Milwaukee Brewers prospect Mike Boeve is off to sizzling start with Wisconsin Timber Rattlers

GRAND CHUTE − Two weeks into the season, Mike Boeve has been one of the best players in minor league baseball.

The left-handed-hitting infielder for the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers is batting .481 with 13 hits in 27 at-bats. He’s driven in four runs and drawn 10 walks.

Boeve, who will turn 22 on May 5, leads all high-A affiliate minor leaguers in on-base percentage (.590) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (4 Ks, 10 walks). He’s also second in contact percentage (88%).

Not a bad way to start in his first full season of professional baseball after being picked by the Milwaukee Brewers in the second round (No. 54 overall) of last year’s draft after a sparkling college career at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

Boeve is rated the No. 14 prospect in the Brewers' system by MLB Pipeline and No. 18 by Baseball America.

“Obviously last year I got a taste of it for about a month, the grind of minor league baseball,” he said. “But you really don’t know if you’re ready for that first full season until it happens, so that’s kind of the big thing I focused on coming into this year.”

The 6-foot-2, 210-pound Boeve was a three-time all-Summit League first-team selection and was the conference’s player of the year in 2022. Last season, he batted .401 for the Mavericks in 47 games.

Getting drafted by the Brewers was the first step in his dream of playing professional baseball.

“It means a lot,” he said. “Getting that draft call, it’s one of the rewarding things that you kind of get to feel like your hard work has paid off. Once I got that call, I was ready to get things started, start a new chapter in my baseball career.”

He started his professional career with the Arizona Complex Brewers last summer and was 15-for-30 with four home runs and 12 RBI in nine games before joining the Timber Rattlers. He hit a home run in his first at-bat with Wisconsin.

Boeve wasn’t sure if he would return to Wisconsin to start this season, although he played only 19 games with the Timber Rattlers at the end of last season.

“You never know. That’s something I try not to think about, especially getting here and then thinking the whole offseason where I would end up,” he said. “I’m kind of a day-by-day guy and I don’t like thinking too far in the future like that.”

Boeve credits playing in two summer wood-bat leagues with getting him ready to make the leap from college baseball to the pros. He played for the Duluth Huskies in the Northwoods League in 2021 and for the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox in the Cape Cod League in 2022.

“Especially the Northwoods League, I think I played 71 games in 75 days or so. That’s the first time you get around travel like that. And hitting with the wood bat is something you really only get to experience with those summer leagues,” Boeve said. “So I’m really glad that I got two full seasons of that.”

Boeve has started all nine games for the Timber Rattlers heading into Tuesday’s series opener against Cedar Rapids at Neuroscience Group Field at Fox Cities Stadium. He’s made six starts at third base, two at first base and was the designated hitter in one game. He’s batted third or fourth in the lineup every game.

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After going through his first spring training with the Brewers this year, he likes the values stressed by the organization from top to bottom.

“It’s been really cool to see that things from (Brewers manager) Pat Murphy and things from the top that kind of trickle down and what’s kind of expected in the minor leagues to kind of replicate that same thing,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Milwaukee Brewers prospect Mike Boeve off to fast start in Wisconsin