According to a recent tweet from Adam Mcalvy, Garrett Mitchell underwent shoulder surgery on Tuesday. Unfortunately, there is only a shred of hope for the rookie sensation to return to the lineup this season.
Garrett Mitchell had his shoulder surgery on Tuesday. No change to the timetable: Probably out for the year, but there's a sliver of hope to play late in the year. "It was a serious surgery and the timeframe makes it unlikely, like we said," Craig Counsell said. "But we'll see."
— Adam McCalvy (@AdamMcCalvy) May 4, 2023
This will have a big impact on the Brewers’ roster. Mitchell was called up last season and posted a .311 batting average in his first sample of MLB play. After the great start, Mitchell did regress slightly this season but still looked like a solid player. Mitchell was starting to establish himself as a staple in the lineup before the injury, this is a huge loss in the Brewers lineup.
Another thing to look at is the fact that Mitchell’s rehab time will count towards his service time. This means that Mitchell is one year closer to arbitration with little play under his belt. Mitchell arbitration is eligible at the end of the 2025 campaign. Additionally, all you Brewers fans pulling for Garrett Mitchell to win Rookie of the Year will unfortunately never see it happen as this will count as his rookie season.
However, for Matt Arnold and the Brewers, they have to focus on what they can control which is how they are going to go about filling the shoes of Mitchell.
Brewers Lineup Adjustment Without Garrett Mitchell
For right now the Brewers have slid Joey Wiemer over to center field. As an additional boost the Brewers also just got Tyrone Taylor back from the IL. Taylor appeared in 120 games for the Brewers last season and had a pedestrian .233/.442/.729 slash line while clubbing 17 home runs. There is also Tyler Naquin in AAA who has appeared in over 500 MLB games and has a respectable career slash line of .264/.318/.448. All of these are solid replacement choices and it will be interesting to see how the Brewers experiment with each of them.
The loss of Garrett Mitchell is obviously a big one but the good news is the Brewers have some capable fill-ins. Let’s hope all goes well with Mitchell’s recovery and the Brewers find their way without him.
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