5 Bold Predictions for the 2023 Milwaukee Brewers

42 minutes ago, Matthew Trueblood said:

It’s finally here! Happy Opening Day 2023. To celebrate, let’s look ahead and make a few bold predictions for the Brewers, in what should be a fun and pivotal season in the progress of the franchise.

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Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports

We don’t need to faff around here. The concept is simple. I have five bold predictions to offer for the coming campaign, which I hope nicely balance being interesting and unexpected with being plausible. Let me know whether I’ve succeeded after you read them.

1. Garrett Mitchell will steal 40 bases. This one is my leadoff hitter, because of all my hunches about the coming season, it’s the one about which I feel most excited. Mitchell has to corral the strikeout problems that showed up when he reached MLB last season in order to get anywhere near this figure, but he’s an excellent candidate to do it if he can manage to put the ball in play. 
   
   Mitchell hits the ball hard, and is a left-handed batter. The constraints on infield shifts will make his life easier at the plate this year, if only by some marginal amount. Once he reaches base, obviously, there are the newly enlarged bases and the limitations on pickoff attempts by pitchers working in his favor. Most of all, though, Mitchell has elite speed, and he’s been an efficient and reasonably aggressive baserunner in his pro career to date. Combining the minors and majors, Mitchell has 42 stolen bases in 45 attempts since being drafted in 2020, all in just 625 plate appearances of playing time. 
2. A midseason trade for a Marlins starting pitcher will cost the team one of Joey Wiemer and Sal Frelick. Let’s face it: there’s a little bit of a logjam on the Brewers’ organizational outfield depth chart. With Christian Yelich a fixture for another half-decade and little flexibility to slide guys to the designated hitter slot for 2023, a pinch is on already. If Mitchell plays the way I predicted above, and if Tyrone Taylor is able to pick up where he left off last year once his elbow heals, then Frelick and Wiemer will be fighting for a very small slice of playing time, indeed. 
   
   For reasons you can read shortly, I think the Brewers will be in the market for a starting pitching upgrade come July, and the Miami Marlins are a good fit. With Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff still slated for free agency after 2024, Matt Arnold might try to create more long-term certainty in the starting rotation by angling for a controllable starter, and if that happens, one of Frelick and Wiemer will need to be included in a deal. Trevor Rogers, along with the sinker he’s added this spring, is an especially appealing target, given what he and the Brewers’ pitching development team each do well.
3. Jackson Chourio will make his debut, and it will come before September. Admittedly, this one is related to the prediction that Wiemer or Frelick will depart the organization by July 31. Absent either that kind of trade or a spate of nasty injuries, it would be hard for the teenaged Chourio to mash his way to the parent club. In theory, it should be difficult for that to happen even in that event.
   
   What this prediction comes down to, then, is a belief that Chourio is one of the truly special prospects who comes along only every five or 10 years. That’s bold, to be sure, but it’s not crazy, because if the Brewers didn’t see him that way, they wouldn’t have pushed him so aggressively throughout 2022, allowing him to reach Double A at the end of his age-18 season. It’s possible to have the kind of successful season he had even in the face of challenging level assignments at a very young age without being that sort of exceptional player, but Chourio’s stats do acquit him well.
   
   It’s not his numbers that give me this conviction, though. It just seems as though Chourio has the rare capacity for making the right play, composing himself in the face of a difficult moment, and staying under control even while playing to the edge of his athletic gifts. If all of that turns out to be true, he’s going to shred the Southern League, and he’ll force his way to Milwaukee for the stretch drive.
4. Bryse Wilson will make at least 15 starts. On the surface, the starting rotation looks like the deepest and least delicate segment of the Brewers’ roster. By early June, I think we could be recalling that impression with bitter longing. Adrian Houser will open the season on the injured list. Aaron Ashby is at least a month away from being available, and there are reasons to believe it could be longer.
   
   Add to those present troubles the perpetual risk of Freddy Peralta feeling something and needing to be shut down, and suddenly, it’s easy to envision a miniature crisis in the back half of the rotation. As I have chronicled throughout the last two months, and as Tim Muma mentioned in his piece on broad concerns yesterday, Eric Lauer has looked dreadful this spring. There are several ways that Wilson could be pressed into starting duty by the end of April, and he’s done enough good work with the team’s pitching instructors this spring to merit some faith that he’ll seize that opportunity if it arises.
5. The Brewers will win the NL Central and reach the NLCS. It won’t be easy. The season ahead is long, and lots of change is possible for this roster, even within the six-month schedule. I think they have more ways to beat teams than the Cardinals have, though, and that they’ll strike the balance they just missed last year when they traded Josh Hader. Of course, if they do reach the postseason, they immediately become a dangerous team, because of Burnes and Woodruff, but also because of the rising young talent they might have in place by the time 162 games are in the books.

Those are my predictions for this year. What are yours? Where did I go crazy, and where could I have gone even bolder? Jump into the comments and get yourself on the record before first pitch.

 

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I think there's potential that one of Frelick/Wiemer get traded, but I think maybe mid season more so, in the hope that they come out relatively strong and can up their trade value

I actually think it's more likely Frelick, but we shall see

I could see Wiemer being traded if the Brewers commit to Chourio at a fast pace. Frelick? No way. Even then, I think they have to be blown away to deal a Top 100 prospect under Matt Arnold, given he is from the Rays organization.

More likely, I think the second tier (Lutz, Hedbert Perez, Hendry Mendez, Joe Gray Jr.) might be on the move as opposed to Mitchell/Frelick/Wiemer/Chourio.