The Milwaukee Brewers are extremely well-regarded for their ability to identify talented players and turn them into productive big leaguers. One need only look at their likely 2025 Opening Day roster (and injured list) to see loads of examples including Jackson Chourio, Brandon Woodruff, Brice Turang, and Sal Frelick and that doesn't even include the loads of talent still on the way. The organization knows what they like and what they like wins baseball games.
It is incredibly hard to hit on as many prospects as Milwaukee has and it is impossible to get all of them right. Guys can get hurt or not develop the way you think or just not have what it takes to face the rigors of a long baseball season year after year. Baseball is hard and no sport has the ability to chew up and spit out talented players like baseball can.
The latter appears to be the case when it comes to former Brewers first round pick Eric Brown Jr., at least for the moment. MLB Pipeline recently revealed their top 30 Brewers prospects for 2025 and not only was Brown Jr. the biggest drop for Milwaukee compared to last year, but he fell off the rankings completely.
No. 10 #Brewers prospect Eric Brown Jr. wallops a two-run homer to left to open the scoring for Surprise.
— Jesse Borek (@JesseABorek) November 2, 2023
And then the light show commenced. pic.twitter.com/0vld8U42Xw
Brewers prospect Eric Brown Jr.'s fall is a reminder that nothing is certain with prospects
MLB Pipeline's ranking as a whole are definitely worth a read as they kept Jeferson Quero at the #1 spot with fast rising prospect Jesus Made right on his heels in the second spot. Shortstop Cooper Pratt, flamethrowing righty Jacob Misiorowski, and 1B/3B Mike Boeve round out their top five prospects.
However, the biggest change outside of Made's ascension is the fall of Brown Jr. who the Brewers spent their #27 overall pick to land in the 2022 MLB Draft. After dealing with injuries in his first full year of pro ball in 2023, Brown Jr. looked completely lost last season at Double-A with a .185/.270/.262 line in 105 games. MLB Pipeline noted that Brown Jr.'s penchant for making weak fly ball contact made him a pretty easy out and is going to either add strength or make a swing adjustment to get back on track.
Can Brown Jr. get his career back on track? Of course he can. Aside from obviously being talented, he is also just 24 years old and will be another year removed from the thumb and scapula injuries that stunted his development early on. As things stand though, it seems like he is looking more and more like a rare miss for a Brewers organization that doesn't have many of.