Is someone going to step up?
When Paul DeJong and Brendan Rodgers signed deals this week, all illusions that the Brewers would bring in a free agent to shore up their infield ended. Barring a trade—which seems unlikely—the Brewers will very likely enter the season with one of Oliver Dunn, Andruw Monasterio, or Caleb Durbin starting every game.
After the departure of Willy Adames, the assumption was that Milwaukee needed to do something—anything—to replace him. While the Brewers can cover two of the infield positions with incumbents (with either Brice Turang or Joey Ortiz playing shortstop and the other playing either second or third base), that leaves one position open with no obvious starting-caliber infielder on the roster. With so little experience among the potential in-house replacements, it seemed like an outside addition to the infield was a foregone conclusion.
Well, friends, it was not. Mark Attanasio gave a somewhat alarming interview on Tuesday that rubbed many fans the wrong way; Adam will delve deeper into that interview on Friday, but the short version is that we should not expect Milwaukee to be aggressive in adding payroll under its current ownership if that wasn’t already obvious.
With outside help seemingly off the table, we’re left to examine the in-house options that could cover that fourth infield spot. Could there be a hidden gem? Could one of the team’s prospects get to the majors sooner than expected? Let’s take a look.
The Forgotten One
Oliver Dunn intrigues me.
He made last year’s Opening Day roster after a strong spring and made his major league debut at age 26, but he struggled through 41 games, was sent back to Triple-A Nashville in mid-May, made it back to the majors by the end of the month, and then hurt his back and didn’t play after June 12.
The results were not there in his first season in the big leagues. He struck out a ton, 40 times in 104 plate appearances, a strikeout rate (38.5%) which was four percent worse than the worst qualifying hitter in the majors last season (Zack Gelof at 34.4%). But Dunn isn’t without tools. He had an excellent chase rate, which is backed up by the 16.2% walk rate he posted in his last full season of minor league ball at Double-A Reading in Philadelphia’s system in 2023. It’s not a clean transposition, but that walk rate would have been behind only Aaron Judge and Juan Soto in the majors last season.
Dunn also swings hard. Very hard. His 75.2-mph average swing speed was behind only Garrett Mitchell on the Brewers last season. Swinging hard means hard contact, so Dunn does have some decent indicators in that respect, but swinging hard also means a lot of missing, which is his big problem.
Dunn’s 2023 season with Reading was encouraging. He hit .271/.396/.506 (a 148 wRC+, after posting a 173 wRC+ in 29 games at Double-A with the Yankees in 2021) with 27 doubles and 21 home runs while walking 82 times in 119 games. Yes, he struck out 139 times, too, and he might have to dial back the swing just a little to make a little bit more contact; a strikeout rate flirting with 40% is unsustainable.
Defensively, Dunn should be able to handle third base. We did not get enough time to fully judge his offensive game last season, and there are indications that if he can cut down on the strikeouts and get some time to figure things out, he could be a solid contributor offensively, too. All indications are that he is healthy after dealing with injuries in 2022 and 2024.
I do think that if the Brewers are going to get above-average production from an in-house option in their infield this year, Dunn is the most likely candidate.
The New Guy
When Caleb Durbin was acquired in the Devin Williams trade, reactions were mixed. On one hand, people were wondering: this was all they could get, along with a creaky starter with one year of control? On the other end of the spectrum: he might be the next Jose Altuve!
To be clear, the comparisons between Durbin and Altuve are almost entirely because they’re both tiny. I guess if you squint you could see some Altuve in Durbin’s minor league numbers; Durbin’s 2023 and 2024 seasons are not all that different from Altuve’s last two full seasons in the minor leagues in 2009 and 2010, though Altuve leveled up in his last minor league season and demolished pitchers at High-A and Double-A before skipping a level and jumping straight to the majors at age 21. Durbin, who turns 25 on Saturday, has not shown that kind of upside.
Is it possible that Durbin becomes a valuable contact hitter in the majors? Sure. He walks a whole bunch, and unlike Dunn, he doesn’t strike out much. He is fast and a good base stealer, and he did show a little pop in 2024, with 10 homers in 90 games after never having hit double digits in a season before.
