Brewers: 2 Prospects To Promote, 1 Prospect To Demote

Over the course of July and into early August a lot will be happening across baseball that will affect all levels of the Brewers organization.

Both the MLB and MiLB All-Star games are rapidly approaching. The MLB draft is scheduled for July 17-19th. And lastly the trade deadline is Aug 2nd. This year, both the draft and the trade deadline have been pushed back to the latest that they have been in recent memory.

Between the baseball season temporary stopping due to the All-Star break, the addition of new prospects from the draft, and the potential of losing prospects at the trade deadline, minor league players may soon be seeing promotions or demotions based on their performance so far.

Here are two Brewers prospects who are worthy of a promotion and one who should be demoted.

Worthy of a promotion – Carolina Mudcats outfielder Jackson Chourio

Chourio joined the Brewers A Level affiliate on May 3. Since then his prospect stock has skyrocketed.

In 45 games he has a .337/.389/.597/.986 slash line.  Of his extra base hits he has 15 doubles, four triples, and eight home runs. He is doing all of this while still learning how to play the outfield as he initially was signed as a shortstop. Although he is just 18 years old, it would be in the Brewers best interest to see what his bat can do this year at a level higher.

Initially the Brewers may have been planning to just keep Chourio in Low-A all season, but if he keeps producing like this, Milwaukee needs to challenge him even more.

Worthy of a demotion –  Carolina Mudcats pitcher Jakob Brustoski

Brustoski, a 23 year old left-handed pitcher who was signed last summer as an undrafted free agent out of Texas Tech, is not having a great start to his professional baseball career. Aside from starting to play pro ball, 2022 is also his first year back playing baseball since undergoing tommy john surgery in December of 2021.

His 2022 season began by allowing 11 earned runs while recording just five total outs over three appearances.  Recovering from that kind of start is tough but he still often finds himself giving up a crooked number as his ERA currently sits at 15.43. It might be in the Brewers best interest to have him clear his head in the pitching lab and start fresh by playing in a fall or winter league.

Worthy of a promotion – Wisconsin Timber Rattler pitcher Antoine Kelly

Kelly, a 22 year old second round pick from 2019, is having a tremendous season. The once highly ranked prospect has fallen to 14th in the teams Top 30 prospect rankings in large part due to having to recover from surgery late in 2020 and struggling in limited action in 2021.

Healthy again in 2022, Kelly’s ability to strike batters out a high clip is back on display. In 71 innings he has struck out 93 batters while pitching to a 3.27 ERA. He also had a game earlier this year where he generated 30 total swings and misses. It is time to see what a healthy Antoine Kelly can do against more advanced hitters.

Minor league players tend to move around quite frequently over the course of the season. The Brewers should make these moves with the three players mentioned above.