Baseball
Mauricio Dubon’s major league debut on Sunday didn’t result in a hit, but it did make a bit of history. His groundout was the first ever plate appearance by a player born and raised in Honduras (1987-94 MLB outfielder Gerald Young was also born in the country but attended high school in the US).
Longtime Brewers fans will recall that the organization is no stranger to international players paving a trail to the majors: Catcher Dave Nilsson was just the second Australian position player since 1901 when he made his MLB debut as a Brewer in 1992. The next year he joined forces with pitcher and countryman Graeme Lloyd to form the first all-Aussie battery in MLB history.
More recently, there had never been a big leaguer born on the African continent when the Brewers drafted Nigerian outfielder Demi Orimoloye in the fourth round in 2015. Infielder and South African Gift Ngoepe beat him to the majors but Orimoloye’s quest to be MLB’s first Nigerian player continues with the Blue Jays organization, where he was sent via trade last August.
Across the organization, however, the Brewers have a wide array of international talent from both on and off the beaten path.
Venezuela
It’s a dangerous, politically unstable place but it’s possible no organization has combed the South American country for talent more thoroughly than the Brewers: A total of 88 Venezuelan-born players have appeared in an MLB game this season and seven have done it for Milwaukee.
The Venezuelan influence continues in the minors, where the Brewers have at least one and frequently more players from the country at every level from AAA San Antonio all the way down to both rookie league teams in the Arizona Summer League, including Midwest League All Star outfielder Jesus Lujano. The Brewers signed four top prospects from Venezuela for over $300,000 each during last summer’s international signing period and have added five more since a new signing period started last Tuesday.
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Australia
The Brewers haven’t had an Aussie on the MLB roster since reliever Grant Balfour had a cup of coffee with the team in 2007 but they’re working on developing the next one: In 2017 they signed a pair of 18-year olds in infielder Jess Williams and catcher Alex Hall. Both were playing in the Australian winter league at the time.
Hall is experiencing some success in his second season in rookie ball, batting .333 with nine extra base hits in his first 13 games for the Arizona Summer League’s Brewers Blue. Williams is one step above him on the ladder and has played in 15 games for advanced-rookie Rocky Mountain.
China
The Brewers may have been one of the first teams to benefit from MLB’s efforts to expand the game to new markets as they signed then-16 year old pitcher Lun Zhao out of the league’s Chinese development facility last summer. He made his professional debut later that same year and worked three scoreless outings in the Arizona Summer League against players an average of 4.5 years older than him.
Zhao opened the 2019 season on the minor league injured list and has yet to make his season debut, but FanGraphs currently has him ranked 29th among all Brewers prospects. Zhao is especially popular among followers of advanced pitching metrics, as his fastball spin rate is higher than nearly all of his minor league peers.
If Zhao returns to the Pioneer League in 2019 he’ll join a Rocky Mountain team that already features players from several countries across three continents: The Vibes’ roster for their first season has included multiple players from Venezuela and the Dominican Republic and one each from Australia (Williams, as mentioned above), Cuba and Panama.
