Bo Naylor playing for Team Canada in the 2026 World Baseball Classic. Getty
The Milwaukee Brewers lost the annual Little League Classic game Sunday, falling to the Atlanta Braves 4-2 in William sport, Pennsylvania.
Even with the defeat, the Brewers maintain the best record in MLB at 81-50, just a game better than the 80-51 Los Angeles Dodgers .
The Brewers now head to New York for a three-game series with the resurgent Mets, winners of 12 of their last 18. Before the Mets series, the Brewers announced a decision on a 26-year-old catcher who is a former first-round draft pick.
Bo Naylor , a Milwaukee addition at the trade deadline, spent only one short day back on the big league roster before getting optioned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds on Monday. Naylor had been recalled specifically as the club's 27th man for the Williamsport trip, a special-event roster spot that expired once the Little League Classic ended.
GettyBo Naylor playing for Team Canada in the 2026 World Baseball Classic.
There was no injury or other roster issue behind the move. Adam McCalvy of MLB.com reported the assignment was tied directly to the extra-player allowance MLB grants clubs for the annual showcase and other special event games, as well as for doubleheaders.
Naylor arrived in the Brewers organization on August 1, dealt from the Cleveland Guardians along with right-hander Codi Heuer in a four-player swap that sent outfielder Blake Perkins and reliever Craig Yoho to the Guardians. Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold characterized the trade as roster insurance rather than as a marquee addition.
"It adds another layer of depth for us, which I think is really important â especially at this time of year," Arnold said, as quoted by MLB.com .
The depth provided by Naylor was needed because Milwaukee's top catching prospect, Jefferson Quero, has been sidelined by a right biceps injury. Naylor gave the Brewers a proven, if inconsistent, backstop who certainly does not threaten William Contreras' everyday job behind the plate. Guardians baseball operations president Chris Antonetti offered a parting message of his own.
"I continue to believe that he is going to be a good Major League player, and we saw that at different points in time," Antonetti said of Naylor, as quoted by McCalvy.
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Naylor was Cleveland's first-round pick in 2018, taken 29th overall out of St. Joan of Arc Catholic Secondary School in Mississauga, Ontario, and signed for roughly $2.58 million. That draft pedigree once made him one of the more coveted catching prospects in the sport, a status that has since passed the now-26-year-old by.
He's five seasons removed from his October 2022 debut and has piled up more than 1,000 career MLB at-bats, batting .199 with 40 home runs for the Guardians. His 2026 line before the trade sat at .143 with two homers in 84 at-bats. Baseball America ranked him as high as Cleveland's No. 3 organizational prospect, a distinction the outlet's player file still lists among his career markers, according to the publication's scouting profile on the catcher . MLB Pipeline had him rated similarly, as high as the system's No. 4.
He's also the younger brother of Seattle Mariners slugger Josh Naylor , a former Cleveland teammate from 2022 through 2024 before Josh moved on. Naylor still carries Minor League options and remains short of arbitration eligibility, meaning Milwaukee controls him through 2028 .
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