When you hear the word logjam in regards to the Milwaukee Brewers these days you typically think of one thing: the outfield in the majors and at triple-A. And for good reason. You've got a punch of recently graduated top prospects, a former MVP, a couple of useful reserves, and, oh yah, one of the top prospects in baseball.

The logjam I'm going to talk about, though, isn't at the big league level or even close to it. And it (likely) doesn't involve any of the system's "name" prospects. How it works out, however, could go a long way to determining the quality of depth in a key area of the Brewers' system in the years to come.

That area? The upcoming season's ACL Brewers pitching staff.

While the only guy making top 30 lists from the group might be Bishop Letson (assuming Josh Knoth starts the season in Carolina), it feels like there are more guys who could make the leap to that level than there have been in a while.

The High School Draft Picks

The Brewers traditionally haven't been a team that has drafted and signed a bunch of high school pitchers. Heading into the 2023 draft, they hadn't signed more than four high school pitchers from any draft class since 2017 when they signed six. Before that, you have to go all the way back to the Jake Odorizzi draft in 2008 when they signed seven.

In fact, since 2020, they had signed only one or two, depending on how you classified Quinton Low upon being drafted.

That's why it was a minor shock when the Brewers drafted seven high school pitchers in the 2023 draft. It was a major shock when they managed to sign five of them.

Assuming that Justin Chambers is recovered enough from Tommy John surgery, the final four of those five picked will likely be on the ACL staff this coming season: Bishop Letson, Bjorn Johnson, Hayden Robinson and Chambers.

All four got fifth- or sixth-round money, with Chambers leading the way at $547,500. They were the sixth through ninth highest signing bonuses of the draft for the Brewers.

Get more information on the four here.

All, assuming they can stay healthy (or in the case of Chambers get healthy), should offer some of the more interesting pitching lines to watch in the ACL this season. Although with pitchers this young, that is too often easier said that done, as the careers of the one high schooler the Brewers drafted and signed solely as a pitcher recently (Caden Vire) and the first two high school pitchers they chose in that 2017 draft (Caden Lemons and Brendan Murphy) show.

The Holdovers

Between all of the college pitchers the Brewers drafted or signed last season and the players repeating at Carolina, there might not be a ton of spots for the group that was with the ACL squad all season. As of right now, I'm projecting Osbriel Mogollon, Anfernny Reyes and Brailin Rodriguez as the ones getting promoted from that group. That leaves a couple of interesting prospects behind.

• Daniel Corniel: After having some of the best peripherals on either of the DSL squads in 2022, Corniel followed that up by having a highly erratic but occasionally dominant season in Arizona. I can't claim to be an expert on his stuff, but statistically at least he still seems like an interesting prospect.
• Manuel Rodriguez: Labeled by Fangraphs as someone who could become an interesting prospect if he gained a few ticks on his velocity, the youngest active pitcher on the Brewers ACL squad was the opposite of a lot of the other ACL youngsters last season: he struggled to miss bats but experienced some success because he was one of the team's best at limiting walks.
• The Field: Jesus Rivero wasn't all that interesting statistically, until suddenly he was. There very well might be a random likely ACL repeater with better stuff than results who manages to start to piece things together to become interesting. I don't know that I'd bet on any of them individually, but it wouldn't be at all shocking if one of the guys from this tier, be it Henrison Mota, Darling Solano or someone else, at least breaks into the "mildly intriguing" level next season.

The Likely Promotions

Any discussion of pitchers from last year's DSL squads has to start with three players: the Brewers' highest bonus pitching signings from the 2022 and 2023 international class and the guy who led the entire DSL in strikeout to walk rate: Anthony Flores, Eric Prado and Enniel Cortez. Barring injury, it would be shocking not to see all three suiting up stateside this summer.

Prado's season might not have been quite as promising as his ERA indicated, but it was still solid, and combined with being the rare Brewers pitcher with at least some signing day hype, earns him a spot toward the top of this list.

Flores, as I alluded to in a previous blog, had an Aaron Ashby-esque season (at least the minor league version), combining high strikeout totals with a lot of groundballs.

Cortez was among the best pitchers in the DSL, ranking third among qualifiers in ERA and second in FIP along with his eye-popping .99 BB/9.

Even after those three, there is a significant depth of promotion possibilities. Melvin Hernandez is taking a page from the Manuel Rodriguez playbook as one of the youngest pitchers on last year's DSL team didn't miss as many bats as a lot of his teammates but succeeded by limiting walks. Aneuris Rodriguez is old for a Brewers DSL prospect, which can sometimes be a death knell, but had the third best FIP on the squads last year. You can also make good cases for holdovers Bryan Rivera and Ranwell Smith as well as DSL rookie Esmir Suarez coming stateside.

The Comeback Kids

It seems fitting to be writing this section on a day when the Brewers picked up a pitcher coming off Tommy John surgery, but there are several intriguing names coming off injuries who could start in the ACL.

Since I already mentioned Chambers, we'll start with the Brewers' other 2023 draft pick on the comeback trail from Tommy John. It seems likely that fourth rounder Jason Woodward will pitch this season, and that pitching will likely at least start in the ACL. While it was a below slot pick, the Brewers still had enough options at that price point in the fourth round to think that they see something they like in the former Florida Gulf Coast ace.

Aldrin Gonzalez briefly got everyone's hopes up with an ACL assignment before being immediately thereafter put on the season-ending injury list. I still have no clue why the Brewers would promote him just to put him on the injured list, but most of the explanations I can come up with would indicate the organization is high on Gonzalez, who apparently was already throwing 95 at the time of his signing as a 16-year-old.

Speaking of players mysteriously promoted to the ACL injured list, Wande Torres is intriguing if only because he is 6-3, left-handed and missed a fair number of bats in his erratic 2022 DSL season.

Kevin Briceno was a nice story during the 2022 season, earning a rare in-season promotion from the DSL and holding his own in the ACL as well. He then missed pretty much all of his follow-up season with injury.

It is tough to really project much from this group given the unfortunate fact that, at the lower levels, many a pitcher gets hurt and then is never heard from again. In each of these cases, though, there is at least some reason for optimism.

A New Strategy?

Given the way that the offseason has gone so far, it seems like the Brewers are taking an approach to trade from their non-top-tier hitting prospects while collecting as many promising pitchers as possible, turning their player development system loose and seeing what happens. It would seem the upcoming ACL group would be a perfect test case for that philosophy. If the Brewers can get even 3-4 of the names on this list to break out significantly it would go a long way to establishing a deeper pipeline of pitching talent for future years.