Milwaukee Brewers Minor League Pitchers of the First Half - 2025

[Ben Lepak]

Image courtesy of © Saul Young/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

With the minor league affiliates reaching the halfway point of their season in the last week, we thought we’d forego the monthly recognition for pitcher and player of the month, and instead recognize the top players in the Milwaukee Brewers organization for the first half of the season.

Previous monthly recognition for May and April can be found by clicking the links.

Here are our top minor league pitchers of the first half. All stats are valid through June 30.

Honorable Mention

Bishop Letson could have cracked the top five if not for a shoulder injury that sidelined him since May 8. On the season for Wisconsin, Letson has pitched in six games, covering 27 IP, with a 1.67 ERA and a 0.852 WHIP. Letson sports a 4.29 K/BB ratio, and overall, he had shown improvement across all stats from his 2024 debut campaign in Carolina.

Tate Kuehner has been the ace of the Biloxi pitching staff in a first half in which the Shuckers won the division title. Kuehner leads the Shuckers in starts, innings pitched, wins and strikeouts, while sporting a 2.64 ERA in 71.2 innings. One area of future improvement for Kuehner would be his control, as he has walked 5.3 batters per nine innings.

#5 Joan Pena Brewers DSL Gold

2025 Season Stats: 19 IP, 1.89 ERA, 1.053 WHIP, 12.3 K/9, 6.5 K/BB

Pena has looked filthy in his first season of pro ball for Brewers DSL Gold. The left-hander is striking out better than a batter per inning through his first four appearances. The 17-year-old Pena was listed at 6’0" and 200 pounds when he was signed as part of the most recent international class, so he’s a big presence on the mound. Check out some highlights from his nine-strikeout performance in late June here:

#4 Ethan Dorchies ACL Brewers and Carolina Mudcats

2025 Season Stats: 27 IP, 1.96 ERA, .873 WHIP, 11.5 K/9, 3.92 K/BB

Dorchies, a 2024 10^th-round draft pick out of Cary-Grove High School in Illinois, has quickly shown to be a steal by the Brewers front office. After not pitching after last year’s draft, Dorchies earned a first half promotion from the Arizona Complex League to Low-A ball in Carolina after 27 dominant innings in Arizona. The big 6’5” right-hander generates 6.7 feet of extension which helps his stuff – four-seam, cutter, sinker, slider and splitter – play up better than it actually is.

There’s optimism that Dorchies can continue to add velocity to his fastball as he matures, which could make it into a true plus pitch for Dorchies. Check out some highlights from his second start in Carolina from just last week:

So far, Dorchies has improved with each start in Carolina, and he will be one arm Brewers fans will want to keep an eye on in the second half.

#3 Melvin Hernandez Carolina Mudcats

2025 Season Stats: 70.2 IP, 2.17 ERA, .991 WHIP, 6.8 K/9, 4.08 K/BB

The 18-year-old Hernandez has been the Mudcats’ most consistent pitcher and workhorse in leading the Carolina League in innings pitched in the first half of the season. Hernandez doesn’t generate a lot of swing and miss against the leagues’ aggressive hitters, but he makes up for that by inducing weak contact and getting ground balls. Through his 70 IP this season, Hernandez is sporting a 53% ground ball rate while walking only 1.7 batters per nine innings. That walk rate is the fourth lowest mark among all Brewers’ minor league pitchers with at least 10 IP this year. Here’s an extended look at Hernandez' most recent outing in June:

There’s been speculation that Hernandez could feature on Nicaragua’s 2026 World Baseball Classic roster, if the Brewers would permit that next spring. It’ll be interesting to see how deep into the season Hernandez is allowed to pitch, as he’s already surpassed 2024’s inning total by 20 innings through June.

#2 Coleman Crow Biloxi Shuckers

2025 Season Stats: 43 IP, 2.51 ERA, .907 WHIP 10.9 K/9, 6.5 K/BB

Brewers Fanatic has already provided a ton of analysis on Crow in just the last 10 days, with in-depth write-ups from Spencer here and Adam here, so I won’t try to reinvent the wheel with my rudimentary analysis. I highly recommend you check out their work. 

Since their pieces, Crow was called up to Nashville on June 18 but never got to make an appearance there as he was sidelined with a hip injury on June 20. The promotion to AAA was the next logical move for Crow, as the Brewers will have to determine whether or not they want to add him to the 40-man roster in the offseason or risk losing him to the Rule 5 draft. Provided Crow can stay healthy, he should find himself in the Chad Patrick position next year, as the first man up to Milwaukee in 2026 when injury strikes the rotation. Of all the arms on this list, he’s the only one Brewers’ fans should expect to see at the big-league level in 2026.

