Article: The Brewers Should Swap Luis Urias and Abraham Toro, Right Away

[Matthew Trueblood]

Since his return from the injured list on June 5, Luis Urias has looked exactly like a man who had a disjointed spring training and an unexpected, jolting halt of a leg injury on Opening Day. He's overmatched. The Brewers should send him to Nashville, in favor of the more robustly ready Abraham Toro.

Image courtesy of © Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports

It's true that Luis Urias has only come to the plate 36 times in his first fortnight of big-league action in 2023. He hasn't yet had any chance to shake off the rust that comes with a hamstring strain severe enough to have put him on the shelf for two full months. It's almost unfair to even discuss optioning him to Triple A. 

Nor has Abraham Toro burned it up so relentlessly that promoting him from Nashville to Milwaukee is a no-brainer. Toro did do a bit of impressive work during his very brief call-up earlier this month, but on the year, he's only hitting .252/.337/.344 even in Nashville. That line is, perhaps, misleadingly weak, because the OBP is pretty strong, and Toro has drawn 22 walks while striking out just 28 times, in almost 200 plate appearances. Still, his numbers make less than an ironclad case for him. 

Even so, Milwaukee needs to make the move. Urías is scuffling badly, in just the same way as the rest of the lineup. He has two hits, and both were for extra bases. Like the lineup he's joined, he's an all-or-nothing hitter. Toro would provide something of a counterbalance to the identity of the Brewers offense, whereas Urías only makes that identity more extreme.

This maneuver is pretty easy, logistically. Urías has two option years left, and the shape of his development makes it hard to imagine that the Brewers will still want to send him down at any point in 2025 or beyond. Giving him a chance to see Triple-A pitching for a while--to get his timing and approach calibrated better without costing the parent club outs in the process--would cost the team almost nothing. Meanwhile, Toro could be the lineup-lengthening infielder who has been missing from the positional corps. 

If Willy Adames and Brian Anderson were hitting better, the decision would be a bit easier. If Andruw Monasterio and Owen Miller weren't proving so versatile and valuable, it might be impossible. As it is, though, the spot on the roster and within both the offensive and defensive lineups that Urías occupies can be quite fluid right now. They have interchangeable parts everywhere. A targeted trade of a player with a redundant skill set for one with something new to offer an offense in crisis makes good sense.

The Brewers were cautious with Urías's injury, but because they couldn't hit and felt he was ready, they moved him more quickly through the rehab assignment phase of his recovery. It's time to pay the piper for that. Urías isn't broken, and he'll eventually rediscover his approach. While he regains the balances and rhythms he's missing, though, Toro deserves a longer look. He might provide a nice little charge for the bottom half of the lineup, where the team has been stunningly flat lately. 

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