Pat Murphy Wants to Have One Position Open for Jett Williams. It's Pretty Clear Which One.

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images

It's starting to wear on Pat Murphy. He can't let it show, but when you ask him about Jett Williams, you can see him working not to betray the eagerness he feels for the arrival of his next dynamic two-way weapon. It's just a question of when and how to best introduce him to the majors—and what roster machinations will make it possible.

"I love the kid, and I think it won't be long," Murphy said Sunday at Target Field in Minneapolis. "I love Jett, and I keep in contact with him."

Not every prospect gets regular, direct check-ins from the big-league manager. In fact, some skippers elect not to do that at all, lest the players on their big-league roster start feeling like the boss no longer has their back. Murphy texts and speaks with Williams regularly, though, and continues to get reports from the Triple-A coaching staff on his progress. His defense is of particular interest, because Williams has sanded some of the rough edges off his offensive game, but the Brewers need him to be ready to play well in the field when he arrives—and not in a fill-in, move-around-the-diamond kind of way.

"No," Murphy said, when asked whether the eventual call-up might be a situation wherein Williams plays shortstop on some days and third base on others. "He plays both, he could play second [base], he can play center field, he can play left field. He can do a lot of things. [But] you don't like the idea of a young player coming to the big leagues and being a utility player."

Murphy believes the speed of the game and the subtleties of each position created by that greater intensity only make it more difficult for a player matriculating from the minors to the majors, at a time when that jump has never been more difficult, anyway. 

Murphy has been (understandably) dissastisfied with what he's seen from his team so far this season, despite their recent winning skein and first-place position in the NL Central standings table.

"The major-league team, right now, as it sits, has to get better," he said, during a discussion in which he praised the depth waiting at Nashville, including Williams, Cooper Pratt, Luis Lara and others. "We have to continue to work and find our rhythm a little bit."

As Murphy acknowledged, the timeline of Williams's promotion will depend as much on the needs of the team as on his development, now. He's increased his in-zone contact rate and smoothed out some problems with hitting non-fastballs this spring, and is batting a solid .248/.375/.412 for the Sounds. He's pulling the ball a ton and hitting it on the ground a bit more, which the team will try to help him even out, but his approach and his combination of plus-plus speed and sneaky pop look essentially ready for the majors. Murphy and the Brewers just don't want to promote him before they have a clear role for him to fill.

Williams is the rare top prospect who spent his whole childhood moving around the diamond, playing several positions. He swears that he doesn't have a preference for any particular spot, and Murphy acknowledged that that makes it a bit easier to envision him in a super-sub role—but ideally, that would come after he's fully established in the majors, rather than right away.

"I think he's a likely kid that could be the one that could do it a little bit," Murphy said. "And if forced to do it, I think we could do it. I think the best version of Jett is playing him every day somewhere, and kind of consistently learning a position at this level with the speed of the game at this level."

That doesn't have to mean keeping Williams in the minors until he's a defensive ace at one spot. As Murphy noted, Caleb Durbin took time to blossom as a defender at third base last year, even though he'd had experience there in the minors. Ditto for Joey Ortiz, when Ortiz moved from third base back to short. Isaac Collins needed time to adjust to how big-leaguers hit the ball before becoming (however briefly) a strong defensive outfielder. Rather, what the Brewers want is an open spot into which Williams can be slotted, so that his adjustment and growth period goes as smoothly as possible and he can dedicate enough time to the other side of the runs ledger, too.

It's becoming pretty clear that that spot is the hot corner, where Luis Rengifo finds himself on an increasingly hot seat. Rengifo has shown signs of life and made some big plays for the team over the last fortnight, but even in that stretch, there have also been some glaring mistakes. He was thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double Monday night. On Tuesday, a misplay on a hard-hit ground ball at third base nearly opened the floodgates on a Cubs comeback attempt. Rengifo also isn't hitting lefties well this year, which makes his utility harder to express or see in simple terms. His .712 OPS from the right side is easily the stronger of the switch-hitter's splits, and was a vital aspect of his appeal to the Brewers. Albeit in just 60 plate appearances, he's batting .107/.150/.143 against southpaws in 2026.

