Brewers sign first-round pick Mitchell
In what has been a year of mostly bad news for Major League Baseball, it’s still a big deal for a team when it signs its first-round draft pick. Even in a crazy year in which there were only five rounds in the draft.
Accordingly, the Milwaukee Brewers were pleased to announce Wednesday they had come to terms with Garrett Mitchell, a speedy centerfielder from UCLA taken with the 20th pick of the draft. Mitchell came to Milwaukee for the requisite physical exam, completing the deal.
The Brewers never announce signing bonuses, but Mitchell was believed to have signed at or near the MLB-assigned figure for that slot, which is $3,242,900. The club already had signed its other four picks, so Mitchell completed the five-player class.
Mitchell has played with Type 1 diabetes since elementary school but that did not stop him from becoming one of the top collegiate performers. He was projected to go earlier in the first round and the Brewers, who have scouted him for many years, wasted no time in calling his name at No. 20.
Keston Hiura, the Brewers’ firstround pick in 2017 out of UC-Irvine, is familiar with Mitchell and said the Brewers got a good one.
“I played against him, actually,” Hiura said. “West Coast kid, that definitely plays a big factor in it. With him, (2018 first-rounder Brice) Turang and myself, there’s been a lot of players who have come out of California to the Brewers.
“You see (Ryan) Braun and ‘Yeli’ (Christian Yelich) and some other players on our team with that California residency, so I think it’s always cool to get a player from that area. Especially from a powerhouse like UCLA, which I played against all through college. I know what type of players they can produce. It was definitely exciting to have that addition to the organization.”
Mitchell, 21, a left-handed hitter, was drafted by the Oakland Athletics in the 14th round in 2017 out of Orange (California) Lutheran High School but chose to attend UCLA, where he developed into a star centerfielder. He led the nation with 12 triples during a breakout sophomore season and went on to bat .349 that year with a .418 on-base percentage and .566 slugging percentage.
Mitchell was batting .355/.425/.482 in 62 at-bats in the spring when the rest of the Bruins’ season was halted by the
COVID-19 pandemic.
After the Brewers selected Mitchell, vice president of domestic scouting Tod Johnson said, “He’s an athletic player. He’s a top-of-the-scale runner. He’s a really good centerfielder. At the plate, he is developing power and I think there’s a lot of power in there, actually. His raw power is really good.
“Even if he never becomes a big power guy, he’s an ‘A’ runner and good centerfielder who can also get on base and has show the ability to hit for average and maintain a good on-base percentage.”
The Brewers’ picks from the second round through the fifth were Miami shortstop Freddy Zamora, Central Michigan catcher/infielder Zavier Warren, Cincinnati outfielder Joey Wiemer and Louisiana-Lafayette shortstop Hayden Cantrelle.