Six players saw time in the outfield during the Brewers’ Cactus League opener on Saturday and several more made their spring debuts out there on Sunday, but a player representing one of the 2026 team’s biggest variables has yet to take the field.
The Brewers drafted outfielder Garrett Mitchell with the 20th overall pick in the 2020 draft and he immediately became one of the sport’s top prospects, with both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline putting him in their respective top 100 lists before the 2021 season. He’s a career .276 hitter with a .381 on-base percentage and .426 slugging in the minors but he didn’t stay there long, making his MLB debut in 2022.
On the field that success largely carried over to the majors, where he’s carried a .766 on base plus slugging and been an above average defender in center field across parts of four MLB seasons. “Parts” is the key word there, however, as across five professional seasons to date Mitchell has played in just 64, 96, 27, 69 and 29 regular season games. Over that time, he’s missed games with a knee injury, an oblique injury, a shoulder injury, a finger injury and, in 2025, a recurrence of the oblique injury and a second shoulder injury requiring surgery.
Feeling the Absence
In 2025 the Brewers felt Mitchell’s absence in particular: With both Mitchell and Blake Perkins often unavailable the Brewers spent most of the season with Jackson Chourio moved over from a corner spot to center, and his hamstring injury became a recurring storyline during the season’s second half and playoffs. If Mitchell is healthy for even a majority of the 2026 season then he and Blake Perkins should be able to handle most of the playing time over there and Chourio (and Sal Frelick) should be able to stick to the corners. Having three players capable of playing center in the same outfield could give the Brewers one of the game’s best defensive units out there and protect Frelick and Chourio from the offensive impacts of playing center field.
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Meanwhile, Mitchell’s combination of potential and struggles staying on the field complicate the Brewers’ decision making process as well. By Baseball Reference’s estimation Mitchell has been worth about 3.6 Wins Above Replacement across 141 career MLB games, which would be star-level numbers if they had come in a single season. He’s accumulated those games across four years, however, and players still accumulate MLB service time while on the injured list. Mitchell is already in his first of three arbitration-eligible MLB seasons despite having played less than one full season of games. He’s clearly too talented to let go but he’s also not durable enough for the Brewers to count on. In the meantime, keeping him on the roster makes it a step more difficult for the Brewers to maintain organizational depth at a time when they also have Frelick, Chourio, Perkins, Christian Yelich, Brandon Lockridge and offseason signing Akil Baddoo in camp.
The Brewers have exceeded expectations in each of the last several seasons and they’ll need to do so again if they’re going to compete for their eighth postseason appearance in nine seasons. One of the ways they’ve done that in the past is by getting “best case outcomes” out of players who were previously overlooked or undervalued. If he’s healthy then it’s not hard to picture Mitchell having a big season and being a big part of the reason they’re able to contend once again. After four consecutive seasons of injuries, however, Mitchell really needs a full and productive season to demonstrate that he can still be relied upon to reach his lofty potential.
Kyle Lobner covers the Milwaukee Brewers in the Shepherd Express’ weekly On Deck Circle column. He has written about the Brewers and Minor League Baseball since 2008.
Feb. 23, 2026
3:59 p.m.