
The Milwaukee Brewers came into the offseason with a very aggressive plan, but it's not the typical aggressive plan that you'll see from a team that just posted the best regular season in baseball.
Instead of buying, the Brewers opted to trade players like Caleb Durbin and Isaac Collins to acquire more talent to build out the roster. They also sent Freddy Peralta to the New York Mets in a blockbuster deal that a lot of people seen coming. In return, the Brewers landed prospects Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams to help build their future. And it already seems like this was a good deal.
Jim Bowden of The Athletic recently shared a lot of high praise for Sproat and suggested that he was turning heads in the best way possible this spring, which is exactly what the Brewers need after losing Peralta.
"Sproat was one of the prospects the Brewers received from the Mets in the Freddy Peralta deal," Bowden wrote. "The Mets’ 2022 third-round pick had a 4.24 ERA with 113 strikeouts in 121 Triple-A innings. He made four starts for the Mets, putting up a 4.79 ERA over 20 2/3 innings.
"Sproat’s four-seam fastball is mostly 95-97 but can get to 99. He throws a lot of sinkers to right-handed hitters and has an effective hard sweeper that’s in the mid-80s. He has a hard slider and changeup, as well, and needs work on velocity variations with all his pitches. He profiles as a mid-rotation starter when fully developed."
Sproat came to the Brewers with a lot of buzz around him. He's been a highly touted prospect for a while, but being the headlining pitcher in a deal for Peralta will put more weight
This spring, Sproat's numbers don't look overwhelming. He's tossed nine innings and surrendered 10 hits and five earned runs.
But he's not giving up a slew of hard contact, and the sample size is too small to draw big conclusions from. He's only walked two batters while striking out 10, which would give him an elite 5 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio, which is still in a short sample size, but it's promising.
Sproat's stuff has looked good. His command has been there. It's unclear if he'll make the opening day roster in Milwaukee, but the young righty certainly has a bright future with the team.
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