Brewers: 3 Crucial Team Needs To Address In 2023 MLB Draft

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The 2023 MLB Draft begins on Sunday night and the Milwaukee Brewers have lots of needs to address across their organization.

An important, annual reminder that the MLB Draft does not unfold according to current MLB team need. Just because the Brewers need a first baseman or a third baseman currently doesn't mean that they need to pick one in the first round. The players the Brewers select in the Draft this year won't make an impact at the big league level for another couple years.

Even though the impact from this Draft won't be felt in Milwaukee for awhile, that doesn't mean the selections aren't important. Garrett Mitchell and Joey Wiemer were selected in 2020 and they're already having a big impact on this team. The Brewers knew that Lorenzo Cain was going to be on the way out and they picked outfielders knowing that they'd need to fill that hole in a few years.

While the Brewers farm system has lots of exciting talent, there's still more areas for them to fill and this Draft is the perfect opportunity. The 2023 Draft class is slated to be one of the best and deepest in a decade.

In the 2023 MLB Draft, these are the 3 key areas of organizational need the Brewers have to address.

Brewers Draft Need #1: High-upside pitching

The Brewers have eschewed drafting pitching in the first round in recent years. They've drafted exactly one pitcher in the first round in the last eight drafts and that pitcher was Ethan Small. Small was seen as more of a safe, high floor option than high upside, and he's still trending toward being a bust.

Milwaukee hasn't had much success with pitchers in the first round, so they've targeted hitters early on. The system is now flush with hitters and quite light on pitching. A few years ago, the system was stacked with pitching, when they had Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta, and Josh Hader all coming up. They've graduated into All Stars now, but the Brewers need that next wave. Burnes and Woodruff are free agents following the 2024 season. If the rotation is going to continue to be strong, they need pitchers with that kind of upside to come up.

Currently, the Brewers have just a couple notable pitching prospects. Jacob Misiorowski was selected in the 2nd round of last year's draft and certainly fits the bill of a high upside talent. There's a lot of risk that Misiorowski might end up as a reliever, but he could end up as an ace. He's really the only one with ace-level upside that could replace a Burnes or a Woodruff.

Robert Gasser, acquired in the Josh Hader trade, looks like he could be a solid rotation piece for a long time. He doesn't quite have the upside of someone that can lead a rotation as a No. 1 arm, but he's still an important piece for the future. Carlos Rodriguez has surprised and climbed the prospect ranks, but is still likely a back end of the rotation arm.

The Brewers need to add more high upside talent in their pitching ranks. Pitching is a volatile demographic, it's true. There's nothing that can change that. Injuries are impossible to predict. It's been said that of every three pitchers drafted early, one will perform to expectations, one will get hurt, and one will regress.

Just 9 of the Brewers top 30 prospects on MLB Pipeline are pitchers. If pitching is to remain a strength of this organization, they'll need to increase that number.

Brewers Draft Need #2: Corner Infield

Telling the Brewers to address their corner infield depth might as well be an exercise in futility. For years, the Brewers have lacked organizational depth at the corner infield spots and for years they have neglected to address those positions early in the Draft.

That's why it's been a rotating cast of disappointing options at third base and first base the past several years. Sure, shortstops with strong arms or home run power can move to third base or even first base. Shortstops can move anywhere on the diamond, which is why teams draft shortstops early and often. Sometimes, though, the players that are already on the corner infield fit the offensive profile the best.

The earliest the Brewers have drafted a third baseman recently was the third round in 2021 with Alex BInelas, who was traded away a few months later. Milwaukee hasn't drafted a first baseman in the first round since Matt LaPorta in 2007.

This year's draft class is actually very well stocked with corner infielders on Day 1. Nolan Schanuel is the only first baseman worth taking in the first round, but he's a hit-over-power prospect, which is rare for a first baseman. He put up stupid good numbers for Florida Atlantic this year. At third base, there's TCU's Brayden Taylor, Miami's Yohandy Morales, Wake Forest's Brock Wilken, and Virginia's Jake Gelof. The Brewers would have their pick of the litter of potentially all of these prospects at 18 overall.

The Brewers prefer up the middle players and avoid players who are already moved to a corner spot in the first round. It makes some sense, prioritizing the players who can stick at premium positions. At the same time, continually neglecting these very important positions in the Draft is having ramifications at the big league level and perhaps it's time to make a slight change to the Crew's strategy and bring in some corner infield talent.

Brewers Draft Need #3: Pure Hitting Talent

The Brewers have struggled in the hitting department in recent years. The big league offense has been down the last couple of years and the farm system hasn't produced a lot of help prior to 2023. They've focused on addressing this shortcoming the last few years and it's starting to bear fruit, but you can never have enough high quality hitters.

Just like with pitching, even the most sure bets on talent can go awry. Corey Ray, 5th overall pick in 2016, was a bust. Keston Hiura, the 9th overall pick in 2017, also has become a bust. The Brewers haven't drafted and developed an All Star hitter since Jonathan Lucroy.

They have to keep plugging away on drafting the best pure hitters they can find. Hitting at such a high level, there's only so much coaching and teaching can do. Players need to just be that naturally good with a feel for hitting and the Brewers need to continue to find those types of players.

Unlike the other two needs on this list, this isn't an area the Brewers have neglected in the Draft in recent years. On the contrary, they've specifically focused on addressing this need. It remains a need yet again and will essentially be a constant need every single year.

The Brewers have targeted hit-over-power types early in the Draft. With enough contact and hitting ability, players are sure to end up hitting more than enough homers to be productive big league bats. Hitting the ball hard consistently is the key to being a good overall hitter and it's the key to hitting home runs. There aren't too many homers that are softly hit.

Getting a pure power hitter to hit for enough average to make use of his power and be worthy of an everyday lineup spot is more difficult than it is to get a pure hitter who hits for a good average to tap into enough power to make an impact in the lineup. Even if the power doesn't come, hitting the ball that often and getting on base is an acceptable fallback that still gets them in the lineup everyday.

The 2023 MLB Draft is just about upon us. The Brewers have 21 selections and they will have to use them to address these three key needs in the organization.

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