Mitchell hit a leadoff single to kick off the bottom of the first inning for the Timber Rattlers. He would score one batter later, as fellow 2020 draft pick Hayden Cantrelle knocked him in with an RBI double, and finish the night 1 for 3 with a walk and a run scored.

Mitchell would keep things exciting on Wednesday night, collecting two infield singles and a walk, scoring twice, and showing off his elite, 70-grade speed with a pair of stolen bases. That’s where the show would take an intermission, however, as he was lifted from the game in the bottom of the fifth.

After the game, per Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, it was learned that he was removed due to “precautionary reasons” and would be re-evaluated the next day. On Friday, Brewers fans got a little more clarity on the situation.

Brewers top prospect Garrett Mitchell will be held out for the time being with a left leg injury that is believed to be minor.

Perhaps he just wanted to fit in with the rest of the Brewers, who have one of the most injury decimated teams in the whole league, because Mitchell will now miss some time due to injury himself. Luckily, the ailment doesn’t seem to be overly serious.

And with that, the Brewers fanbase collectively breathed a momentary sigh of relief. Mitchell is ranked as the team’s top prospect by a good portion of publications and websites, including MLB Pipeline’s top Brewers prospects as well as our own Top 15 Brewers prospects list.

As such, the Brewers and Timber Rattlers are wise to play it extra careful with their top prospect. Not only did Mitchell have his final college season at UCLA cut short in spring of 2020, he was not added to Milwaukee’s Alternate Training Site after being drafted last summer. He was invited to the team’s instructional league last fall, but missed a chunk of that due to injury too.

Thus, Mitchell had some sizeable layoffs between his final college game and the 2021 minor league season with some short opportunities to play in between. Anyone in that scenario would have a good chance to develop some minor injuries, so all that matters is to make sure the team’s future star gets back on the field only after being fully healthy.

It’ll be a little bit before Brewers fans get to see Mitchell back on the field in Appleton, but hopefully this is just a small bump in the road during an exciting first season in the organization.