Checking In On Our Brewers Bold Predictions From Before The Season

Brewers pre-season bold prediction #2: A Brewers player wins NL Rookie Of The Year

Verdict: Longshot

The Brewers entered the year with three rookies earning key jobs: Brice Turang, Garrett Mitchell, and Joey Wiemer. Sal Frelick wasn't far behind. Surely one of them was going to compete for Rookie of the Year given the hype each of them had coming in.

Mitchell, who was having the best campaign of the three early on, got injured in mid-April. As did Sal Frelick, delaying his debut long enough that he's unlikely to compete for ROY votes because his sample size will be smaller.

Wiemer has struggled at the plate and Turang was struggling at the plate too, ultimately even getting demoted back to Triple-A to get going again.

This is all while Diamondbacks rookie Corbin Carroll has been dominant for Arizona, earning an All Star nod in his rookie season and likely running away with the Rookie of the Year crown. It's still possible for one of the Brewers rookies to jump in there and get some votes, but winning the actual award is a longshot.

Brewers pre-season bold prediction #3: Jesse Winker ends up as the Brewers best offseason acquisition

Verdict: Hahahahahahahahaha...no

Swap out the word "best" for "worst" and this prediction is spot on. Winker looked good for about the first week or so, but it was all downhill after that. He's put together the worst season of his career, dealing with some injuries but overall just plain ineffectiveness at the plate.

Winker's season long slump is all the more frustrating because he was brought in to be the DH. Hitting is his only job. He doesn't play the field, he's not good at it when he does anyway, and his bat is the only reason he's on the team. And his bat has been non-existent this year.

It took forever for him to get his first home run of the season, and he's still sitting on just one homer and has a .199 average and .567 OPS. Those numbers are worst on the team and are among the worst all time for players who spent nearly all of their time at DH.

William Contreras, Wade Miley, and Joel Payamps are among the best offseason acquisitions the Brewers made, but Jesse Winker is not even close. I'm almost embarrassed at how badly this prediction has turned out, but I wasn't the only one expecting Winker to have a great bounce-back year.

Brewers pre-season bold prediction #4: Rule 5 pick Gus Varland sticks around, becomes trusted setup man

Verdict: Stuck around for a while, but incorrect

This prediction was made before Varland officially made the roster. I was correct in predicting he's stick around and make the big league roster, but ultimately fell short in staying on the roster throughout the year and becoming a key setup guy.

Varland was struck by a comebacker in one outing and really wasn't the same since. He went on a rehab assignment, ended up coming back and struggled, including one snowball outing. He was DFAed after that and returned to the Dodgers.

Ultimately, I picked the wrong longshot bullpen arm to earn a trusted setup job. Elvis Peguero and Joel Payamps are the ones who came out of nowhere in the middle relief spots to become the 7th and 8th inning setup guys for closer Devin Williams.

Brewers pre-season bold prediction #5: Jackson Chourio makes MLB debut late in the year, helps carry Brewers into playoffs

Verdict: To Be Determined

This is the only remaining prediction that's still possible. The Brewers are in first place, looking to return to the playoffs. Jackson Chourio is lighting it up in the minor leagues and the Brewers offense could still use some more improvements if they're going to be good enough to win in October.

The Brewers have yet to promote Chourio to Triple-A, despite his dominant season in Double-A Biloxi. If they had designs on bringing Chourio to Milwaukee this year, they'd likely have moved him up to Triple-A by now, but they haven't. So perhaps we won't see Chourio this year.

Again, anything can happen, and Chourio is certainly not precluded from joining the big league club this year just because he's still in Double-A. Even in Double-A, you're only a phone call away from the big leagues. The Brewers will likely want to give him at least a few ABs in Triple-A Nashville before that call, but there's time to make this happen.

Overall, this year's batch of bold predictions have not gone well for accuracy. Then again, they are bold predictions, not meek predictions. There were reasons all of them could have come true and there are reasons why they didn't. But there's still hope that fifth and final bold prediction can come true, and if it does, I think we'll all be pretty happy with that one.