Brewers Sign a Familiar Name

On 7/25/2024 at 12:19 PM, Seth Stohs said:

According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the Brewers have signed Jadyn Fielder, an infielder from the TNXL Academy in Florida as an Undrafted Free Agent. The 19-year-old infielder is the son of former Brewers 1B/DH Prince Fielder. 

Image courtesy of © H. Darr Beiser-USA TODAY

 

While doing a little research for this article on a number of topics, one struck me harder than anything else. Did you know that Prince Fielder is only 40 years old? His final big-league game came in July of 2016, eight years ago, and obviously due to the tremendous pain from his neck injuries that required two surgeries.  

Prince Fielder was the Brewers first-round pick, seventh-overall in the 2002 MLB draft out of high school in Florida. He debuted in 2005 with the Brewers. He spent parts of seven season with the Brewers before getting a huge contract from the Tigers (9 years, $214 million). He was there for two years before playing three seasons with the Rangers. 

In his time with the Brewers, Prince Fielder played in 998 games. He hit .282/.390/.540 (.929) with 200 doubles and 230 home runs. Over his 12-year, big-league career, he had a total of 321 doubles and 319 home runs. Ironically, that is the exact number of MLB home runs hit by his father, Cecil Fielder who starred for the Tigers in the late '80s and then played for several teams throughout the '90s. 

 

In his time with the Brewers, Prince Fielder was a three-time All-Star, three-time Silver Slugger, and he finished in the Top 5 in MVP voting three times. At his best, he was one of the most-feared hitters in the game. He is already in the Brewers Wall of Honor and in their Walk of Fame. 

According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the Brewers have signed Jadyn Fielder , the 19-year-old son of Prince (and grandson of Cecil) as an undrafted free agent. 

 Before we jump to more about Fielder, a little bit about TNXL Academy. There are more and more baseball academies popping up around the country, but TNXL has grown. Most have heard of IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. It has been around for a long time and works with athletes from a ton of different sports. The P27 Baseball Academy in South Carolina has seen several players get drafted in recent years as well. 

TNXL Academy is only about a decade old, located in Ocoee, Florida. The general idea is to shorten to school day and lengthen the baseball work out time. They have experts and coaches working with players on their strength and conditioning, baseball skills, and more, along with expecting the kids to complete their academic requirements. Generally speaking, the 'students' are enrolled in an approved online high school program and curriculum. Many of the kids are able to not only complete high school (which they need to be drafted) but also can start taking college courses as well. 

Since its inception in 2014, all of the seniors have committed to a college and seven have been drafted. They don't play a typical high school schedule. They play in tournaments and also get games against junior colleges and D2 teams. Each day, the athlete's will get between four-and-a-half hours of specialized baseball training depending upon their position and individual needs. That happens Mondays through Thursdays and Friday is optional. They also have all of the new technology and data and test players six times per year to see how they are progressing and to update their individual programs. Oh yeah, there have to get their homework done too. 

 

Now to Jadyn Fielder. About the only similarities between Prince and Jadyn include batting left handed and standing just under 6-0 tall. Jadyn is about 200 pounds, with room to grow. Prince was a first baseman and DH. Jadyn has played second base, third base, and shortstop, though he's not likely to remain at short.

Jadyn has been playing at Perfect Game events going all the way back to 2016 when he was 5-1 and 112 pounds on a 12U team. 

Young Fielder is already 19 years old. He went undrafted despite his genetic lineage. He was committed to Division I North Florida, but he's not a top prep prospect of this year either. However, it's completely worth the flyer for the genetics alone. He's got some size and strength. He's not the greatest athlete, but is is capable of being more than a first baseman or DH. Clearly he knows the game and likely has a strong baseball IQ. 

 

And he can really swing the bat well from the left side. He has quick bat speed and ends his swing with great extension. He can put up some big exit velocity numbers but he's been inconsistent. He's a solid infielder with OK range, and an arm that can probably play at third base. Like his father, he seems to take a lot of good ABs and knows the strike zone.  

Personally, I like it. He's not committed to a Division I power house. He may not get drafted in three years or four years. So get the career going, make some money, and do it with an organization that you're at least familiar with. There has to be a confidence that the organization will keep him around through at least four years. They'll be patient and who knows, is 2-3 years, the money they gave him to sign now may look like quite the deal! 

Fielder has been playing for the Frederick Keys in the MLB Draft League this summer. In 22 games, he has hit .208/.374/.306 (.680) with two doubles, a triple and a home run. In 92 plate appearances, he has 15 walks and 20 strikeouts. His manager was 10-year big leaguer Jacque Jones, and the hitting coach is six-year MLBer Anderson Hernandez. 

The odds of any drafted player to make the big leagues is very low, and that percentage is even lower for undrafted free agents. So this signing, at least for now, is more about the fun story and the family ties. At the same time, because of the family and genetics, it sure seems like a reasonable, very low-cost risk. Get him in the system, working with the Brewers player development group, let him mature and play and improve and see what happens. 

 

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Keep up with other Brewers draft news and signings in this forum thread and on the Brewer Fanatic Draft Tracker. 

 

 

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I'm very surprised nobody has responded to this,