Browsing: Exploited

Throughout their organization, the Brewers excel in a lot of areas.

In the draft, the Brewers have also taken an approach different from any other team since MLB reduced the draft to 20 rounds in 2021. Itâ€s a strategy that does take skill to execute, but itâ€s one that any team can adopt.

As it is, the Brewers have been fishing in a pond stocked with fish to catch but not a lot of other fishermen. Given the players Milwaukee has been able to acquire this way, other teams should start borrowing their playbook.

How The Brewers Find Hidden Value

As MLB has shortened the draft and put greater restrictions on how teams can spend, itâ€s become harder for clubs to sign quality players after the 10th round. In the first 10 rounds, each pick has a slot value, which collectively make up a teamâ€s total bonus pool. For picks in rounds 11-20, teams can sign players for up to $150,000, but anything beyond that amount counts against a teamâ€s bonus pool.Â

If a team has enough bonus pool space saved from underslot deals on players in the first 10 rounds, it can use that money to sign players in rounds 11-20 to deals above $150,000. Occasionally, that means a seven-figure bonus for a high school player, like the Astros did with outfielder/first baseman Ryan Clifford in 2022. The Angels have done it more than any team—they signed lefthander Mason Albright (2021) and righthanders Caden Dana (2022) and Trey Gregory-Alford (2024) to bonuses north of $1 million—and they have five of the top eight bonuses for rounds 11-20 since 2021.

But 83% of draft picks who signed after the 10th round since 2021 have gotten bonuses of $150,000 or less. For 29 teams, they lean into drafting college players with those picks.

The Brewers take a different approach.

Since 2021, Milwaukee has both drafted and signed more high school players than any team in rounds 11-20. Other than the Rangers, no team has drafted even half the number of high school players the Brewers have in those rounds. Most teams are averaging one high school signing per year from rounds 11-20. The Brewers are averaging 3-4 per year.

organizationHS players
draftedHS Players
signedBrewers3418Angels1413Rangers2210Cubs149Blue Jays158Astros127Padres117Reds127Royals117Braves76Giants106Guardians96Tigers116Dodgers95Mets95Orioles85Phillies65Pirates115Athletics74Yankees64Nationals73Rays63Red Sox103Twins52White Sox32Diamondbacks161Marlins41Cardinals40Mariners10Rockies10

The Brewers†strategy looks like it will pay off. Itâ€s not just that theyâ€re using these draft picks on high school players—itâ€s that they are acquiring underscouted, undercommitted players and getting them mostly for bonuses in the low-to-mid six figures.

Players The Brewers Have Hit On

Milwaukee has signed three of their best prospects using this unique draft approach:

playerstatecommittedyearroundbonusBishop Letson, RHPINPurdue202311$486,200Josh Adamczewski, 2B/OFINBall State202315$252,500Luke Adams, 1B/3BILMichigan State202212$282,500

Bishop Letson is Milwaukeeâ€s No. 5 prospect who reached Double-A as a 20-year-old. Josh Adamczewski is ranked ninth and had a strong Arizona Fall League campaign as one of the best pure hitters in the Brewers’ system. Luke Adams is just outside the top 10 and, while heâ€s a divisive prospect, he played in Double-A as a 21-year-old and has a case to fit into the 6-10 range on the Brewers’ list.

The Brewers didnâ€t technically draft righthander Ethan Dorchies in the 11-20 round range, but his signing fits with that same approach. Dorchies, who was an Illinois high school pitcher committed to Illinois-Chicago, went to Milwaukee in the 10th round and signed for just $162,500, which was under the $180,400 slot value for the pick. This year, Dorchies ranked as the No. 3 prospect in the Rookie-level Arizona Complex League as an up-arrow pitcher with a good mix of performance and projection indicators.Â

