Former Brewers prospect involved in Yelich trade gets unexpected second chance at sports career

The last time Brewers fans were paying much attention to the name Monte Harrison was back in 2018 when the Crew shipped Harrison, Lewis Brinson, Isan Diaz, and Jordan Yamamoto to the Miami Marlins for future NL MVP Christian Yelich.

None of those four players found much of any success with the Marlins despite their high prospect pedigrees, Meanwhile, as fans are well aware, Christian Yelich found plenty of success in Milwaukee.

Monte Harrison struggled with strikeouts and hasn't played in MLB since 2022 and spent last season back in the Brewers organization with the Nashville Sounds. He hit just .208 with a .593 OPS in 88 games for the Sounds and was released. In his MLB career, he totaled just 68 ABs with a .176 batting average and 37 strikeouts.

Now that he's out of baseball, reports are that Harrison is going to try a different sport and head back to college. On3 Sports has reported that Harrison has committed to play football at the University of Arkansas.

Back in 2014, the Brewers drafted Harrison in the second round out of high school and convinced him to forgo college and play professional with a $1.8MM signing bonus, well above slot value. He was committed to the University of Nebraska back then.

Also, as the report notes, Harrison was a two-sport athlete, also a four star recruit on the football field as a wide receiver. The Brewers believed his speed and athleticism would translate well on the baseball diamond as a professional.

Now 28 years old, Harrison still has speed and athleticism, but it's clear his baseball career is not going to go anywhere. However, that doesn't mean he can't play football. Harrison is eligible to play college athletics even though he was previously a professional in a different sport. As long as he's not going to play college baseball, he can play other sports.

Harrison is going to be quite old compared to his teammates at Arkansas, as he'll be playing with and against 18-22 year olds and he'll be a 28 year old freshman.

Arkansas is no slouch either. Harrison is going to an SEC football team, the best conference in college football. While this may be Big Ten country around here, there's no denying the SEC's prowess. Arkansas may not be the best SEC team, but he'll get an opportunity to start a new sports career.

Could he still rise to the level of a 4 star recruit that he was back then? Expectations may be lower for Harrison a decade later, but he could still carve out a role on that Arkansas team and who knows, maybe in a couple years he could find himself in the NFL. He could join the short list of elite athletes to have played in both MLB and the NFL.