The 5 best Brewers player development success stories in 2024

4. Blake Perkins

The Brewers signed Blake Perkins to a major league contract prior to the 2023 season. He hadn't made his MLB debut yet either, which made it a somewhat peculiar move by the Brewers front office. In his first season, Perkins was up and down quite a bit, hitting a paltry .217 with a .675 OPS.

The defense for Perkins was excellent and that has remained the case. Perkins leads the Brewers outfielders in Outs Above Average with 10. But he was believed to be nothing more than a light-hitting backup outfielder that's a defensive specialist.

This year, Perkins has taken his game a step forward and proven he can be much more than that. Perkins has nearly doubled his playing time, getting in 120 games this season and has bumped up his average to .241 and has 23 stolen bases.

The development of Perkins from backup, late inning defensive specialist to more of a lineup regular has been a big one for him and the Brewers, especially as injuries have hit the outfield group this year.

5. Brice Turang

The quantum leap that manager Pat Murphy predicted Brice Turang would take this year definitely happened in the first half of the 2024 season. Since then, Turang's numbers have crept backward a little, making it perhaps less of a quantum leap and more a of quantum hop, but still definite progression from last year to this year.

Turang has always been a defensive wizard, that much hasn't changed, but his offensive numbers were abysmal his rookie year. He hit just .218/.285/.300 with 18 extra base hits, 26 stolen bases, and a .585 OPS. It simply wasn't good enough despite his defensive prowess.

Through June, Turang was hitting a stellar .292/.354/.417. It looked every bit of that quantum leap that Murphy promised. Since then, Turang slumped a bit and has had to recover, but has done a much better job of that this year than he did last year.

On the season, Turang has hit .254/.316/.350 with 35 extra base hits, 50 stolen bases, and a .666 OPS. He's become more of a presence atop the lineup and has earned opportunities against left handed starters and done decently well with them, hitting .244 with a .600 OPS. That's another very important development for Turang, who is going to be an everyday player moving forward.

The Brewers are a young team and they need to successfully develop players at the major league level in order for them to achieve their goal of winning a World Series. These five players were the biggest successes this year and are a major reason this team is where they are.