{"id":785003,"date":"2026-07-07T15:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T15:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/785003\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T15:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T15:00:13","slug":"brewers-weighing-promotion-for-top-prospect-luis-lara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/785003\/","title":{"rendered":"Brewers Weighing Promotion For Top Prospect Luis Lara"},"content":{"rendered":"

9:33am: McCalvy reports<\/a> that a Lara promotion hasn\u2019t been officially settled on just yet. The Brewers are awaiting results on Hamilton\u2019s MRI before making a final decision. There are \u201cseveral players in motion this morning,\u201d McCalvy adds, suggesting a series of possible moves ahead of today\u2019s twin bill with the Cardinals.<\/p>\n

8:22am: The Brewers are calling up top prospect Luis Lara<\/a>, reports Daniel Alvarez Montes of El Extra Base<\/a>. Milwaukee recently extended Lara on a seven-year, $31MM deal<\/a> before he even made his big league debut. The 21-year-old outfielder was formally selected to the 40-man roster and optioned upon signing that deal. He\u2019ll now be recalled for his big league debut. The Brewers will need to open an active roster spot to accommodate him. Manager Pat Murphy suggested last night that infielder David Hamilton<\/a> could be IL-bound (via MLB.com\u2019s Adam McCalvy<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Despite his youth, Lara has laid waste to Triple-A pitching this season. The Venezuelan-born speedster is hitting .321\/.432\/.470 with nine home runs, 10 doubles, three triples, 24 stolen bases (in 31 tries), and more walks (15.6%) than strikeouts (13.9%).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Baseball America currently ranks Lara as the game\u2019s No. 47 overall prospect. He\u2019s 67th at MLB.com. Scouting reports will often list concerns surrounding Lara\u2019s 5\u20197\u2033 frame, but he\u2019s touted as a plus-plus runner and center field defender with above-average bat-to-ball skills and good strike zone knowledge. Lara hasn\u2019t hit for much power in the past, but he\u2019s cut back his ground-ball rate by a few percentage points this season (48.1%) and has already connected on a career-high nine home runs. For a player who entered the season with only 10 professional homers, dating back to his 2022 debut in pro ball, that\u2019s a significant development.<\/p>\n

Lara\u2019s speed, defense, contact skills and plate discipline already gave him a high floor. If he can sustain his more recent power gains, there\u2019s star potential for the young switch-hitter.<\/p>\n

The exact role for Lara remains to be seen. He\u2019s played exclusively in the outfield in his professional career, and the Brewers\u2019 big league trio of Jackson Chourio<\/a>, Garrett Mitchell<\/a> and Sal Frelick<\/a> have all provided value to the club.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019ll simply be a quick one-day addition as the Brewers\u2019 27th man for today\u2019s doubleheader. It\u2019s always possible there\u2019s a yet-unknown injury within that outfield trio and that the Brewers will need to replace both an outfielder and Hamilton. More speculatively, Milwaukee has tinkered with the possibility of getting Frelick some looks at third base in the past. He\u2019s an elite right field defender, but Brewers brass may feel that replacing him with another elite glove, Lara, makes the Frelick-to-third-base experiment easier to try out on the fly. Frelick has played five major league innings at the position and has worked out as an infielder during spring training in the past.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old Hamilton exited last night\u2019s game due to a hamstring issue. He\u2019s appeared in 74 games this year and posted a .240\/.317\/.333 batting line in 238 trips to the plate. Hamilton has three homers and has swiped 18 bases in 23 attempts. The Brewers have shuffled him around the infield this season, but he\u2019s been splitting time at third base with Joey Ortiz<\/a> since Milwaukee called up shortstop Cooper Pratt<\/a> \u2014 another top prospect they extended before a single game in the majors \u2014 to take over at shortstop.<\/p>\n

Hamilton has graded out particularly well at the hot corner, as has Ortiz. Neither one brings much of anything to the table offensively, however, and Pratt has struggled quite a bit at the plate himself. Even if the plan is actually to try Frelick at the hot corner with Lara taking an outfield spot, Frelick is having a down season (.242\/.311\/.332) on the heels of last year\u2019s breakout performance (.288\/.351\/.405). Regardless of how long Hamilton is shelved and how long Lara is in the big leagues, one would imagine the Milwaukee front office will be exploring the market for some upgrades on the left side of the infield over the next four weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"9:33am: McCalvy reports that a Lara promotion hasn\u2019t been officially settled on just yet. The Brewers are awaiting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,64939,351931,591,126199,85],"class_list":["post-785003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-david-hamilton","tag-luis-lara","tag-mlb","tag-sal-frelick","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}