Two of the Brewers' top prospects, Joey Wiemer and Sal Frelick, will start the season at Nashville
PHOENIX – One of the Milwaukee Brewers' top prospects, Brice Turang, made the opening day roster, but a high-profile pair of outfielders will have to wait a little longer for their big-league debuts.
The possibility of outfielders Joey Wiemer and Sal Frelick joining fellow rookies Turang and starting center fielder Garrett Mitchell on the opening day roster was squashed Monday when the Brewers reassigned Wiemer and Frelick to minor-league camp as the team finalized its position-player group for opening day Thursday in Chicago.
Frelick, the Journal Sentinel's No. 2 Brewers prospect, and Wiemer, the No. 3-ranked prospect, will begin the season in Class AAA Nashville, where they finished the 2022 season.
Frelick is coming off a dominant 2022 campaign in which he batted .331/.403/.480 across three levels and played his best against the highest competition level in Nashville.
"Sal's goal now is force your way on the team," Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. "I think he can do that. We want him to just try to force his way out onto the team."
Said general manager Matt Arnold: "This is a guy who has an enormous ceiling. We’ve seen the excitement that guy generates. I think he’s got a chance to be great. A lot of the factor there, honestly, is that he’s left-handed and with our bats, we have a lot of left-handed bats already. He’s certainly a good one, but giving him a chance to play every day is something that we value."
Wiemer will also get a chance to play every day at Nashville, where he raked in a two-month stint last season. The 24-year-old slashed .287/.368/.520 in 43 games at the level, hitting six homers while also drastically reducing his strikeouts.
Wiemer will finish the spring among the team's leaders in games and plate appearances in Cactus League play. The Brewers gave him a lengthy look to make the opening day roster following Tyrone Taylor's injury but ultimately decided to go with the versatility of Owen Miller and power bat of Luke Voit for roster spots that could have potentially gone to Wiemer.
Counsell's message to Wiemer was the same as it was to Frelick.
"I don’t know if we saw Joey kind of on-the-radar to start the spring," Counsell said. "(It was) just have a good camp, learn some things. I think Joey, because of some injuries and how Joey played, he put himself into the conversation. In the end, it’s kind of the same for both (Wiemer and Frelick). The message is go to Triple-A and force your way onto the big-league team. Which they can. They can both do that."
Frelick had a double among his 10 hits in 26 spring-training at-bats (in addition to a stint with Team Italy in the World Baseball Classic), and Wiemer battled 11 for 42 with a double, two homers and three stolen bases. Wiemer's right-handendess seemed to give him a leg up for a roster spot over Frelick, with what looked like an opening in right field after the club informed Tyler Naquin that he wouldn't make the opening day roster.
Rockies 12, Brewers 8
The penultimate game of spring training proved to be the slowest one yet as the Rockies downed the Brewers in a 3 hour, 30 minute slugfest Monday at American Family Fields of Phoenix.
Eric Lauer capped his spring with a 11.57 earned run average after allowing five runs on nine hits in four innings.
A pair of opening day roster relievers, Bryse Wilson and Javy Guerra, struggled. Wilson allowed four runs in his inning of work while Guerra gave up three runs and recorded two outs.
William Contreras hit his first two homers of the spring, both opposite-field three-run blasts.
"A couple no-doubters is fun to see," Counsell said. "Getting his swing, that's his swing. That's where his swing works best. The ball jumps off his bat when he does it right."
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers prospects Sal Frelick and Joey Wiemer to start 2022 in minors