When the Brewers didnâ€t sign high school righthander Chris Levonas, their 2024 supplemental second-round pick, they pivoted to give $665,000 to 15th-round pick Jayden Dubanewicz, a Florida high school righthander committed to Florida, and $850,000 to 18th-rounder Tyler Renz, a New York high school righthander committed to St. Johnâ€s. While our Brewers Top 30 list for the Prospect Handbook isnâ€t finalized yet, both are candidates to make the cut based on how they pitched this year in their pro debuts.Â

For the most part, these players had a few things in common:

• They were not heavily recruited out of high school and were committed to colleges that are not the schools typically sweating out whether they are going to lose recruits to the draft.
• They were not widely scouted during their spring season. Letson, for example, ranked just outside the top 200 prospects in his draft year, while the rest were further under the radar and not priority names for teams to see, especially above the area scout level.Â
• They were all signable for under $1 million, and most could be had for under $500,000.Â

The players are also heavily concentrated in the Midwest, as area scout Ginger Poulson signed Letson, Adamczewski, Adams and Dorchies.

The Late-Round College Alternative

The Brewers are not the only team that has found quality high school prospects for mid six figures after the 10th round, but they are the only team that consistently tries to attack that group in the draft. League-wide, the best prospects from that crop since 2021 is Dodgers outfielder Zyhir Hope, an 11th-round pick of the Cubs in 2023 who signed for $400,000 out of a Virginia high school. Hope was a relatively later bloomer who committed to North Carolina his senior year and is now a Top 100 Prospect. The Orioles drafted Nate George, an Illinois high school outfielder committed to Northwest Florida JC, in the 16th round in 2024 and signed him for $455,000. George hit .337/.413/.483 split between three levels this year, which he finished in High-A Aberdeen, and is also now in the Top 100.

Rather than follow this approach to the draft, what most organizations do in rounds 11-20 is load up on college players, as teams have much greater certainty that they can sign those players compared to the high school prospects. But what value are teams getting from the college players theyâ€re drafting in rounds 11-20?

Since 2021, the player in that group who has accumulated the most WAR according to Baseball Reference, is infielder Caleb Durbin, a Braves 14th-round pick out of Washington University in 2021 who has been good for 2.8 wins (with the Brewers, incidentally). Yankees first baseman/catcher Ben Rice (12th round in 2021), Nationals righthander Brad Lord (18th round in 2022), Cardinals righthander Matt Svanson (13th round by the Blue Jays in 2021) have also all been great late-round college picks.Â

Mariners righthander Logan Evans (12th round in 2023) and Dodgers lefthander Justin Wroblewski (11th round in 2021) are trending that way, too. There are certainly going to be other current minor league prospects who will end up being big leaguers. And while they might not be prominent now, they could surprise us later on and, with hindsight, we will look back and realize they were underrated.Â

While there are other big leaguers who have come from these rounds since 2021, for the most part, itâ€s not a particularly inspiring group. Weâ€re talking more about useful big league pieces deeper down a major league roster than everyday position players or starting pitchers.

As it is, there isn’t one team that stands out for its skill in drafting late-round college players. The Padres got infielder Graham Pauley, righthander River Ryan and lefthander Alek Jacob to the big leagues. The Astros have done the same with outfielder Zach Dezenzo and infielders Chad Stevens and Will Wagner. Getting any college player drafted that late to the big leagues is a win, but so far, these are all peripheral parts on a major league roster.Â

This shouldnâ€t be surprising. Elite college players go off the board in the early rounds. By the third or fourth round, the next tier of college players are gone. By the sixth round of the draft this year, 25 of the 30 picks were college players. From the 7th to 10th rounds, itâ€s almost all college players teams are drafting.Â

Teams can still find good college talent in rounds 6-10. The Yankees certainly reaped the rewards of that this season with Cam Schlittler, whose stuff has transformed since signing as a seventh-round pick out of Northeastern in 2022 to become one of the gameâ€s best pitching prospects.Â

But by the time the draft moves past the 10th round, the available collegiate talent pool thins considerably. The college players still available in round 11 are leftovers. Consider that, in the 2025 draft, 247 of them were already picked over compared to just 64 high school players in the first 10 rounds. And with so many teams going college-heavy to fill out the second half of their draft, it only gets thinner from there.Â

Most of the college players in these rounds get drafted with a high probability of becoming organizational players. Whatâ€s the difference between the college player a team drafts in the 17th round and the college players they sign as an undrafted free agent? Itâ€s minimal, if anything. Yet, almost every team has spent the second half of their recent drafts focused on signable college players.