#1 Tyson Hardin Wisconsin Timber Rattlers and Biloxi Shuckers

2025 Season Stats: 78.1 IP, 2.17 ERA, 1.071 WHIP, 9.4 K/9, 7.09 K/BB

Hardin, another 2024 draft day steal in the 12^th round, has quickly emerged as one of the top pitchers in the organization in his first full professional season. After tossing just 3 2/3 innings last year in Carolina, Hardin started 2024 in Appleton and tore through the Midwest League like a buzz saw. On May 3, Hardin worked seven innings, allowing just four hits and striking out a career high nine batters in a 1-0 loss against first half champion West Michigan. Two weeks later, Hardin threw a seven-inning complete game shutout, this time allowing just two hits to go with six strikeouts. Hardin has shown excellent control with a 1.3/BB/9 rate that is best in the Brewers’ organization among pitchers with at least 40 IP in 2025. If you take out Hardin’s only bad start of the first half, when he allowed six runs on ten hits in four IP versus a stout Cedar Rapids squad that is second in the Midwest League in OPS, Hardin would have pitched to a 1.51 ERA in 53 innings of High-A ball.

Since his promotion to Biloxi, Hardin’s ERA, WHIP, K/9, and K/BB have all seen improvements, though some of that may have to do with the Southern League’s reputation of being pitcher friendly. Hardin actually allowed his first and only home run of the season in his first start in Biloxi, which is pretty remarkable regardless of level or league.

Watch Hardin pinpoint a few seeds here:

Hardin looks like the early front-runner for Brewers Minor League pitcher of the year, though there’s still plenty of time for another arm to take that honor from him.

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Who are you most excited to watch pitch in the second half of the season? Is there anyone we missed on this list? Let us know what you think in the comments!

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[SF70]

The Brewers ‘24 draft-class has to be one of the most underrated classes in baseball. Payne-Burke-Dinges on the positional side, with a stable of arms too large to list on the other side of the ball.

Can’t imagine a team with more legit starter arm depth throughout their organization from the bigs on thru the DSL. Multiple waves that should hit the bigs over the next 3-4 years that should allow for trades of this depth and that still lead to a BL ready stable of 10+ starter arms starting late next season.

Having this type of rotational depth will protect this team from the inevitable arm injuries like no other team in baseball.

[Wicki]

If Hernandez bulks up a little that could make his velocity rise, and at only 139 lbs there’s definitely room for that. Also Penas curve has a similar look as kershaws, which is exciting. Also love being able to look at the box scores for the mudcats because it seems there’s always someone exciting pitching. Also any update on what type of shoulder injury letson is dealing with? Hopefully just inflammation not a rotator cuff 🙏 also think there’s a chance that Hardin could even make it to the big leagues next year if he keeps this up

[biedergb]

3 hours ago, SF70 said:

Having this type of rotational depth will protect this team from the inevitable arm injuries like no other team in baseball.

While i want to be cautious and not be over-optimistic in the pitching depth, I did look back a few years ago and looked at what the full season clubs had as pitchers. Reviewing 2021, all pitchers who were age appropriate or younger (I used less than or equal to these ages - 25 for AAA, 24 for AA, 23 for A+, and 22 for A) and had about 50 IP, and that list in 2021:

AAA - Bettinger, Ashby, Jankins. Small was called up but would have been on this list. Not bad, but meh as Ashby and Small were top prospects, Bettinger and Jankins were hopeful inning fillers (even at the time)

AA - none, although J. Bullock did get some innings.

A+ - Jarvis, Olson, Reifert, Castaneda, H. Chirino, and a couple of others, with Jarvis, Olson and Castaneda deemed realistic SP prospects at the time. So this was a solid team.

A - J. Geraldo, Vasalotti, M. Guerrero, J. Cruz and Brendan Murphy. Vasalotti caught a lot of attention as a very young pitcher who could stand out, and Murphy was a former high draft pick ('17 I think) who was trying to get healthy. But despite a lot of inning this group was uninspired but Vasalotti and Murphy were on prospect lists.

 

Now we have much more (using about 35 IP as those should get > 50 IP by year end barring injury or promotions)

AAA - Miz, Henderson and Rodriguez all as top 10-20 prospects (Miz/Logan as top pitching prospects for the team)

AA - Kuehner, Cornielle, Hunt, Wichrowski, and Crow (who is now in AAA)

A+ - Flores, Birchard, Hardin (now at AA), Aquino and most likely DeBerry will get 50 IP.

