Brewers outfielder Garrett Mitchell began a rehab assignment with the team’s Arizona Complex League affiliate tonight, tweets Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. It’s the 25-year-old’s first official game action of the 2024 season and opens a 20-day window for his return to the major league roster.
Mitchell broke his left hand late in Spring Training and has been shelved all season. It’s his second consecutive year with a notable early-season injury. The UCLA product missed the vast majority of the 2023 campaign after sustaining a left shoulder subluxation that required surgery. He was out between mid-April and the end of September, only returning for three games at the tail end of the season. Milwaukee left him off their playoff roster, presumably because of concern he’d be rusty after the extended layoff.
After a normal offseason, Mitchell entered camp as the likeliest option to take the center field job. Milwaukee moved Jackson Chourio to the corners and at least considered giving Sal Frelick run at third base. It might be tougher for Mitchell to crack the everyday lineup now.
Frelick has played all of four regular season innings at the hot corner, where Joey Ortiz has established himself as a productive player. Frelick is hitting at a league average level (.254/.333/.328) while playing all three outfield spots. Blake Perkins has earned the majority of the center field work by playing plus defense while turning in a solid .254/.327/.386 slash line over 211 plate appearances. Christian Yelich is having a fantastic season in left field.
Short of optioning Chourio, the Brewers could be hard-pressed to open everyday at-bats in the outfield. The 20-year-old has had a rocky first couple months in the big leagues, hitting .220/.263/.363 over 195 plate appearances. Owner Mark Attanasio nevertheless shot down the idea of demoting Chourio to the minors a couple weeks ago. “I don’t see where he’s going to learn anything at Triple-A,” the owner told reporters in late May (link via MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy).
Mitchell is more than five years Chourio’s senior, but he’s perhaps even less established at the MLB level. Thanks to his background as a college draftee and the recent injuries, Mitchell only has 141 big league plate appearances under his belt. His .278/.343/.452 slash line is well above-average, but that’s driven by a .441 batting average on balls in play. While Mitchell’s speed and all-fields approach should translate to a high BABIP, a .441 mark is essentially impossible for any hitter to maintain. He’ll need to cut down on his 38.3% career strikeout rate to compensate for that forthcoming batted ball regression.
In less promising injury news, manager Pat Murphy told reporters this evening that starter Joe Ross had a setback in his recovery from a lower back strain (X link via Todd Rosiak of the Journal-Sentinel). Murphy didn’t provide specifics beyond noting that the right-hander won’t be ready to return next week as initially hoped. Ross has been out since May 21. He made nine starts before hitting the IL, turning in a 4.50 ERA over 42 innings.
