Here are 7 lesser-known Milwaukee Brewers pitching prospects who could make a big impact down the road

The Milwaukee Brewers' farm system is as good as it's been in a while, and it's as much due to the depth of the system as it is about the top-end prospects.

Much of that depth now comes on the pitching side for the Brewers, who have had a system heavy on position-player strength in the past couple of years. You likely already know the names Jacob Misiorowski, Robert Gasser and Josh Knoth if you follow the Brewers closely, but here are seven other pitchers you won't find near the top of any major prospect lists that have tantalizing potential for Milwaukee.

Brett Wichrowski

A 13th-round draft pick last summer out of a mid-major Division I program, it would be easy to see Wichrowski as an afterthought of a draft pick who’s most likely to spend his minor-league career as a roster filler.

Watch him pitch one time and you quickly see that isn’t the case.

The “kitchen sink” is often used to describe pitchers with deep arsenals but who aren’t overpowering. Wichrowski throws the kitchen sink at batters, except this sink hasn’t been scrubbed in a few weeks. It’s nasty.

Wichrowski throws two distinct sliders, each with a unique shape and velocity. One is an 86-mph wipeout slider that still gets decent vertical movement despite the velocity, the other is a high-70s breaker that’s more of a sweeper.

He throws his four-seam fastball regularly in the 95- to 97-mph range and popped a few 99s during spring training with the big-league club. He also features a heavily moving two seamer thrown a bit slower.

The command of both breaking balls is solid, though there is reason to wonder what his go-to pitch against left-handed hitters will be. There’s a changeup in there, but it needs refinement. Though with at least five pitches to use, Wichrowski has room to experiment against lefties.

Wichrowski was promoted to Class AA Biloxi after just four career minor-league starts at Class A Wisconsin.

Tyler Woessner

Also in the category of guys that throw a deep arsenal of pitchers is Woessner, who throws up to six pitches, including a fastball that he can reach back and throw 97 or 98 mph in shorter stints.

Woessner, a junior-college product from Central Arizona College who was taken in the sixth round by Milwaukee in 2022, pitched fairly well in his first full pro season with a 4.02 earned-run average in 24 games and 22 starts but the swinging strike (10.3% of all pitches) and strikeout numbers (8.3 per nine innings) didn’t always match the velocity and movement his pitches generate.

This year at Biloxi, Woessner has 21 strikeouts in 15 innings to go with a 17% swinging strike rate. He was promoted to Class AAA, where he was scheduled to start Thursday.

His slider continues to be a potential plus offering that generates whiffs, especially paired with a slower curveball.

Justin King

One of the Brewers’ latest signings out of independent ball, King was signed in 2022 after just five outings in the Frontier League. The 6-foot-1 lefty looks like he’s almost slingshotting the ball toward home with a long arm path, circling the ball behind his body before whipping it forward.

King gets lots of uncomfortable swings against his fastball, which is his best pitch. He can get it up to 95 mph and it has insane carry, generating over 20 inches of induced vertical break, which is elite.

So far he has a 4.09 ERA through two-plus minor league seasons, striking out 73 in 42⅔ innings. That’s a whopping 15.1 strikeouts per nine innings. The issue, as you might expect given a relatively pedestrian ERA despite insane strikeout numbers, is the command. King has walked 6.3 per nine. The walks make for a big question mark considering he's already in relief and 26 years old, but the underlying arsenal is worth waiting it out.

Ryan Birchard

In a crowded 2023 draft for the Brewers, Birchard’s name still popped as a fifth-round pick despite being from little-known Niagara Community College in Sanborn, New York, a tiny town of 1,500 people. The upstate New York kid has elite fastball traits, though, getting plus vertical movement by staying behind the baseball to get that late rise. It’s not uncommon to see batters swing under it in hitters counts when they’re expecting it.

Birchard also has a feel for his curveball, a slow spinner that gets 11-to-5 movement.

There are wonders of how his armside command will progress, as Birchard has an aggressive, over-the-top delivery where he falls off toward first base. He walked 19 in 38⅓ innings last year in junior-college ball.

He is currently dealing with an oblique issue and has made only one start this year.

Craig Yoho

Yoho is arguably the most fun pitcher to watch in the Brewers minor leagues right now, and it’s largely because of his similarity to current big-league closer Devin Williams. Of course, whether Yoho even develops into a reliable reliever at the MLB level is to be seen but he throws the closest thing to Williams’ “Airbender” changeup that the system has seen since the two-time National League reliever of the year came up the ranks.

Yoho, an eighth-round pick out of Indiana last summer, gets crazy movement both vertically and horizontally with the changeup, which has made it unhittable at the minor-league level.

Yoho already is 24 and has been too dominant for Class A Wisconsin, where he currently is. He struck out 15 and walked one through his first seven outings while running up a ridiculous 49% called+swinging strike percentage.

Yoho has a deeper arsenal than just the changeup, too, with a 91-93 mph two-seamer that gets more horizontal run than sink, a 86-88 mph gloveside breaker, a high-70s slider and a slower, mid-70s curve that has great depth.

Bishop Letson

Letson was the embodiment of scouting projection when the Brewers took him in the 11th round last summer out of high school in Indiana and signed him to a well-over-slot bonus of $486,200. The lanky right-hander is starting to show early returns on that potential, elevating his maximum fastball velocity from the low to high 90s while sitting around 93-94 mph.

In a limited workload, Letson has allowed one earned run in 8⅔ innings while striking out 11.

Yorman Galindez

Galindez has a chance to be the pop-up pitching prospect of the year for the Brewers. Look no further than the numbers in his April 21 start for Class A Carolina: 14 whiffs and 14 called strikes on 58 pitches and a truly absurd 56% whiff rate.

Galindez accomplishes these types of numbers by pitching backward, starting off with his nasty 12-6 curve that he’s able to pound in the strike zone. He also has a slider that generates the necessary east-west movement to play off the curve, and his fastball that can reach 95 mph and sits 91-93 seems to come in at a difficult angle for hitters.

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In 31 innings at Class A between the end of 2023 and start of this year, Galindez has a 1.74 ERA with 44 strikeouts to 14 walks and a 0.968 WHIP.

So far in the 2024 season, Galindez has gotten called or swinging strikes on 38% of pitches.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 7 Brewers pitching prospects who could make future impact