NASHVILLE – The Milwaukee Brewers have one of the best farm systems in baseball, if not the best, and the last stop on the road to Milwaukee is First Horizon Park.
It’s where you’ll find the Nashville Sounds, the Class AAA affiliate of the Brewers and an organization that’s been linked to the Brewers for 16 seasons over two tenures.
It’s a young roster, with only three active players at 30 years old or older (as of Aug. 14), not counting rehabbing Joel Kuhnel. If you’re looking for a reservoir of veterans still holding on, this isn’t the place.
But there’s still a range of players at different stages of their career.
“My job is to get guys ready to play for Pat Murphy,” Sounds manager Rick Sweet said of the Brewers’ skipper. “When I worked for the Padres, it was Bruce Bochy. Reds, it was Dusty Baker. My job is to emulate them, the way they manage and run their club and do the same thing here. My biggest thing is to get guys ready to go up there and help that big-league club win. That’s all I focus on, all I talk about. When they go up there, they don’t miss a beat.”
Here’s a sampling of the type of player you’ll meet in Nashville:
A top-hitting prospect: Luke Adams
The Punt, Pass & Kick titles just kept piling up for Illinois native Luke Adams – and that makes sense. He was a football player through and through.
For seven straight years, Adams got to showcase his talents at Soldier Field, home of his beloved Chicago Bears after winning his sectional age group in the now-defunct youth skills competition.
He said he wanted to play college football until his sophomore year, when COVID-19 happened, and then he felt he had to choose between football and baseball.
He was a 12th-round pick by the Brewers in 2022, and the decision to sign came down to the wire.
“I ended up being the last guy in our class to sign,” Adams said. “That deadline on a Sunday, I had to make a decision. I think it was by 1 p.m. It was Saturday night and I still had no idea what I was going to do. I just kept praying about it. It was something where in the offseason, I could go to football games with my dad, spend more time with my family and I just ended up choosing that.”
With a .906 OPS (on-base plus slugging) in Nashville and .951 OPS this season between two levels, Adams has been a force. He has 13 home runs with the Sounds. The Hinsdale, Illinois, native is regarded as the No. 13 prospect in the organization by MLB Pipeline.
He has played both corner infield spots, progressively more at first base than third base, but he could man the hot corner – a spot the Brewers have struggled to fill with a power bat.
“He’s a hot and cold guy,” Sweet said. “When he’s hot, wow. When he gets cold, what we’re doing is shortening those periods right now. He just finished having a short three- to four-game period where he struggled a little bit, and he got out of it really quick.”
Adams has the patience the Brewers value, with a .407 on-base mark this season actually representing his lowest in pro baseball. He’s been hit by a pitch an astounding 107 times in his pro career, including 20 times this year. He doesn’t recall that being a regular staple of his game in high school.
“It’s just one of those things when they start hitting you, they keep finding you,” he said.
It isn’t a hit-by-pitch that put him back on the injured list Aug. 13, though; he tweaked his back during warmups two days earlier. Once he’s back, what’s Triple-A like for the 6-foot-4, 22-year-old, knowing he’s one call away?
“You’ve got to stay where your feet are at,” Adams said. “If that ever happens, amazing, but if not, you’ve got to perform for your team, play for your guys here, just have fun and play with joy that comes from the Lord every day.”
A top pitching prospect: Tyson Hardin
The Brewers organization is awash in talented position prospects and it has a knack for developing pitchers quickly at the big-league level. What the system doesn’t have is an extensive list of top-ranked pitching prospects in the upper reaches of the minors.
Tyson Hardin stands out in that regard – a 24-year-old 12th-round pick who built himself into one of the organization’s top arms.
“I think it’s just belief in myself and what the Brewers instilled, beating it into my brain that I have good stuff and I just need to throw it over the plate and trust it,” Hardin said.
“Success helps that. Obviously in college, I struggled to find the zone but I was really a one-pitch guy. Coming into that first year, they helped me redefine my arsenal a little bit and really sat down with me and showed me my stuff does play. I just have to throw it over the plate.”
At Mississippi State, Hardin walked 23 batters in 36 innings his final year in 2024. But in 2025 with the Brewers, he transformed into one of the best strike throwers in pro baseball, allowing just 17 walks in 96 innings between Class High A Wisconsin and Class AA Biloxi. He finished the year with a 2.72 ERA and 96 strikeouts in exactly 96 innings.
It’s been a bit rockier in 2026 between Biloxi (seven starts) and Nashville (15), though his walk rate (33 in 101 innings) remains strong and he still strikes out one batter per inning. He has a 5.88 ERA overall, with a 5.15 mark in AAA.
“I think I’ve made some big strides,” he said. “[Developing my] changeup, learning my arsenal even more, learning how to be a starter. I think this year has been good to me.”
He says that even though he’s faced some adversity, allowing 17 earned runs in his last 9⅔ innings over his past three starts (as of Aug. 15), with 23 hits in that stretch.
“Right now, I’m in a little bit of a rough patch,” he said. “They’re going to come in my career always. They come for everybody. It’s just learning how to make them last as short as possible.
