What Do the Brewers Plan to Do With Oliver Dunn?

[Matthew Trueblood]

Less than four weeks from the spring training report date for pitchers and catchers, the Brewers have been so inactive this winter that huge uncertainty remains for their infield mix in 2024. That makes one of their few (and minor) offseason additions a fascinating one.

Image courtesy of © Dave Nelson-USA TODAY Sports

When the Brewers traded for Oliver Dunn in mid-November, it felt somewhat like a hedge against the possibility of a Willy Adames trade. Back then, when a more active offseason league-wide was expected and so many things seemed possible, Dunn looked like a clever use of a 40-man roster spot. He's had his development disrupted by the elimination of the 2020 season for all minor leagues and by a handful of injuries, but a big breakout in 2023 (including a successful stint in the Arizona Fall League) put him on the map.

Already 26 years old and with a mere 19 plate appearances (in 2022, at that) at Triple A to his name, Dunn doesn't cut the figure of an elite prospect. He's more like an average contributor, with some upside beyond that in a well-managed platoon role. He enjoyed a significant power bump in 2023, after the Phillies took him from the Yankees in the minor-league phase of the Rule 5 Draft, and whenever both those organizations see something in a hitter, it's worth taking notice. Dunn has proved an exceptionally patient hitter in the minors, with more opposite-field power than most hitters of his ilk (late-blooming lefties with average-plus pop, coming from smallish frames) can boast.

It's that ability to drive the ball the opposite way that first jumped out to me. Obviously, like any hitter (and especially any 5-foot-10 lefty), most of Dunn's power still comes when he gets around on the ball and drives it to his pull field, but he showed the capacity to let it travel and still reach the fences in the gap in left-center last year. That's an important skill for a hitter whose game fundamentally centers on plate discipline; you can't maximize pull-only power while showing the kind of discipline required to make Dunn's approach work.

Adames certainly hasn't been traded yet, and it doesn't feel like such a move is in the cards this winter. As such, Brice Turang remains penciled into the second base job, and Dunn is not materially more promising at the plate than is Jake Bauers, acquired at almost exactly the same time two months ago. He would have to be so, in order to unseat Bauers from what figures to be the long side of a platoon role at first base, because Bauers is built more like a first baseman (even if he's only an inch or two taller, in reality) and has more experience at the position.

What makes Dunn interesting, though, is that he does profile better at the plate than does Turang, and by a reasonably wide margin. For a hitter with such limited professional experience, Dunn stands out from the younger, more seasoned Turang, who only hit .218/.285/.300 in the big leagues last year. I recently wrote about some reasons for modest optimism around Turang, but that's only modest optimism, and the reasons for it are far from bulletproof. Dunn, by contrast, hit .271/.395/.506 last season. He did it at age 25, in a hitter-friendly home park, against Double-A pitching, so it's hard to set overmuch store by that, but the underlying batted-ball data support the notion that he can carry some of that over to the big leagues.

So does the fact that (despite a relatively high whiff rate) he put the ball in play at an average rate on swings, because he showed such a strong tendency to hit it fair when he did make contact. The ability to square up a pitch and get it in play (as opposed to fouling it off) has been shown to be both important and somewhat sticky, and Dunn uses it to balance that patient, whiff-prone approach. Whether he'll be able to carry it over into the majors is an all-important and (alas) momentarily unanswerable question, but again, that capacity to hit the ball the other way with authority augurs well in this case. 

Dunn needs to be at second base, in order to have much value, but he wouldn't need to play every day. As part of a platoon with Andruw Monasterio at that spot, he could be a solid asset. The avenues by which that might happen aren't exciting, per se. They involve either Adames getting dealt, after all, or Turang having a nightmarish spring. Both scenarios are plausible, though, and given that, Dunn figures to come into camp as a player to watch. His skill set matches what the Brewers like to do offensively: wait pitchers out, use the whole field, and emphasize discipline and quality of contact, rather than going into a defensive posture with two strikes. If he's healthy and if he executes his approach well this spring, he could very well force his way into the mix for them.

What do you want to see as the Brewers' infield array come Opening Day? Would a significant role for Dunn be good news, or bad? Weigh in below, as we await news to bring more clarity to the situation.

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[sveumrules]

I like Dunn as a late bloomer upside play with a combo of patience, pop and wheels. Breakout at AA and in the AFL was nice, now he’ll have to keep it going in AAA.

Scouting reports on his defense are less than stellar though. Sounds like his ceiling is maybe average at 2B.

Will be interesting to see if the Brewers try him more at 3B and LF in Nashville than the Phils did last year…2B (89 GS) DH (23 GS) 3B/LF (2 GS each).

He did play 3B for five of his eighteen games afield in the AFL, so a little more frequency there.

[Matthew Trueblood]

1 hour ago, sveumrules said:

I like Dunn as a late bloomer upside play with a combo of patience, pop and wheels. Breakout at AA and in the AFL was nice, now he’ll have to keep it going in AAA.

Scouting reports on his defense are less than stellar though. Sounds like his ceiling is maybe average at 2B.

Will be interesting to see if the Brewers try him more at 3B and LF in Nashville than the Phils did last year…2B (89 GS) DH (23 GS) 3B/LF (2 GS each).

He did play 3B for five of his eighteen games afield in the AFL, so a little more frequency there.

All I've seen of his defense is very limited video, but a couple reports I've read are very down on his arm at third. I think we can hold onto some hope for versatility there, but his path to playing time is probably at second, where the power stands out more than it would at third, anyway.

I wonder if he ends up spending a lot of time on the roster but relatively little in the lineup, like an Owen Miller replacement who's a better fit for the roster than Miller is.

[Spencer Michaelis]

6 hours ago, Matthew Trueblood said:

All I've seen of his defense is very limited video, but a couple reports I've read are very down on his arm at third. I think we can hold onto some hope for versatility there, but his path to playing time is probably at second, where the power stands out more than it would at third, anyway.

I wonder if he ends up spending a lot of time on the roster but relatively little in the lineup, like an Owen Miller replacement who's a better fit for the roster than Miller is.

Not to say that the arm is great or anything, but I do recall seeing this comment on a Fangraphs article about Dunn. No way of truly knowing if this is his cousin, but what a weird thing to lie about if he isn't 🤣

[Joseph Zarr]

I've spoken a bit on Dunn before. BUT, honestly, all I can see in this article (my own bias) is known Shuckers/Sounds/Brewers killer Niko Hulsizer sliding into 2B. There are a few known Southern League Shuckers killers and Hulsizer was definitively one of them until his call-up to Durham last season. Thankful he moved on!😅