Can Mitchell capitalize on a full year to break out?
The Brewers’ season possessed an underlying theme of incorporating young players into the team’s everyday lineup. From rookies like Joey Ortiz and several members of the pitching corps to sophomore seasons from Sal Frelick and Brice Turang, the young talent helped form a promising foundation around an excellent group of veterans.
With plenty of questions about how the team will create its defensive alignment, Garrett Mitchell seems like an interesting character in this puzzle.
The Brewers have no shortage of outfielders, offering several options as they pursue their offseason plan. However, when this is all resolved, if Mitchell capitalizes on this opportunity, he could emerge as one of the best players on the roster — assuming he isn’t a departing piece from that surplus.
Mitchell, finally with at least a fair bit of health and opportunity on his side, put together a convincing 2024 season. In 69 games, he slashed .255/.342/.469 (126 wRC+). He hit eight home runs and stole 11 bases.
That’s essentially a hand-curated profile for everything you want in a player. There’s patience, speed, and reason to believe he could push for 20 homers over a full season.
While Mitchell walks a lot (an impressive 11.2% rate), he still strikes out frequently. His 31.7% strikeout is leaning toward untenable, but it still seems too early to label that as something that will ultimately limit his ceiling. It’s important to remember that, although 26 years old, he hadn’t passed 100 total MLB games until this season.
This graph shows Mitchell’s 15-game rolling average, overlapping his swinging strike rate and wOBA:
We see a spike late in the season again, but there was a stretch just around that game 50 mark where we saw Mitchell thrive with a sub-10% swinging strike rate. If that talent level is in Mitchell’s game more consistently, he could provide some of the extra offensive firepower the Brewers are going to need next year.
And while Mitchell’s offensive potential is tantalizing, his defensive profile fits the team’s strengths too. Players like Frelick and Blake Perkins deserve all the credit that comes their way for their defensive play this year, but Mitchell represents more potential offensively.
Mitchell didn’t get as much attention for his glove, but he’s still a respectable defender. Perkins and Frelick ranked 12th and 22nd in Outs Above Average, respectively. Mitchell wasn’t far behind, ranking 39th out of 133 outfielders.
Health is always a concern for Mitchell, who will be entering his fourth season appearing in the majors with just 116 games under his belt. But 2024 was a major step forward for his role and career. The Brewers roster might look slightly different next year, but the best version involves Mitchell growing on his promising season.
Stats courtesy of FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.