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.

2. LHP Antoine Kelly

Another high draft pick of the Brewers, No. 10 prospect Antoine Kelly was taken in the 2nd round of the 2019 draft. Unlike Mitchell, he got to experience his professional debut that same year and give fans a glimpse of why the team was so high on him.

Kelly pitched in 10 games that season, all but one of which being at the team’s Arizona complex league blue team. Overall, he would give up 10 earned runs over 31 2/3 innings (2.84 ERA) and compile a 1.105 WHIP while putting together an impressive 45-to-9 K/BB ratio.

Kelly wouldn’t be able to carry that momentum into actual games the following year due to the aforementioned canceled season. He would, however, get an invite to participate in the team’s alternate training site, where he was reportedly one of the more impressive pitchers in camp.

That is where the development was put on pause. That following offseason, after fall instructional league, Kelly would be diagnosed with, and subsequently undergo surgery for, thoracic outlet syndrome.

Kelly would have his 2021 season start delayed until about mid-July, when he would spend one game at the Arizona complex before heading to the Low-A Carolina Mudcats. The results there were mixed.

On one hand, it was good to for Kelly to get back in action and the strikeout numbers were there with him punching out 27 batters in 19 1/3 innings. Unfortunately, so were the walks, hits, and runs as Kelly put together a combined 9.78 ERA and 1.810 WHIP across nine games (eight starts).

For Kelly, being over a year removed from surgery and having more time for everything to strengthen up will hopefully make all the difference. It sets him up as a prime candidate for a bounce back season.