Brewers OF Garrett Mitchell is coming into his own with latest power surge

The Milwaukee Brewers drafted Garrett Mitchell in the first round back in 2020. He quickly rose through the minor league system and made his MLB debut late in 2022. He was a projected five-tool centerfielder at maturity.

One of the biggest question marks about his game even coming out of the Draft was the in-game power. The strength was always there, but getting to home run power in games always proved to be a challenge for Mitchell. His swing was more geared towards line drives and just getting on base, then using his speed to steal bags.

If he could learn to loft the ball a little bit more and tap into that raw power that he has, scouts said Mitchell would reach that five tool status, because the other four tools were already evident in his game.

Now, we may be seeing Mitchell tap into that power and take more steps towards reaching his full potential.

It's been hard for the Brewers to see Mitchell's full potential to this point, even though he debuted in 2022, he's missed so much time due to injury. He suffered a shoulder subluxation that required surgery in April of 2023, knocking out almost the entire rest of the season for him. Then a broken bone in his hand suffered at the end of spring training this year knocked him out for the first three months.

Since returning on July 1st, Mitchell has remained healthy. That's an important positive development for him so he can get the reps that he's missed out on and continue his development at the big league level. Including this season, Mitchell has just over 300 ABs in the major leagues under his belt. For comparison, Jackson Chourio, who just debuted this year, has 500 career ABs.

On Friday night, Mitchell took a Zac Gallen fastball to the opposite field and into the Brewers bullpen. That made it back to back homers for the Crew to tie the game and three homers in the inning. It's also back to back games with home runs for Mitchell, who is now up to eight home runs on the season.

That's the second time Mitchell has homered in consecutive games and he now has four home runs in his last 10 games. That's a power surge.

Over his last 22 games, Mitchell is hitting .292/.361/.723 with four doubles, three triples, six home runs, and 12 RBIs.

When asked about Mitchell's recent surge, manager Pat Murphy said "He's capable, you know, we've been waiting for this. He's very capable...he's showing signs of coming into his own."

The Brewers have needed Mitchell to step up especially in the wake of Christian Yelich's absence. The outfield needs more offensive presence beyond Jackson Chourio for this team to achieve their goals and Mitchell is clearly showing himself to be that guy. This is what the Brewers have been waiting for, this is what they expected when the drafted him and developed him.

Mitchell has finally gotten the reps that he's needed to get comfortable at the big league level and the experience to be able to adjust as needed. The Brewers can see that he's coming into his own and as he continues to do that and his power continues to surge, there's another big threat in that lineup from a young Brewers player.