3B Caleb Durbin, SS Andrew Monasterio, Util Anthony Seigler and Comp B pick traded to Red Sox for LHP Kyle Harrison, LHP Shane Drohan and 2B/SS David Hamilton

[Mr Southpaw]

Plan A

2B Williams .972/Hamilton .976, SS Turang .978, 3B Ortiz .971

Plan B (Mid Season)

2B Turang .987, SS Pratt .973, 3B Ortiz .971

Plan C

Make a trade at the trade deadline

No matter what you can say about Ortiz, he is our best fielding SS and 3B which puts him at 3B because no one else is close to his defensive ability.  If Pratt can put up decent offensive numbers in Nashville there is almost no reason to not bring him up mid season.  If he doesn't hit at AAA go to plan C.

[mudbutt]

Considering last year we started with Oliver Dunn at third and Durbin had a horrendous May, the home opener was Elvin Rodriguez and the rotation was throwing Civale, the corpse of Fedde out there etc, I feel WAY better about the state of the roster and depth. Not that I want to repeat any of that from last year, but the bullpen is deeper imo and we can go really deep with starters where we can rotate a ton of young upside guys in before you'd have to start scraping the bottom of the barrel veterans.

I do have open questions on the infield to start the season especially since I don't see them starting the service time clock on guys like Jett yet, but not really concerned. You don't need to answer these questions before the start of the season and if no one emerges, it's ok to trade for a guy in June.

[CheezWizHed]

The Devers trade for Boston now comes down to a #3 SP (Hicks), a #6-7 SP (Bello), and Durbin. Not sure that screams "win now"... 

[wallus]

I don't like the idea of moving positions on Turang and Ortiz for a platoon bat that will likely be a utility guy after this season. Just seems like too much MLB the Show thinking.

Put Hamilton at 3rd and he should be fine there if he is as good defensively as the metrics claim. Hamilton has a stronger arm than Durbin so that shouldn't be a concern.

The team absolutely needs to find a platoon partner if they plan on making Hamilton an every day guy. He should get very minimal at bats against LHP. If the team is against a free agent, which I think they shouldn't be, then you have pretty limited options.

If you are worried about service time, you probably just bring up Leonard who has decent numbers against LHP. If you aren't worried about service time, Williams has pretty good numbers against LHP.

[Playing Catch]

Firstly, why has no one suggested Turang to 3rd? I don't really care how it shakes out, because I trust the Brewers, but if one imagined that he came up as a glove-first 3B-man, he actually fits a lot of the 3B profile that people crave. I think he would compare well with the position league-wide. This would keep the excellent defensive shortstop, Oritz at short, and allow the Brewers to play Hamilton and Jett at what I believe to be their most-likely strongest positions, and in a soft platoon. Turang's defensive excellence took a big hit last season, but his bat more than made up for it.

As the trade sinks in, and considering Arnold's comments, I just wonder if the Brewers really wanted Hamilton, and believe he is a better player than Durbin (or at least, a better roster-fit). Durbin has the advantage in age/service time, but the Brewers need to create room for one or more prospects to come up before the end of team control on Durbin/Hamilton anyway. People have mentioned that switching home parks will probably benefit both players.

[MilwaukeeBeers]

On 2/10/2026 at 9:03 AM, sveumrules said:

The punchless Brewers offense scored the third most runs in baseball last year, in 2024 they scored the sixth most runs in MLB.

Last two years their 343 home runs are 20th, their .150 isolated slugging is 22nd, and their 1,583 runs scored are 4th in MLB.

Hitting home runs is one way to score runs, having a bunch of really fast guys (+34.9 BsR is 1st in MLB last two years) on base all the time (.329 OBP is 4th in MLB last two years) putting a ton of pressure on the pitcher and defense (3,427 PA with RISP are 1st in MLB last two years) is another way.

This is a great argument, and I completely agree that there’s more than one way to score runs. The Brewers formula works. That said, I’ll play devil’s advocate for a moment. In the postseason, especially this past October, we saw a completely different level of pitching. By the time you get to October, hits and even quality contact are at a premium. When runs are harder to manufacture and rallies are tougher to string together, having legitimate power in the lineup becomes critical. You need hitters who can change a game with one swing. Guys who provide consistent thump and a reliable source of extra-base damage. That’s an area where the Brewers could still stand to improve.

[TURBO]

4 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

Call me crazy but I think the Brewers opening day lineup is going to feature Ortiz at 3B, Turang at SS, and Hamilton at 2B and I’m talking myself into believing Hamilton could be a strong side platoon guy at 2B this year. 
 

 

Ugh.

