1 Underrated Brewers Prospect at Each Minor League Level Who'll Excel in 2023

The Milwaukee Brewers are already over a week into their 2023 regular season. Today, all of their minor league affiliates will have begun their seasons as well.

The organization's Triple-A Nashville Sounds team has actually begun their season, having played six games so far as of yesterday. But later tonight, the Double-A Biloxi Shuckers, High-A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, and Low-A Carolina Mudcats all get to experience the festivities of Opening Day.

Each affiliate has their share of the organization's top prospects, and many fans will certainly be looking forward to see how much progress they make in their respective journeys to The Show. However, there are plenty of other underrated prospects at every level that Brewers fans should be excited to see as well. Let's take a look at a few of them.

Brewers prospects: Caleb Boushley could excel (again) at Triple-A Nashville

Looking at his stats from last year, it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to predict that starting pitcher Caleb Boushley could excel at Triple-A. Yet, many Brewers fans still aren't familiar with the minor leaguer who was born right here in Wisconsin.

Boushley, a native of Hortonville, Wisconsin, was originally drafted by the San Diego Padres in the 33rd round of the 2017 draft. Two offseasons ago, he was brought back home in a sense when Milwaukee selected him in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft.

The right-hander was excellent in his first season in the Brewers organization, which saw him get placed with the Triple-A Nashville club. Boushley started 25 games, going 12-2 with a 3.25 ERA and 1.17 WHIP while limiting batters to a .226 average.

That was enough to earn Boushley the start for the Sounds' in the 2022 Triple-A Championship game as well as the Opening Day start this season. Those are high honors for an organization that prides itself on starting pitching.

Much of the Nashville starting pitching talk will surround a couple of the team's top 30 prospects, Robert Gasser and Janson Junk. But don't be surprised when Boushley excels alongside them, especially since it's already in his history.

Brewers prospects: James Meeker could excel at Double-A Biloxi

The Brewers had a good amount of solid setup men and closers scattered across the minors last season. One of them spent most of his 2022 season dominating batters right up the road in Appleton, Wisconsin.

James Meeker went undrafted after college before playing a few seasons in the independent leagues. His success there, which included a 2021 season that saw him not give up a single run over 31.2 innings, led to him being signed as a minor league free agent by the Brewers in the fall of 2021.

Meeker got a handful of games with Low-A Carolina that fall before moving to High-A Wisconsin to start 2022. He did not give batters much late game hope as a member of the Timber Rattlers, putting up a 2.45 ERA, a 1.09 WHIP, and striking out 57 while walking just 17. He ended up going 17-for-20 in save opportunities as well.

Last winter, Meeker got to be part of a Brewers minor league contingent that played Down Under with the Brisbane Bandits. He dominated there as well, throwing 21 scoreless innings, putting up a 28-7 strikeout-to-walk ratio, and accumulating 11 saves.

Meeker will now start 2023 at Double-A Biloxi after throwing a couple quick scoreless innings there to end his 2022 season. There should be little doubt that he will continue to terrorize batters in his new home.

Brewers prospects: Eduarqui Fernandez could excel at Low-A Carolina

The Brewers have two top 30 outfield prospects on the Low-A Carolina roster in Hedbert Perez and Jace Avina. They also have a former one joining them in Eduarqui Fernandez, who was a top 30 prospect back in 2019.

Fernandez was signed to the Brewers organization as one of the highest rated prospects in the 2018-19 international class, the same class that brought in shortstop prospect Eduardo Garcia. The former began his minor league career in Milwaukee's Dominican Summer League the next season.

The next two seasons (2019 and 2021) didn't go great for the outfield prospect. Fernandez would slash .214/.301/.372 and .208/.327/.369 those two seasons while piling up far more strikeouts (156) than walks (50).

Things finally started looking up a bit for Fernandez in 2022. He batted .257 with a .819 OPS in 31 games at the Arizona complex before heading to Carolina for another 34 games where he batted .252 with a .729 OPS. He still struck out at a high 39.2% rate, but still appeared to figure some things out.

Fernandez is still just 21 years old and has power and speed while being a solid fielder. Should he make some more advancements just like last season, he could put himself right back on track.