“Obviously last year, didn’t really have any bumps in the road. This year, it’s been good to go out there and kind of get beat up a little bit and figure out how to get over that and get better hitters out.”
He’s now throwing a four-seam fastball, cutter, sweeper, changeup and sinker.
“The first two or three games were tremendous,” Sweet said. “The league found out a couple things about him, I think. [Aug. 11], he was much better again, he was back on track.
“This level will test you. I’ve had all these young guys come to me. A-Ball to Double-A was a little different, but Double-A to here is a lot different, and they find it. It’s a big jump to the big leagues, too, but if we prepare them right here, that’s my job, it’s less of a hardship when they go to the big leagues.”
Hardin’s on a staff with pitchers like Coleman Crow, Brandon Sproat, Colton Gordon and Garrett Stallings, all of whom get a leg up by already being on the 40-man roster. But Hardin now finds himself at No. 8 in the MLB Pipeline organizational rankings and No. 9 in Baseball America’s, making him the top pitcher who hasn’t yet graduated from “prospect” status.
“I always say to the buddies, ‘You’re in the prospect rankings but we don’t want to be prospects. We want to be big-leaguers. So you just keep your head down and keep working,'” Hardin said.
A big-leaguer with something still to give: Akil Baddoo
Akil Baddoo still has the baseballs from his first three Major League Baseball games, the remnants of one of the more memorable starts in recent history.
A Rule 5 pick, Baddoo made the jump from Class High A and came out swinging for the Detroit Tigers. He homered on the very first pitch he saw in the big leagues April 4, 2021. He hit a grand slam in his second game. The Tigers lost both of those games, but not the third one … because Baddoo hit a walk-off single in extra innings.
“Coming from High A to the big leagues and making a spark right from the beginning, it was very special and cool to do it in front of my family,” Baddoo said. “Something I’ll never forget. It was such a beautiful moment. It was kind of surreal, honestly.”
Baddoo found he had to change the handle on his UberEats account, which had previously simply been under his distinct name.
“[The drivers] would see the name and definitely ask for pictures after they dropped off my food, which would be kind of a lot sometimes when I’m looking like a hot mess with my tank top on.”
Baddoo has played 347 big-league games, all with the Tigers, but he wasn’t able to get the permanent foothold. He has a career .674 OPS at the big-league level, with 28 homers and 43 stolen bases. In the offseason, he got a fresh start signing with the Brewers.
“It was a great opportunity to play for arguably one of the best managers in Pat Murphy, in all of baseball,” Baddoo said. “It’s a winning culture. They’ve won the division multiple times and just find a way to win. They play baseball the right way, fundamentally sound, just something I want to be a part of.”
Baddoo has been bitten by bad-luck injuries, first in spring training when he had a very real shot of making the team out of camp and then with a midseason ankle sprain that short-circuited a personal hot stretch.
He hasn’t gotten that big-league shot again with the Brewers – at least not yet. Still just 27 years old, he has an .840 OPS at Nashville in 37 games through Aug. 14, including another walk-off single in extras Aug. 11.
“I’m honored to be on the field,” Baddoo said. “A lot of people would trade places with me in a heartbeat. Being grateful I get to put a jersey on is No. 1. Of course, my ultimate goal is to be in the big leagues. And it’s still my goal, and I still strive to be in the big leagues. …
“I need to bring my best version, my best self every single day while I’m in Triple-A. And then, eventually, the chips may fall wherever they fall and just know to be ready when my name is called.”
A pitcher putting the ‘journey’ in journeyman: Kaleb Bowman
Kaleb Bowman has played baseball in Canada and Germany, has delivered cabinets on the side and learned to surf during his time in Australia, and now, Nashville is home.
The pastor’s kid from Virginia is 29 years old, undrafted and has a 5.68 ERA this year out of the bullpen (through Aug. 14), his third season in the Brewers organization. But he has lived a remarkable self-made baseball life across three continents.
Out of college, he paid $100 to make a profile on a website called Baseball Jobs Overseas, initially connecting him to a team in Canada, then to an opportunity in Australia. His time there included staying with a cabinet-making host family that set him up with some work.
“I’d help load trucks, unload trucks,” Bowman said. “Sometimes, it was 30 minutes away to unload these trucks; sometimes, it was five hours away. I’d start at 4 or 5 in the morning and be done by 1 or 2 to head to the field for practice or head to the beach for the afternoon.”
After two good seasons, a team in Germany came calling.
“Germany probably has the third-best league in Europe; Italy and Netherlands usually take that 1A, 1B kind of range. But I had no minor league time, no pro time at all,” Bowman said. “I think that was the end goal, go play in Italy or Netherlands and maybe get to Asia afterwards.
“After two years in Germany, I talked to some teams in Italy and was planning on going there, but then played three weeks of indy [independent] ball and that’s when the Brewers called and picked me up.”
He and his wife, expecting their first child in a few weeks, have a permanent apartment just 10 minutes away from First Horizon Park.