If we acquired Hamilton to be a regular which allows Ortiz to stay in the lineup at 3B, then I really don't want to see the results.  This kind of makes me ill...

I really hope you are wrong.

 

[Mr Southpaw]

29 minutes ago, TURBO said:

Ugh.

If we acquired Hamilton to be a regular which allows Ortiz to stay in the lineup at 3B, then I really don't want to see the results.  This kind of makes me ill...

I really hope you are wrong.

 

It is great defensively

[SeaBass]

57 minutes ago, TURBO said:

Ugh.

If we acquired Hamilton to be a regular which allows Ortiz to stay in the lineup at 3B, then I really don't want to see the results.  This kind of makes me ill...

I really hope you are wrong.

 

They're not going to give up on Ortiz after one bad season. They're just not. That means he's going to get lots and lots of playing time. I'd bet money on it. If he's still struggling as bad as he was last season I'd be thinking June is around the time they'd be thinking of going in another direction.

If I'm remembering right Ortiz was supposed to be a high floor OBP guy and last season was not good in that regard. It leaves definite room for improvement and I don't think it's unreasonable to think it's really possible.

You'd hope with better pitch selection the walks and hits will increase. It really wouldn't take much to bring him back to league average even if he isn't slugging. The trick of course is in actually doing it.

[Brewcrew82]

1 hour ago, Playing Catch said:

Firstly, why has no one suggested Turang to 3rd? I don't really care how it shakes out, because I trust the Brewers, but if one imagined that he came up as a glove-first 3B-man, he actually fits a lot of the 3B profile that people crave. I think he would compare well with the position league-wide. This would keep the excellent defensive shortstop, Oritz at short, and allow the Brewers to play Hamilton and Jett at what I believe to be their most-likely strongest positions, and in a soft platoon. Turang's defensive excellence took a big hit last season, but his bat more than made up for it.

As the trade sinks in, and considering Arnold's comments, I just wonder if the Brewers really wanted Hamilton, and believe he is a better player than Durbin (or at least, a better roster-fit). Durbin has the advantage in age/service time, but the Brewers need to create room for one or more prospects to come up before the end of team control on Durbin/Hamilton anyway. People have mentioned that switching home parks will probably benefit both players.

I find it very hard to believe the Brewers think Hamilton's a better player than Durbin. I don't know how you can look at things objectively as the Brewers typically do and come to that conclusion.

I think it's more they were literally trading away their entire IF depth and they needed an MLB IF back from the Red Sox in return. And when you look at the Red Sox infielders, Hamilton made the only sense.  

[liveforoctober]

25 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

I find it very hard to believe the Brewers think Hamilton's a better player than Durbin. I don't know how you can look at things objectively as the Brewers typically do and come to that conclusion.

I think it's more they were literally trading away their entire IF depth and they needed an MLB IF back from the Red Sox in return. And when you look at the Red Sox infielders, Hamilton made the only sense.  

I know it is only one metric - but in 504 career at bats David Hamilton has posted 3.5 WAR (BRef). In 445 at bats last year Durbin posted 2.8 WAR (BRef).

I'm not saying they do or don't but if they believe they are selling high on Durbin and think they can bump Hamilton's offensive output ... it isn't a stretch.

[CheezWizHed]

Hamilton should be a great utility player... but I don't want him and Ortiz both in the lineup often.  Last year, both were sub-600 OPS and none of us wants to see that.  Even at his best he was a sub 700 OPS player. 

Short term solution at 3B? ok.... But please not a long-term solution. 

[DonBarclay]

2024 level production at the plate from Hamilton and Ortiz offers a major improvement over 2025 Ortiz/Durbin. It makes a lot of sense to try to capture that, while letting Jett and Pratt get some ABs and maintain their service time. I would be surprised if that isn’t the plan at this point, with a right handed hitter somewhere on the bench that can play 3B against LHP starters. 

[Turning2]

On 2/10/2026 at 7:26 AM, Jopal78 said:

For context, in 2023 MLB had the Giants farm system ranked 21st. It was lower in ‘24.

Harrison was also traded in the Devers deal where San Francisco absorbed $250 million dollars in guaranteed salary and the word on Harrison then was he struggled with command/ developing secondary offerings.

I get unconditional prospect love is paramount here, but I’m not relevance of pointing out what a great prospect Harrison was multiple seasons ago. 

… and yes I am aware the Brewers may have the patience to work with a pitcher to help them reach their apex that Boston doesn’t, but still unless there is another transaction coming, it seems like creating a roster hole in the majors to shuffle pieces around rather than strategic building. Time will tell.

Well put. Not a popular exercise to suggest anything that rubs against the company line. I'm surprised you only have one down thumb currently. 