A - Hernandez, T. Smith, B. Rivera, Meccage, Torres, B. Johnson and possibly Dubanewicz and Dorchies will see some significant time as teenagers along with Hernandez, Meccage and Torres.

Quite a change in quantity of younger pitchers, most with good stats, and also more upside. So yes this is trending the right direction. Now few are looked at as top of the rotation talent (Miz or Henderson aside) and most are middle rotation or back end depth but can certainly improve their status with either another quality pitch, increased velocity (ie Hernandez, Hardin), or improve command (Meccage and the '24 HS pitchers). Will be interesting to see how we view the pitching depth in the system in a year or two. 

Health, continued development and some good luck will really make a difference between "nice" depth vs true foundational depth that can augment the franchise for the next 5 years.

[SF70]

6 minutes ago, biedergb said:

While i want to be cautious and not be over-optimistic in the pitching depth, I did look back a few years ago and looked at what the full season clubs had as pitchers. Reviewing 2021, all pitchers who were age appropriate or younger (I used less than or equal to these ages - 25 for AAA, 24 for AA, 23 for A+, and 22 for A) and had about 50 IP, and that list in 2021:

AAA - Bettinger, Ashby, Jankins. Small was called up but would have been on this list. Not bad, but meh as Ashby and Small were top prospects, Bettinger and Jankins were hopeful inning fillers (even at the time)

AA - none, although J. Bullock did get some innings.

A+ - Jarvis, Olson, Reifert, Castaneda, H. Chirino, and a couple of others, with Jarvis, Olson and Castaneda deemed realistic SP prospects at the time. So this was a solid team.

A - J. Geraldo, Vasalotti, M. Guerrero, J. Cruz and Brendan Murphy. Vasalotti caught a lot of attention as a very young pitcher who could stand out, and Murphy was a former high draft pick ('17 I think) who was trying to get healthy. But despite a lot of inning this group was uninspired but Vasalotti and Murphy were on prospect lists.

 

Now we have much more (using about 35 IP as those should get > 50 IP by year end barring injury or promotions)

AAA - Miz, Henderson and Rodriguez all as top 10-20 prospects (Miz/Logan as top pitching prospects for the team)

AA - Kuehner, Cornielle, Hunt, Wichrowski, and Crow (who is now in AAA)

A+ - Flores, Birchard, Hardin (now at AA), Aquino and most likely DeBerry will get 50 IP.

A - Hernandez, T. Smith, B. Rivera, Meccage, Torres, B. Johnson and possibly Dubanewicz and Dorchies will see some significant time as teenagers along with Hernandez, Meccage and Torres.

Quite a change in quantity of younger pitchers, most with good stats, and also more upside. So yes this is trending the right direction. Now few are looked at as top of the rotation talent (Miz or Henderson aside) and most are middle rotation or back end depth but can certainly improve their status with either another quality pitch, increased velocity (ie Hernandez, Hardin), or improve command (Meccage and the '24 HS pitchers). Will be interesting to see how we view the pitching depth in the system in a year or two. 

Health, continued development and some good luck will really make a difference between "nice" depth vs true foundational depth that can augment the franchise for the next 5 years.

This organization’s PDS will turn what appear to be back-enders into mids, and mids to uppers, I think we can bet on that.

The pitching scouting staff, both pro & amateur, have done an amazing job adding arms that the PD staff can improve. Just in the last 2 draft-classes the team has added what, 24 pitchers (if we include UFA Hunt). That’s more volume than has ever been added in a 2 year period of time at least since the draft went to 20 rounds.

I think it’s fair to feel “over-optimistic” regarding what this team is accomplishing with organizational starting pitching depth. 

[snoogans8056]

That whole 2024 pitching class (as well as their similarly aged internationals) also seem to be heavily ground ball oriented, with potential to add to their subpar velocity.

If any one of them gets a few ticks more, they’re gonna take off.

[MattK]

2 hours ago, biedergb said:

While i want to be cautious and not be over-optimistic in the pitching depth, I did look back a few years ago and looked at what the full season clubs had as pitchers. Reviewing 2021, all pitchers who were age appropriate or younger (I used less than or equal to these ages - 25 for AAA, 24 for AA, 23 for A+, and 22 for A) and had about 50 IP, and that list in 2021:

AAA - Bettinger, Ashby, Jankins. Small was called up but would have been on this list. Not bad, but meh as Ashby and Small were top prospects, Bettinger and Jankins were hopeful inning fillers (even at the time)

AA - none, although J. Bullock did get some innings.

