Brewers are well-positioned to win the 2025 MLB Draft and bolster their farm system

The Milwaukee Brewers are not going to be picking anywhere near the top of the 2025 MLB Draft. They rarely do. Because Milwaukee is regularly fielding a competitive big league roster, the Brewers have not made a selection in the top 10 picks of a draft since they selected Keston Hiura with the 9th overall pick back in 2017.

Yet somehow, the Brewers have still come away from the first round of recent drafts with talented players like Brice Turang (2018), Garrett Mitchell (2020), and Sal Frelick (2021).

In the 2025 MLB Draft, Milwaukee is set up to bolster its farm system in a big way, and given the make-up of the incoming draft class, the Brewers are in the ideal spot.

2025 draft class is perfect for the Brewers

Unlike last year, the 2025 draft class lacks a lot of high-end talent that will be surefire top-10 picks. In a recent video analyzing the top prospects in the upcoming draft, Baseball America’s Carlos Collazo said that "teams have been a little disappointed with the college hitters of this class" and that nobody has really taken a step forward to separate themselves from the pack.

"Most of my conversations with scouts and teams picking in the top of this class is really them kind of lamenting the fact that there aren’t any locked in, no doubt college profiles that you feel good about from a hitting standpoint," Collazo said.

Little clarity exists when it comes to this draft class. There is not a clear drop-off from the talent that will go in the top five and the talent that will still be on the board when the Brewers are on the clock at No. 20. That's a win for the teams picking later in the first round and an even bigger win for the teams with multiple picks in the top 40 or so.

"I think most of the teams that I’ve talked to that are picking in the middle to back of the first round are pretty excited with the options they’ll have available to them," said Collazo about his pre-draft conversations. "Teams like the Rays (No. 14), Orioles (No. 19), Brewers (No. 20), Royals (No. 23), all of these teams have multiple picks."

The Brewers are right where you want to be in this year's draft with the 20th overall selection and heading back on the clock with the 32nd overall selection. No. 32 is a compensation pick that was awarded to Milwaukee after the team made a qualifying offer to their former shortstop, Willy Adames, and he subsequently signed a free-agent deal worth more than $50 million.

Overall, the Brewers will make four selections in the first 68 picks of this year's draft.

Brewers' impressive 2025 draft capital has already been used to bolster their current roster

Trading draft picks is a rare occurrence in MLB. That's because the only picks that can be traded are Competitive Balance picks — picks awarded to the small-market teams that occur after the first (Competitive Balance Round A) and second round (Competitive Balance Round B). Which round a given team picks in is determined by the previous year's standings, with the best teams awarded the highest picks, according to MLB.com.

The Brewers were in line to have the 33rd overall pick this year, as they had the best finish of the teams receiving Competitive Balance Round picks. This would have given them five of the first 68 picks, but they traded that pick to the Boston Red Sox in a deal for right-handed pitcher Quinn Priester back in April.

While keeping the 33rd pick in this year's draft could have resulted in another exciting prospect in the Brewers organization, it's hard to discredit the value that an MLB-ready starting pitcher with six years of team control brings to a team. Priester is both of those things, and while the start to his Brewers tenure has been a bit rocky, he holds some exciting upside. After all, Priester was a first-round pick himself just six years ago.

It's difficult to predict what positions an organization will prioritize in a given draft. Because it takes prospects so long to reach the major leagues, draft picks are seldom a reflection of the needs of the big-league club or even the farm system. Regardless of what position they prioritize, the Brewers are sitting in the perfect position in the 2025 MLB Draft and their farm system could be adding some exciting names very shortly.