[Samurai Bucky]

8 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

Call me crazy but I think the Brewers opening day lineup is going to feature Ortiz at 3B, Turang at SS, and Hamilton at 2B and I’m talking myself into believing Hamilton could be a strong side platoon guy at 2B this year. 

I wouldn't be surprised if Turang does not move to short.  Last year, his arm was sore after spring training due to playing too much SS.  Hopefully, he will get a lot of reps at SS in the spring and remain healthy.

[Brewcrew82]

IF alignment ain't changing. Gonna be Turang at 2B and Ortiz at SS. TBD at 3B.

[owbc]

54 minutes ago, Turning2 said:

Well put. Not a popular exercise to suggest anything that rubs against the company line. I'm surprised you only have one down thumb currently. 

I don't think it's controversial to say that if they can't turn Harrison into a MLB caliber starting pitcher then the trade will be a failure. 

It's also not controversial to say that the trade left a disaster on the left side of the infield from an offensive perspective.

Really this trade is a straight up buy low, sell high. 

[Brewcrew82]

2 hours ago, liveforoctober said:

I know it is only one metric - but in 504 career at bats David Hamilton has posted 3.5 WAR (BRef). In 445 at bats last year Durbin posted 2.8 WAR (BRef).

I'm not saying they do or don't but if they believe they are selling high on Durbin and think they can bump Hamilton's offensive output ... it isn't a stretch.

I mean you're talking about a .312 xwOBA for Durbin vs. a .272 career xwOBA for Hamilton. 

Hamilton can outperform that due to his superior speed and Durbin may fall back to earth a bit, but that's still a significant gap. You're talking about close to league average hitter metrically vs. a very bottom of the league tier hitter metrically. 

To illustrate, Joey Ortiz had a .275 xWOBA last year, which was in the 3rd percentile league-wide.

 

[liveforoctober]

1 minute ago, Brewcrew82 said:

I mean you're talking about a .312 xwOBA for Durbin vs. a .272 career xwOBA for Hamilton. 

Hamilton can outperform that due to his superior speed and Durbin may fall back to earth a bit, but that's still a significant gap. You're talking about close to league average hitter metrically vs. a very bottom of the league tier hitter metrically. 

To illustrate, Joey Ortiz had a .275 xWOBA last year, which was in the 3rd percentile league-wide.

 

I'm not disagreeing with any of that.

[TURBO]

1 hour ago, Turning2 said:

Well put. Not a popular exercise to suggest anything that rubs against the company line. I'm surprised you only have one down thumb currently. 

You can't count a thumbs down from Ghostdrew.  That is his schtick.  

Rarely posts words, just shows up to hand out the negative thumb awards.

[TURBO]

3 hours ago, SeaBass said:

They're not going to give up on Ortiz after one bad season. They're just not. That means he's going to get lots and lots of playing time. I'd bet money on it. If he's still struggling as bad as he was last season I'd be thinking June is around the time they'd be thinking of going in another direction.

 

I wasn't suggesting they were going to give up on him, or that they should.  I simply do not think it is a good decision to keep him and Hamilton in the lineup at the same time.  I'm all for giving Joey another shot to redeem himself.  I'm not all for any lineup that includes both he and Hamilton.

[Turning2]

2 hours ago, owbc said:

I don't think it's controversial to say that if they can't turn Harrison into a MLB caliber starting pitcher then the trade will be a failure. 

It's also not controversial to say that the trade left a disaster on the left side of the infield from an offensive perspective.

Really this trade is a straight up buy low, sell high. 

I’m not speaking in terms of success or failure. Just that so many have themselves convinced that this was a hands down steal. It could easily end up a wash with the downside being it left a large hole at 3B. Barring another trade or Williams being at least as productive as Durbin as a rookie OR Hamilton having a career year, the hot corner offense might be dicey. 

[edfunderburk]

7 hours ago, CheezWizHed said:

The Devers trade for Boston now comes down to a #3 SP (Hicks), a #6-7 SP (Bello), and Durbin. Not sure that screams "win now"... 

You should add $200M to those three players too 

[edfunderburk]

3 hours ago, Samurai Bucky said:

I wouldn't be surprised if Turang does not move to short.  Last year, his arm was sore after spring training due to playing too much SS.  Hopefully, he will get a lot of reps at SS in the spring and remain healthy.

I wonder if Turang will get some innings at SS in the WBC 

[DonBarclay]

12 minutes ago, edfunderburk said:

I wonder if Turang will get some innings at SS in the WBC 

Doubtful with Henderson and Witt. Seems more likely that Gunnar gets the non-Witt SS innings.