The last two nights, it was refreshing to see an actual baseball event for the first time since spring training was halted because of the global pandemic. With that being said, the Milwaukee Brewers knocked it out of the park no pun intended, in the first round.
With the 20th overall pick the Milwaukee Brewers picked Garrett Mitchell, outfielder from UCLA and professional tik-tok dancer. Mitchell was the 6th overall prospect in the whole draft. I couldn’t believe this guy dropped all the way to 20th overall. Mitchell stands 6’3 and weighs in at about 215 pounds.
Mitchell broke out in his sophomore season slashing a .349 batting average, .418 on-base percentage, slugged .566, and had an ops of .984. Because of an apparent leg injury delaying his junior season for a bit, he came back and started right where he left off batting .355, with a .425 obp, .484 slg, and a .909 ops in a limited 15 games.
Analysts have said that Mitchell could the best pure athlete in this draft and he definitely fits the mold. For a guy this built, he can absolutely fly. Mitchell has a 60 yard dash time of 6.35 seconds and consistently runs sub-4.00 times from home to 1st base.
Another strength of Mitchell’s is that he does not strike out that much, if at all. He drastically improved his plate vision from the 2018 season to the 2019 season. In 293 plate appearances, Mitchell only struck out 41 times, and the previous year he had 177 plate appearances he struck out 40 times. The guy really had a lot of improvement in his plate vision in a somewhat short time. Mitchell is a guy that will get on base with singles, walks, and occasionally some extra-base hits.
The one weakness for Mitchell is kind of surprising for a guy of this build, is his power. Mitchell has some decent gap power, but he rarely will put the ball over the fence. In 543 plate appearances in his NCAA career, he only hit 6 home runs, which was all in 2019. Some analysts say that his power will come with time as he tweaks his and I definitely believe that. A guy with this build has to have some untapped power.
Overall, I think absolutely killed it with this pick, we got a player with crazy good potential, with good value. I’m going to love to see how Mitchell develops in Brewers system and I do recommend once baseball does start head down to Appleton and maybe the Brewers first-round pick will make an appearance.
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