Nick Neugebauer

Nickolas Donald Neugebauer (born July 15, 1980) is an American former Major League Baseball starting pitcher who spent the entirety of his brief playing career with the Milwaukee Brewers. Despite being touted as one of the organization's "top prospects of the decade" by Baseball America on two occasions, a rotator cuff injury suffered during the 2002 season ultimately cut his career short.

Early years and pre-major league years

Neugebauer attended Arlington High School in Riverside, California, and was drafted out of there by the Milwaukee Brewers with the 56th pick in the 2nd round of the 1998 amateur draft; He began play for the Brewers the next year, playing out the entire season with the single-A-level Beloit Snappers; in 80.2 innings pitched for them, he compiled a record of 7 wins and 5 losses with an earned run average of 3.91 in 18 starts.

Neugebauer received a promotion within the Brewers' farm system for the season, and began play that year with the Mudville Nine.

Neugebauer's second and final major league start for the 2001 season would not go so well, however; in only one inning of work against the Colorado Rockies, he gave up three earned runs and one home run on three hits en route to his first career major league loss.

2002 season

Neugebauer was on the Brewers' major league roster at the start of the 2002 season, projected as the fifth starter in their five-man rotation. At the inception of this season, Baseball America ranked him the seventeenth best prospect in all of baseball and Milwaukee's top prospect. he would give up a combined total of six earned runs in his next two starts before collecting his first win of the season against the St. Louis Cardinals on April 21. In a brief comeback attempt with the Brewers' "A advanced" affiliate – the High Desert Mavericks – in 2004, Neugebauer gave up two earned runs on one hit in one inning of work in his only start of the season, finishing him with an 18.00 earned run average for the year. He was released by the Brewers on September 10, 2004,