Brewers' homegrown success gives prospects something to dream on

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Nearly 2,200 miles away from Tropicana Field, where Brewers big leaguers streamed out of the dugout to celebrate the franchise’s first World Series championship, a handful of Minor League prospects huddled around a screen in the dugout at Scottsdale Stadium on Oct. 28 and kicked off their own celebration once they saw the 27th out of Game 5 of the World Series nestle into Jake Bauers’ mitt.

A season that began in the early months of 2026 with frosty mornings and warm afternoons on the fields of the club’s complex in west Phoenix culminated in a celebration for the ages. While the big league Brew Crew carried the trophy through the streets of Milwaukee in what “may have been the largest crowd for a single day event in state history,” members of the farm system have continued to grind in the desert in hopes of refining their skill sets enough to soon join them.

Rafael Neda has been at the helm of the Arizona Fall League’s Scottsdale Scorpions, home to nine Brewers prospects. Neda was drafted in the 10th round by Milwaukee out of the University of New Mexico in 2010 and spent six seasons playing in the Minors before turning his focus to coaching. He has served as a skipper for the club’s Rookie-level squad in Arizona since 2017, often the first stop stateside for players on their climb up the Minor League ladder.

“It’s special. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing,” Neda said. “I got to see [a lot of] those guys start their careers here, and then they continue to move up and they get to the Major Leagues and then they reach the ultimate peak, getting the World Series ring. That's what we want as coaches, as managers, to get there. And not just get there and get that ring for the org, but also for the whole state of Wisconsin and [the city] of Milwaukee.”

The Brewers boasted more homegrown talent than any other National League playoff team in 2026. Eleven of the 26 players on the World Series roster were either drafted by the club or signed as an international free agent, with three junior college finds – Jacob Misiorowski, Aaron Ashby and Logan Henderson – playing key roles in helping bring the title home.

But no player had a more precipitous rise from Brewers draftee to World Series hero than shortstop Cooper Pratt. Whereas there’s the six degrees of Kevin Bacon, there’s an even higher number of connections between the 22-year-old and members of the club’s Minor League system: Pratt played with seven of the club’s nine representatives in the Fall League at some point, including being roommates with Eric Bitonti (Brewers' No. 26 prospect) after the two were drafted out of the high school ranks in 2023.

“It's awesome to see someone you're pretty close to off the field go out and do that,” Bitonti said of Pratt’s history-making World Series performance. “Pretty special.”

“It's not surprising,” catcher Matthew Wood added. “I mean, playing with him last year [with Double-A Biloxi], you just see the talent, it's unbelievable. Just the instincts, it's something you can't teach. You just knew that when he got the call, he was gonna be ready and he did his thing.”

The abundance of young talent pushing toward Milwaukee isn’t slowing down any time soon. MLB’s No. 1 prospect Jesús Made is knocking on the door of American Family Field and there are four other hitters ranked among the Top 100 overall. All told, the organization ranked third in MLB Pipeline’s in-season farm-system rankings for its all-around depth.

“All of us want to get to the big leagues at some point, it's kind of the big goal to get there,” said Jett Williams, the club’s No. 10 prospect who was acquired in January in the Freddy Peralta trade with New York. “Obviously we all want to win a World Series, and it’s a lot [easier] said than done, but I think it's just special being able to be traded over here with such a special group. Not only is the front office great, just all the coaching staff and everybody that dedicates their time and energy to not only the big league team, but I mean us in Spring Training and reaching out to everybody – I think it's pretty special.”