In baseball, injuries are always part of the game, but illness is a different story, and what Brewers catching prospect Marco Dinges has had to deal with early on in his baseball career is on a whole other level.
After graduating from East Lake High School in Tarpon Springs, Florida in 2021, Dinges enrolled at Tallahassee Community College, where he enjoyed a strong freshman season, hitting .345 with seven home runs in 50 games. He played for the Leesburg Lightning that summer, and continued to impress there, recording an OPS of .829 in 90 games as an 18-year-old in the Florida Collegiate Summer League.
He put up even better numbers as a sophomore, belting eight home runs and driving in 40, while sporting an OPS of 1.199, but following a bout with mono, Dinges struggled to get back to full health, feeling so exhausted and light-headed at times, that he was forced to miss games for the Eagles.
After enduring a plethora of tests, Dinges ultimately wound up being diagnosed with a disease called Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis, which not only affected his baseball career, but almost cost him his life.
Referred to as HLH, Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis is a rare disease that can be highly fatal, where the white blood cells cause damage to the organ area which can lead to organ failure. Things got so bad for Dinges at one point, that his family didn’t know if he would make it through the night, as Adam McCalvy from Brewers.com detailed in a fantastic article for Brewers.com earlier this spring.
Thankfully, things finally started to turn around for Dinges late in the summer of 2023, and after a 43-day stint in the hospital, he was able to return home and start to turn his focus back to baseball again.
Originally committed to continue his college career at the University of Maryland, Dinges instead chose to bet on himself, opting to walk on at Florida State in 2024.
Healthy once again, Dinges quickly showed he was capable of contributing for the Seminoles, as he went on to appear in 64 of the ‘Noles 66 games, hitting .323 and finishing fourth on the team with 15 home runs.
His lone season at Florida State impressed the Brewers enough that they drafted him in the fourth round of the 2024 MLB Draft, signing him for $500,000 and assigning him to Class-A Carolina to begin his pro career.
In 13 games with the Mudcats in 2024, Dinges hit .271, serving mostly as a DH, but the Brewers showed faith in him as a catching prospect, as evidenced by Milwaukee naming him their starting catcher for their Spring Breakout game against the Reds in 2025.
Returning to Carolina to begin the 2025 season, Dinges slugged his way out of the Carolina League with a 1.076 OPS in 26 games, earning a promotion to High-A Wisconsin last May.
Despite being hampered by hamstring injuries, Dinges still saw action in 51 games for the Timber Rattlers last summer, starting 31 of them behind the plate, and he wound up slugging a career-high 13 home runs between the two levels he played at.
After missing roughly six weeks during the regular season, the Brewers chose to get Dinges some additional work in the fall, assigning him to play in the Arizona Fall League for the Surprise Saguaros. The injury bug bit again however, limiting Dinges to just two games during his AFL stint with the eventual league champs.
Known more for his bat than his defense, there was speculation coming out of the draft that Dinges could move to the outfield, but the Brewers seem to believe in his ability to stick behind the plate, where his strong arm is an asset.
The rest of his defensive game remains a work in progress, as he continues to develop as a backstop, but the bat will always play, and Dinges has shown an ability to not just make contact, but make loud contact, hitting for impressive power.
Returning to Wisconsin to begin the 2026 season, Dinges has continued to produce at the plate, while making strides with his defense as well. He finished the month of April with an OPS of 1.038, and is currently hitting .270 with five home runs heading into tonight’s game against South Bend.
With hopefully his most difficult trials well behind him off the field, Dinges can now focus on his development on the field, as he looks to continue to climb his way through Milwaukee’s farm system while moving up prospect lists along the way.
• There’s a new number one prospect in baseball, and it’s none other than Biloxi Shuckers shortstop prospect Jesus Made. With the recent graduation of Pirates shortstop Konnor Griffin to the big leagues, Made ascends to the top spot after just recently celebrating his 19th birthday last week.
• At Class-A Wisconsin, third baseman Andrew Fischer was honored as the Midwest League Player of the Week for his performance this past week. Ranked as the top third base prospect in the game right now, Fischer went 9-for-23 with three home runs and seven RBI last week against Peoria. He saved his best for last on Sunday belting two home runs to go along with a single and a triple to cap off a four-hit game.
• The Brewers got some good news on the pitching front, with the return of RHP Jacob Waguespack, who was released just several days earlier, on May 4th. While details are still sketchy, a reasonable guess could be that Waguespack had an out clause in his contract that would allow him to test the market to look for a better big league opportunity. Perhaps he saw his best shot at getting back on an MLB mound coming with Milwaukee, and the Crew re-signed him on May 10th.
• Nashville’s outfield also got some reinforcements after Luis Matos landed on the injured list last Saturday. Tyler Black was optioned to Nashville on Tuesday and Greg Jones re-joined the Sounds after being outrighted off of the Brewers 40-man roster. Akil Baddoo was also sent to Nashville on a rehab assignment, turning a weak spot on the Sounds’ roster into a spot that the team is suddenly flush with talent.
• At Double-A Biloxi, former first-round draft pick Eric Brown, Jr. returned to action this past week, when he was activated from the injured list after missing roughly a month due to injury. In his first game back with the Shuckers, Brown went 2-for-4 with a double and a stolen base.
• The Wisconsin Timber Rattlers bullpen added some depth with the promotion of right-hander Garrett Hodges from Class-A Wilson on Tuesday. Signed by the Brewers as a free agent in August of 2024, Hodges made nine relief appearances for the Warbirds, going 2-1 with a 2.00 ERA while striking out 25 batters over 18 innings of work.
• The Warbirds got some extra help in their lineup as well, with the return of Tyler Rodriguez this week. Rodriguez, who was signed by Milwaukee out of the Dominican Republic in 2023, saw action in 91 games with the Carolina Mudcats last summer, but suffered a brutal leg injury in early September. More than eight months later, Rodriguez finally returned with three games in the ACL, before heading to Wilson on Monday.