Brewers sign 2026 minor league free agent with one incredibly elite skill

In the world of prospect scouting, the most widely accepted tool for evaluating players is the 20-80 scale. The scale, on which a score of 50 represents an average result, has standardized prospect scouting so that players across organizations can be compared with one, sometimes too-simplified score. Grades are often assigned to the individual "tools" or skills that players have. When it comes to position players, skills like hit, power, arm, speed, and field are often each assigned their own grade on the 20-80 scale, and the average is used to determine the prospects' overall value.

While it's difficult for a prospect to earn an overall grade much higher than 60 or 65 (Jesús Made is considered a 60-grade prospect), individual skills will occasionally earn scores of 70, 75, and in rare instances 80. When thinking about 80-grade skills, think Jacob Misiorowski's fastball, which, for a time during his minor league career, was considered an 80-grade pitch, but was lowered to 70 by the time he made his MLB debut.

Only a handful of players at a time have tools that are considered 80-grade, so when a player earns a score of 80 for any one of their skills, it's noteworthy. It's even more noteworthy when a team adds a player with an 80-grade tool to their organization. The Milwaukee Brewers did just that when they signed outfielder Dasan Brown to a minor league deal.

Brewers sign one of the fastest players in all of baseball, Dasan Brown, to a minor league deal

The Brewers' signing of Brown was not a highly publicized move. Thankfully, Brewers fans are lucky to have one of the best minor league broadcasters in the game, Javik Blake, who keenly noticed that the popular publication Baseball America included Brown's name among the list of minor league free agents that the Brewers have signed this offseason. Blake, the Biloxi Shuckers' play-by-play announcer and 2025 recipient of MiLB's Future Star of the Year in broadcasting, relayed the signing to Brewers' fans via the following post on the social media platform X.

As Blake notes, Brown was a third-round pick out of high school back in 2019, taken 88th overall by the Toronto Blue Jays. Brown and his 80-grade run tool climbed as high as the 15th spot on MLB Pipeline's list of the Top 30 Blue Jays prospects back in 2023. He's remained in Toronto's farm system for the six years since his drafting and got his first taste of Triple-A competition in 2025.

The 25-year-old's speed is undeniable. Blake commented on his own post and noted that Brown has swiped 20+ bases in each of his five full seasons of professional ball, including 36 stolen bases in 2025, and 35 the year prior. He truly is one of the fastest players in all of affiliated ball.

His speed also makes him a very strong defensive center fielder. As Blake notes in the post above, Brown was a recipient of a minor league Gold Glove in 2024. His most recent scouting report earned him a very solid "field" grade of 65.

Brown's remaining tools are the reason he has yet to crack a big-league roster. With a career OPS of .677 throughout his six seasons in the minor leagues, it's been difficult for the Blue Jays to justify carrying him on their big-league roster despite his elite speed and strong glove in center field. At times, Brown has shown an ability to consistently get on base, with a .383 OBP in 84 games during the 2022 campaign to prove it, but that number plummeted to .285 in 2025 when Brown played most of his games in Double-A and a handful in Triple-A. There's very little power in his profile as well, but if the Brewers can find a way to get Brown to make more consistent contact, his speed could steal him plenty of base hits throughout the course of a season.

The pathway to a big-league debut in Milwaukee isn't difficult to see, but it might simply be in a pinch-runner role during the final month of the season, when MLB teams have the luxury of adding two players to their 26-man active rosters. Even still, such a situation would involve the Brewers handing Brown a 40-man roster spot, and with those likely to be a limited supply, it could hamper the speedy outfielder's ability to crack the big leagues. In the meantime, Brown will serve as valuable outfield depth in the upper levels of the minor leagues, a position that Milwaukee often had to tap into last year amid injuries to their major league roster.