6 Position battles that are up for grabs at 2024 Brewers spring training

2. Right Field

Contenders: Garrett Mitchell, Sal Frelick, Joey Wiemer
Pretenders: Blake Perkins, Chris Roller

The outfield logjam will sort itself out eventually, it always does. But the battle to sort all that out begins in spring training. Christian Yelich is locked in and he's going to spend the bulk of his time in left field while also seeing some time at DH. Jackson Chourio wasn't given an 8 year, $82MM contract just to not play center field essentially every day.

That leaves right field and three of the Freshmen prospects who graduated last season fighting for it. Garrett Mitchell, Sal Frelick, and Joey Wiemer are all deserving of regular at-bats but there's only one outfield spot remaining. Heading into their sophomore campaigns, each of these three players are facing a crucial season to prove they are as good as the prospect hype they came into the league with.

Garrett Mitchell has played very well in his MLB experience, hitting .278 with five homers, and a .795 OPS in 126 ABs but he suffered a shoulder injury last April that took him out for nearly the entire season. He came back late in the year, and when he's out on the field, he's proven to be an electric player that sparks the team.

Joey Wiemer spent most of the season in the majors, but struggled a bunch at the plate. He had spurts showing his immense raw power, but finished with just 13 homers in 367 ABs with a .204/.283/.362 slash line. Wiemer is a power-over-hit type of player that struggled with breaking balls last year. He worked on some adjustments late in the season and over the winter, and spring training will help show if those adjustments worked.

Sal Frelick debuted the latest of this trio because of a thumb injury he suffered in the minors, but he debuted with a bang and was pretty steady the rest of the season. Frelick hit .246/.341/.351 in 191 ABs. He regressed a bit from his debut, but he's expected to bring excellent bat to ball skills even though he has the lowest power potential of the group.

Blake Perkins and Chris Roller are both on the 40 man and will be trying to compete for a roster spot, but unless the Brewers trade one of these former first round picks and Top 100 prospects, it's a battle they aren't going to win.

In all likelihood, we'll see a rotation of these players early on until someone steps up and proves they are deserving of more at-bats and that manager Pat Murphy needs to play the hot hand. All three of Mitchell, Frelick, and Wiemer are excellent defenders, so no one has any advantage over the rest of the group there.

The Brewers have five starting caliber outfielders but can only play three on the grass at a time. It'll be fascinating to watch this battle play out over the next six weeks.