“Even though the season’s been up and down this year, I’m so blessed to be here,” Bowman said.
“I don’t put my identity in the game of baseball. Triple-A, Single-A, High-A, it doesn’t really matter where I was playing. I love the game of baseball, but more importantly, I love the Lord. He’s let me use the baseball field as my ministry work.
“Coming from my dad as a pastor, it’s been awesome to see different people and how they reflect on their faith or their growing faith. I felt like I’ve been placed in a lot of people’s lives to share the gospel.”
A first-round pick looking to get back on track: Brock Wilken
Brock Wilken is sticking with the process that got him this far.
The 2023 first-round pick isn’t the top prospect he once was in the Milwaukee organization – and exceedingly bad injury luck has a lot to do with it. Even as he struggles to a .179 batting average and .674 OPS at Nashville (through Aug. 14), he also has a team-best 64 RBIs and 12 homers, with a team lead in doubles and walks.
“I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do,” Wilken said. “I’m hitting the ball hard, hitting the ball hard in the air. … That’s just part of the game, man. You’ve just got to not worry about that. If you’re swinging at the right pitches, doing damage on the right pitches, hopefully they’ll fall at some point. You can’t look too much at the scoreboard. Those numbers don’t tell the whole story.”
They certainly don’t tell the story of Wilken bouncing back from a grisly fastball to the face in 2024 that caused multiple facial fractures.
“I still can’t feel my face,” he said, pointing to the center of his left cheek. “That nerve is completely gone. A couple teeth in the front that I really have no feeling for. That nerve kind of exploded along with the rest of it. That still lingers, not too bad.”
They also don’t factor in the knee injury in 2025 during a postgame celebration after the Class AA Biloxi Shuckers won the first-half title.
“I wasn’t even messing around or doing something I wasn’t supposed to do,” Wilken said. “They tarped the floor to clean [champagne] and I go to take a step back, and I’m in slides, as is everyone else. I just slipped and my leg kind of caved in and my left kneecap was on the outside of my left knee. I was like, ‘What just happened?’ They put it back into place and went from there.”
It certainly killed the celebratory mood and left him tolerating lingering knee pain. But he’s managing, and it would be unwise to write off Wilken as a corner-infield option in Milwaukee.
“It’s taken him a while, unfortunately, but everybody progresses at their own pace,” Sweet said. “As much as we’d like them to progress on our pace, right now he’s coming into his own.
“In my mind, I’m preparing him for next year. I think he’s going to come back next year and have a fabulous year.”
Said Wilken, “The team is constantly changing, constantly evolving, guys getting opportunities, guys getting promoted. It’s really cool to see your friends and buddies take those new opportunities and it makes you want to go out there and execute more and get those same opportunities those guys are getting. It’s a sick place to play. I love it. Happy to be here, happy for the opportunity and ready to continue going to work.”
An injury story with an eye-popping twist: Cameron Wagoner
Cameron Wagoner was closing in on 1,000 days between pitches in a professional game. If that number doesn’t get your attention, then perhaps we can interest you in the 100-mph heat on the radar gun once he was finally back.
When he appeared for Biloxi in May, it marked his first mound action in more than 950 days. The 2022 Brewers draft pick in the 11th round underwent Tommy John surgery in 2024, then developed bone edema (fluid that signifies a “fracture before a fracture,” Wagoner said) in his elbow that required another six months of rehab. After that: the actual fracture, and still more rehab.
Then he came back throwing 99 mph.
“I manifested it for a long time in rehab,” Wagoner said with a smile. “‘I’m going to come back, I’m going to throw fuzz, I’m going to throw amazing my first year back.’ I just spent the last two years lifting and only training to throw a ball as hard as possible.
“It’s very weird to me still throwing in games. In my head, for the last full season I played, I was a 90-92 guy. … My perfect day was 93-97. Now, my perfect day is I go on the mound and sit 99 for the day and get up to 100. It’s a lot of fun but it’s a completely different game. It caught me well by surprise.”
Wagoner, presently on the injured list with a foot injury, said he had some initial regrets about not signing with the Texas Rangers out of Tecumseh High School in Michigan, but he felt he gained a mental edge pitching in near-freezing temperatures at Eastern Michigan.
Now, the path he chose has him honing his candidacy as a Brewers bullpen arm after a promotion from Biloxi earlier this year. Since his return, he has a 1.91 ERA and 0.85 WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) over two levels in 33 innings.
“At every level, there’s great and there’s bad, but I’m struggling to find the bad [at Nashville], other than it being really hot during throwing time,” he said. “It’s peaceful. Knowing that you’re one step away is really cool, but … the second you start going like, ‘Why am I not debuting?’ is the second you start thinking poorly and thinking poorly of other people, and that’s not what I’m here for.
“I’m here to have a good time. I’m playing baseball. I’ve played this stuff when I was 5 years old and playing at 25 years old. I can’t ask for much more in life.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Six kinds of players you meet at Triple-A with the Nashville Sounds
Reporting by JR Radcliffe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By JR Radcliffe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