A+ - Jarvis, Olson, Reifert, Castaneda, H. Chirino, and a couple of others, with Jarvis, Olson and Castaneda deemed realistic SP prospects at the time. So this was a solid team.

A - J. Geraldo, Vasalotti, M. Guerrero, J. Cruz and Brendan Murphy. Vasalotti caught a lot of attention as a very young pitcher who could stand out, and Murphy was a former high draft pick ('17 I think) who was trying to get healthy. But despite a lot of inning this group was uninspired but Vasalotti and Murphy were on prospect lists.

 

Now we have much more (using about 35 IP as those should get > 50 IP by year end barring injury or promotions)

AAA - Miz, Henderson and Rodriguez all as top 10-20 prospects (Miz/Logan as top pitching prospects for the team)

AA - Kuehner, Cornielle, Hunt, Wichrowski, and Crow (who is now in AAA)

A+ - Flores, Birchard, Hardin (now at AA), Aquino and most likely DeBerry will get 50 IP.

A - Hernandez, T. Smith, B. Rivera, Meccage, Torres, B. Johnson and possibly Dubanewicz and Dorchies will see some significant time as teenagers along with Hernandez, Meccage and Torres.

Quite a change in quantity of younger pitchers, most with good stats, and also more upside. So yes this is trending the right direction. Now few are looked at as top of the rotation talent (Miz or Henderson aside) and most are middle rotation or back end depth but can certainly improve their status with either another quality pitch, increased velocity (ie Hernandez, Hardin), or improve command (Meccage and the '24 HS pitchers). Will be interesting to see how we view the pitching depth in the system in a year or two. 

Health, continued development and some good luck will really make a difference between "nice" depth vs true foundational depth that can augment the franchise for the next 5 years.

Cool comparison! 

Interesting that almost no one (Olson & Ashby? ) from the '21 group is around only 4 years later. But, as you note, few were considered "prospects".

[snoogans8056]

4 hours ago, biedergb said:

While i want to be cautious and not be over-optimistic in the pitching depth, I did look back a few years ago and looked at what the full season clubs had as pitchers. Reviewing 2021, all pitchers who were age appropriate or younger (I used less than or equal to these ages - 25 for AAA, 24 for AA, 23 for A+, and 22 for A) and had about 50 IP, and that list in 2021:

AAA - Bettinger, Ashby, Jankins. Small was called up but would have been on this list. Not bad, but meh as Ashby and Small were top prospects, Bettinger and Jankins were hopeful inning fillers (even at the time)

AA - none, although J. Bullock did get some innings.

A+ - Jarvis, Olson, Reifert, Castaneda, H. Chirino, and a couple of others, with Jarvis, Olson and Castaneda deemed realistic SP prospects at the time. So this was a solid team.

A - J. Geraldo, Vasalotti, M. Guerrero, J. Cruz and Brendan Murphy. Vasalotti caught a lot of attention as a very young pitcher who could stand out, and Murphy was a former high draft pick ('17 I think) who was trying to get healthy. But despite a lot of inning this group was uninspired but Vasalotti and Murphy were on prospect lists.

 

Now we have much more (using about 35 IP as those should get > 50 IP by year end barring injury or promotions)

AAA - Miz, Henderson and Rodriguez all as top 10-20 prospects (Miz/Logan as top pitching prospects for the team)

AA - Kuehner, Cornielle, Hunt, Wichrowski, and Crow (who is now in AAA)

A+ - Flores, Birchard, Hardin (now at AA), Aquino and most likely DeBerry will get 50 IP.

A - Hernandez, T. Smith, B. Rivera, Meccage, Torres, B. Johnson and possibly Dubanewicz and Dorchies will see some significant time as teenagers along with Hernandez, Meccage and Torres.

Quite a change in quantity of younger pitchers, most with good stats, and also more upside. So yes this is trending the right direction. Now few are looked at as top of the rotation talent (Miz or Henderson aside) and most are middle rotation or back end depth but can certainly improve their status with either another quality pitch, increased velocity (ie Hernandez, Hardin), or improve command (Meccage and the '24 HS pitchers). Will be interesting to see how we view the pitching depth in the system in a year or two. 

Health, continued development and some good luck will really make a difference between "nice" depth vs true foundational depth that can augment the franchise for the next 5 years.

And that’s not counting the injured guys like Woodward (4th Rounder), Knoth (1st Rounder), and Broughton (ranked in the top 150 of his class at BA).