Every team but the Brewers.

Milwaukee, clearly, has taken a different approach. Drafting so many high school players in the later rounds does come with an opportunity cost, but how many great college players are available in that range anyway?

While the Brewers donâ€t have a ton of college talent to show for their 11-20 round picks since 2021, that might be changing. Righthander Tyson Hardin is the best one they’ve addeo. A 12th-round pick in 2024, Hardin was a shaky reliever at Mississippi State who is now the No. 3 pitching prospect in the organization after a strong season as a starting pitcher who reached Double-A. Righthander Brett Wichrowski, a 13th-rounder from Bryant in 2023, has flashed exciting stuff at times, reaching 100 mph with a good chance he ends up in a bullpen role. Righthander K.C. Hunt was an undrafted free agent out of Mississippi State in 2023 who was Milwaukeeâ€s co-Minor League Pitcher of the Year in 2024, though he wasnâ€t as sharp in 2025.Â

With the exception of center fielder Braylon Payne in 2024, the Brewers are typically a college-heavy team in the first round. They drafted catcher Marco Dinges in the fourth round out of Florida State that same year, and he has developed into one of their top 10 prospects after a big season at the plate. Theyâ€ve also found sneaky collegiate talent with a player like reliever Craig Yoho, who has one of the best changeups in the minors, posted a 0.94 ERA in 47.2 Triple-A innings this year and was a $10,000 signing as an eighth-rounder out of Indiana in 2023.

Why Doesn’t Everyone Just Copy The Brewers?

When the second half of the draft hits, the Brewers have shifted gears and are seeing promising returns on those high school prospects. That’s a major success for the organization, because, while the strategy sounds simple, it’s not as easy as just drafting a bunch of high school players the team likes in rounds 11-20 and hoping everything works out. Executing like the Brewers have takes planning and skill.

To successfully emulate the Brewers’ unique approach, an organization would have to:

1. Save money somewhere on bonuses in the first 10 rounds. In order to have enough pool space left to spend after the 10th round, there’s a lot of early-round strategy that has to be executed properly.
2. Get the signability right.There are plenty of high school players available after the 10th round that teams are high on, but thereâ€s little point in drafting them if they are only willing to sign for $1-2 million. A team canâ€t just draft any high school player it wants and hope theyâ€re willing to sign for what is offered. With this in mind, area scouts play a crucial role in helping to gauge signability, determining which players a team should spend its limited scouting time on during the spring and which players an organization should ultimately draft using this strategy.
3. Properly evaluate the players.The idea isnâ€t just to sign high school players for the sake of signing high school players. The goal is to find undervalued high school players who are willing to sign for moderate bonuses.Â

The Brewers did that again this year. In rounds 11-20, they drafted high school players with eight of their 10 picks, and the only players they signed from those rounds were high schoolers: Shortstop CJ Hughes ($700,000, UC Santa Barbara commit), righthanders Chase Bentley ($757,500, Texas A&M commit), Maâ€Kale Holden ($410,000, Alabama commit) and Luke Roupe ($225,000, South Carolina commit) and catcher Rylan Mills ($247,500, Southeast Missouri State commit).Â

Milwaukee’s willingness to keep betting on undervalued high school players has helped the organization exploit a draft inefficiency and given the Brewers a quiet edge in building one of the strongest farm systems in the game. With results that speak for themselves, it’s a blueprint other teams should consider adopting.

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