There is some concern about Durbin’s defense, particularly his arm strength, which could hypothetically be addressed if the Brewers decide to move Turang to shortstop and leave Ortiz at third. That’s something I’m interested in seeing in the early days of camp: where are Ortiz and Turang taking their reps? If you see a lot of Turang at shortstop, I’d guess that Durbin is given a shot at second base.
The Backup
Andruw Monasterio seems like a delightful guy. He was a useful fifth infielder for the Brewers in 2023 when he came in and hit .259 with solid defense over 92 games. But things went poorly last season; a desperately slow start never really turned around, and he finished the season with a grisly .208/.303/.272 batting line. On top of that, his defense did not rate nearly as good as it did in 2023. If you’re going to hit .208 and slug under .300 as a backup infielder, you’d better justify it with your glove, and last season Monasterio did not.
I’m not saying that there’s no chance that he is a useful contributor to the 2025 Brewers, but if his defense appears as shaky as it was last season, there’s a real chance that Monasterio doesn’t make the team out of camp.
What about minor league options?
Part of Attanasio’s interview that got a bit less attention but which caught my eye was his assertion that the Brewers were definitely considering Tyler Black as an option at third base. This is surprising to me. I personally am a believer in Black the hitter and would love to see him get real reps, but the way the Brewers have treated him since spring training last season has suggested to me that they do not believe in him defensively. He mostly played first base last season and many seem to feel that his future lies in the outfield corners. If Black could hold his own defensively at third, I would be thrilled, as I’m optimistic his skills at the plate will translate. The evidence just seems to suggest that he cannot, in fact, hold his own defensively at third.
Speaking of questionable defensive third baseman, Pat Murphy seemed to mostly dismiss the idea of Sal Frelick, the reigning National League Gold-Glove-winning right fielder, as a third baseman in 2025, an idea the Brewers flirted with last spring. The Brewers do still have five outfielders capable of contributing, creating a minor logjam, but banking on the health of Christian Yelich and Garrett Mitchell over a full season seems like a bad bet. It’s conceivable that Frelick has a part to play in the infield equation… but I’m extremely skeptical.
The last real in-house options would be in the form of prospects making it to the bigs sooner than expected. The most likely candidate here would be Mike Boeve, who hit .306/.374/.447 in 66 games at Double-A Biloxi last season (after absolutely crushing Midwest League pitching in 13 games at High-A Wisconsin). Boeve split his time between the infield corners and DH last season; he probably isn’t a plus fielder, but he’s probably better than Black. Boeve will be 23 in 2025, and a big-league debut isn’t too far in his future, but he’s never taken an at-bat above Double-A. A big spring could accelerate the Brewers’ plans.
Finally, there’s Cooper Pratt, who is ranked no lower than #63 on the top 100 lists put out by MLB, Baseball Prospectus, and Baseball America. Pratt is very young: were he to make the Brewers’ opening day roster, he would be only slightly older than Jackson Chourio was on opening day last season.
But while he is highly regarded, Pratt does not boast Chourio’s prospect pedigree and he hasn’t even played above High-A yet. For the record, I think there’s zero chance that Pratt makes the Opening Day roster. He hit well at Low-A Carolina last season but was slightly below average in 23 games with the High-A Timber Rattlers. His glove might be major league ready but I don’t think his bat is. Plus, Chourio only made the team last year because he had already signed that big extension; Pratt does not have a deal like that in place, so bringing him up to the majors before he’s ready would be a foolish waste of service time.
Send Pratt to Biloxi. If he rakes for a couple of months and the Brewers are still looking for an answer when June rolls around, we can revisit this conversation.
Conclusion
I think the Brewers will probably run some form of a platoon with Dunn and Durbin to get things started, and they’ll see how things develop. I think Dunn has some real potential to surprise this season, but things could also easily go sideways with any of these internal options, which is why I’m a little disheartened that the Brewers didn’t at least bring in a steady veteran with some track record of major league competence.
This fourth infield spot is the biggest question of the spring for me, and I’m curious to see how it plays out.