Brewers prospect turning heads with unique pitch in Arizona Fall League

The Arizona Fall League (AFL) serves as a great way for players who missed games due to injuries throughout the regular season to catch up on lost time and continue to progress through their development at a steady pace. However, the league's purpose is twofold, as it also gives opportunities for lesser-known prospects to prove their talent against stiffer competition.

The AFL, which pits some of the best prospects in the game against one another, started play at the beginning of the month. While top Milwaukee Brewers prospects Luke Adams and Josh Adamczewski have been the talk of the town so far, with each of them posting an OPS of .990 or better through their first 13 games, several under-the-radar prospects are enjoying early success in the AFL as well.

One such player, who doesn't find himself among MLB Pipeline's Top 30 Brewers prospects, is already taking advantage of the brighter spotlight to showcase his impressive arsenal of pitches that led him to a successful 2025 season.

Anthony Flores and his unique curveball are off to a strong start in the Arizona Fall League

The Brewers signed a 17-year-old Anthony Flores out of Barquisimeto, Venezuela, back in June of 2022, just before the start of the Dominican Summer League (DSL). Flores ended up playing two seasons in the DSL in 2022 and 2023, and his success varied significantly between the two seasons. In 2022, he posted a 5.97 ERA with a 1.60 WHIP in his first season of professional baseball, but a season later, he came back strong with a 3.22 ERA and a 1.10 WHIP.

Flores' 2024 season in the Arizona Complex League, in which the Brewers' other Rookie Ball affiliate plays, got off to a slow start, with a 6.23 ERA through his first 12 appearances to prove it. However, later in the 2024 season, Flores was promoted to Low-A, where he joined the Carolina Mudcats, and everything started to click. The then-19-year-old Flores posted a 3.42 ERA in seven appearances, including three starts, with the Mudcats, earning him an offseason promotion to High-A, where he began the 2025 season.

2025 was exactly the season Flores was hoping for. He stayed healthy throughout the year, made 32 appearances, 11 of which were starts, and posted a steady 3.86 ERA, building off of his strong end to the 2024 campaign. The Brewers, wanting to see more of their under-the-radar southpaw, decided to send Flores to the AFL, where he is turning heads with his impressive curveball.

MLB.com's Jim Callis published an article on Tuesday morning detailing some of the most impressive performances in the AFL so far, according to Statcast data. His article, which is available over at MLB.com and linked below for your convenience, detailed stats like "longest home runs" and "highest exit velocities" from the AFL through the first three weeks of the season.

These are the Arizona Fall League's top Statcast performers

Among the leaders for the highest spin rate on a breaking ball is Flores, whose curveball is averaging a spin rate of 3,097 rpm in the early goings of the AFL. Flores is second only to Jack Sellinger of the Miami Marlins, who is spinning curveballs at a ridiculous spin rate of 3,218 rpm. For reference, Aaron Ashby spun his curveball at about 2,700 rpm in 2025, and the highest rate ever reached was 3,557 rpm by Seth Lugo, according to Callis.

It's the kind of pitch that gets you noticed around the league, and certainly has caught the attention of prospect evaluators in the Brewers' organization. Flores has thrown just 5.1 innings in the AFL thus far, and has allowed two earned runs during that span, but his seven strikeouts paired with his unique curveball make him a player to keep an eye on as the offseason league progresses and play begins next spring.