Milwaukee Brewers: 3 Prospects Looking to Bounce Back in 2022

A new season means a fresh start for certain players in any professional sport. For some Milwaukee Brewers minor leaguers, it also means a chance to put the disappointment from all or part of a season in the rear view.

A few of Milwaukee’s young prospects fall into this category. Their 2021 seasons may have seen disappointment either because of injury or underperformance, but either way, things didn’t go exactly how they had planned.

These players are young, though, with plenty of time to brush things off and get back into the swing of things. Let’s take a look at three Brewers prospects who will be looking to turn things around once the 2022 season officially gets underway.

Here are three Milwaukee Brewers prospects who will be looking to bounce back in 2022.

1. OF Garrett Mitchell

The way things started off for him in 2021, it did not seem like Garrett Mitchell and bounce back would be anywhere in the same sentence by the end of the season. That’s how hot of a start the team’s No. 1 prospect (per MLB Pipeline) got off to in his first professional season.

The Brewers’ first round pick in 2020 had to wait to make his professional debut due to the Covid-19 pandemic resulting in the cancelation of that year’s minor league season. His debut would come last season as he started off with the High-A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers.

Mitchell was hot right out the gates. His first game saw him go 1-for-3 with a walk and a run scored. In his second, he went 2-for-2 with a walk, two runs scored, and a pair of steals. He continued to impress the rest of the way.

In 29 games, Mitchell slashed a very impressive .359/.508/.620 with five homers and 12 steals in 13 attempts. That earned him a promotion to the Double-A Biloxi Shuckers, which he happened to celebrate with a 4-for-6, four run, two homer, six RBI performance in his final game at Wisconsin.

Things got much tougher for Mitchell at the next level. In 35 games with Biloxi, Mitchell slashed just .186/.291/.264 with three homers and five steals. His strikeout rate jumped just a tad as well, from 25% at High-A to 27.7% at Double-A.

Early on with Wisconsin, Mitchell missed a small portion of the season due what was called a minor injury at the time. Later in his season with Biloxi, he was only playing parts of series with the team, so it’s possibly some nagging injuries caught up to him, though nothing was ever confirmed.

Whether it was nagging injuries or just an adjustment to a higher level, it’s hard to think a player of Mitchell’s caliber should be kept down for too long. This season should give him the perfect chance to remind everyone why the Brewers took him as the 20th overall pick in 2020.

3. C Mario Feliciano

2021 looked pretty promising for current No. 13 Brewers prospect Mario Feliciano. The previous offseason, the young catcher and 2019 Carolina League MVP had been added to Milwaukee’s 40-man roster to keep from exposing him to the rule 5 draft.

Before his minor league campaign even got started last year, Feliciano got his first taste of the big leagues. In a quick, one-game stint with the Brewers on May 1st, the young catcher drew a pinch hit walk in the bottom of the eleventh inning and came around to score the winning run to help defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers at home, 6-5.

A few days later, Feliciano would make his Triple-A debut with the Nashville Sounds. In that first game, he would go 2-for-4 with a solo homer. Milwaukee’s potential catcher of the future was starting the year of strong.

After that, though, the numbers took a bit of a nose dive. Feliciano would garner just two more hits the rest of the month, both in the same game, with his slash line dropping all the way to .114/.195/.200 by the time May 21st rolled around.

Soon it would be learned that Feliciano would be sidelined with a shoulder impingement, an injury that would keep him out of the lineup for nearly two months. Though he would go on a bit of a roll late, his first Triple-A season resulted in 32 games, a slash line of .210/.246/.314, two doubles, and three homers.

Now unlike the other two, Feliciano got the chance to end his season on a bit of a high note. To get some more playing time under his belt for the 2021 season, he was selected by Milwaukee to take part in the Arizona Fall League.

There, he ended up performing as one of the organization’s top players in the showcase. In 13 games, Feliciano slashed .318/.348/.432 with five doubles, four RBIs, and eight runs scored for the Salt River Rafters.

Feliciano may not see much time at the MLB level again with Omar Narvaez entrenched as the starting catcher and Pedro Severino having been signed by the Brewers last offseason to be his backup. All he can do, then, is have a strong bounce back season in Triple-A and prove that he is part of the Brewers’ future plans at the position.

February is right around the corner, which means minor league spring training will be soon to follow. Let’s hope it ultimately leads to bounce back seasons for three highly touted Brewers prospects.