The Brewers’ 2018 draft class has already paid off in a big way, and the strange thing is that the story still isn’t finished. Even after the 2026 MLB Draft has come and gone, Milwaukee’s haul from that year keeps sending value back into the organization through players, trades and compensation picks.
At the top of the list sits a tie between IF Brice Turang and RHP Drew Rasmussen. Turang has become the obvious headliner.
His defense has been a difference-maker, his work on the bases has added another layer, and since 2025 his bat has taken another step forward. The result is a player who has a credible case as the best second baseman in Milwaukee Brewers history, and maybe the best second baseman in MLB right now.
Rasmussen’s Brewers impact came in a much different way, but it was still massive. He only made 27 appearances on the mound for Milwaukee, yet his value kept echoing through the roster.
In May 2021, he was one of two pitchers sent to the Tampa Bay Rays in the deal that brought back Trevor Richards and shortstop Willy Adames. By the time Adames left as a free agent after the 2024 season, he had established himself as one of the Brewers’ all-time great shortstops, trailing only Robin Yount.
And there’s another layer to the Rasmussen story: he had originally been a 2017 first-round pick by the Rays, who chose not to sign him. Tampa Bay eventually got him anyway, but only after giving up an All-Star-caliber shortstop to do it.
That move also helped Milwaukee in another way, since Adames’ departure brought a compensation pick, and shortstop Brady Ebel has looked very impressive in his first full professional season.
Aaron Ashby deserves a mention, too. He’s become an important piece of the Brewers’ bullpen, even with his contract set to jump to $7.7 million in 2027, followed by $9-million and $13-million team options.
Injuries knocked him off the starting path, but Milwaukee still has a top-end reliever who can soak up innings and clean up messes for a team that keeps contending. There’s even a chance he could bring back a solid trade return if the Brewers decide to move him.
Not every part of the class worked out cleanly, of course. David Fry and Reese Olson are the ones that got away.
Fry, a right-handed bat with some positional flexibility, was sent to Cleveland in March 2022 to finish an earlier trade for J.C. Mejia.
Mejia gave Milwaukee only around a dozen innings across 2022 and 2023, and Fry has since become the kind of bench piece the Brewers could have used. He has also been injury-wrecked and inconsistent at the plate since a brief star turn in October 2024.
Olson’s path was different, but the result is similar. He was traded for lefty reliever Daniel Norris, who didn’t work out for Milwaukee.
Olson has been a useful back-of-the-rotation arm for the Tigers at times, though he’s currently on the 60-day injured list. He may have helped the Brewers preserve both prospect capital and a competitive-balance pick in early 2025, but he’s not exactly a star or a model of durability, and teams do have to give something up when they try to strengthen playoff pitching staffs.
There’s also still a possible late dividend from Clayton Andrews. He was one of the author’s personal cheeseballs, and in 2019 he even had a two-way run for the Advanced-A Carolina Mudcats and Double-A Biloxi Shuckers, including 16 starts in center field.
He only logged four games and 3 1/3 innings on the mound, but he still ended up helping the Brewers indirectly. Milwaukee traded him to the Yankees in 2024 for Joshua Quezada, a 22-year-old right-hander who has been piling up strikeouts and could become useful bullpen depth later on.
Quezada has spent most of the season in Low A, so there’s no reason to get carried away, but the Brewers have a knack for squeezing value out of moves like that.
All told, this class earns a B+. Turang and Rasmussen alone make it a success, Ashby adds more weight, and the draft’s influence has continued to branch out even with Joe Gray and Micah Bello flaming out and the Fry and Olson trades not delivering the immediate help Milwaukee wanted.
The class has already mattered plenty for recent Brewers teams, and it may not be done producing value yet. Turang could sign an extension and stay, but the more likely outcome is that he’s traded in a couple of years.
If that happens, it would just create another branch on a tree that keeps bearing fruit.
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