Rengifo also lost his platoon partner, in part, when the offensive ineptitude of Ortiz forced the Brewers to start playing David Hamilton more often at shortstop. Hamilton has started at short in three of the Brewers' last four games (and 7 of their last 11) against right-handed starters. Rengifo's defense has been inconsistent; his offense has been anemic. With Hamilton getting more comfortable at short, the door is starting to swing open on Williams at third.

Indeed, Williams has started 32 games at that position for Nashville, and just five each at shortstop and in center field. Murphy said the reports have been "very good" on his glove work at the position. If he were on the 40-man roster (like fellow top prospect but purer shortstop Cooper Pratt), Williams might already be in the majors. The Brewers did create a vacancy on their 40-man over the weekend, however, when they designated reliever Peter Strzelecki for assignment to make room on the 26-man roster for spot starter Robert Gasser.

Rengifo's hold on the third-base job could be running out extremely quickly. That doesn't necessarily mean the team would dump him as part of calling up Williams, though. In fact, to preserve depth and give their investment a bit more time to turn for the better, they'd be more likely to option either Ortiz or Hamilton (the former being more likely, for multiple reasons) and roll with Rengifo as a bench option for a spell.

In any event, Murphy is right: it won't be long before Williams comes to the big leagues. Injuries could solve the dilemma for the team, but it's becoming increasingly likely that the sustained underperformance of the left side of the infield will force the club's hand. Williams is the more ready of the two Nashville infielders, offensively, and the team seems to feel a greater urgency to fix third base, anyway. If none of Rengifo, Ortiz and Hamilton turn a corner for the better in the very near future, Williams (or, perhaps, Pratt) will be taking one of their jobs imminently.

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[igor67]

Winning makes it a little bit easier to wait, but Super 2 status or not I want to stop feeling like we are throwing away quite so many ABs

[long ball]

“That doesn't necessarily mean the team would dump him as part of calling up Williams, though. In fact, to preserve depth and give their investment a bit more time to turn for the better, they'd be more likely to option either Ortiz or Hamilton (the former being more likely, for multiple reasons) and roll with Rengifo as a bench option for a spell.”

Why do you believe the team is more likely to option Ortiz than Hamilton? Or was that a typo?

 

[rafa79]

If someone goes down when Williams comes up, I think it would be Blake Perkins.  With Bauer playing a lot on left field, why do you need a 5th outfielder? 

I like Perkins, a lot, he's a great young man ....who still has significant offensive shortcomings.  Mitchell has struggled but is clearly still on the team. You still have Chourio and Frelick in this situation and if an injury happened during the game, you'd have Jett Williams as a 5th outfielder. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

26 minutes ago, rafa79 said:

If someone goes down when Williams comes up, I think it would be Blake Perkins.  With Bauer playing a lot on left field, why do you need a 5th outfielder? 

I like Perkins, a lot, he's a great young man ....who still has significant offensive shortcomings.  Mitchell has struggled but is clearly still on the team. You still have Chourio and Frelick in this situation and if an injury happened during the game, you'd have Jett Williams as a 5th outfielder. 

If Williams came up under the current roster makeup, I'd guess Hamilton would be the one to go. But that puts Ortiz in a close to every-day role, and the slightly better ABs he's been putting up in the last week or so need to be more than fool's gold in the eyes of the decision-makers.

Perkins going down is an interesting idea, and not a bad one. I just don't know if they would be comfortable with a Mitchell-Frelick-Chourio-sometimes Bauers OF group. Perhaps.

Sure would be nice if they could trust putting Yelich out there occasionally, but let's not even go there.

[Samurai Bucky]

Over the past 14 days, Joey has slashed .259/.344/.444.  If he keeps this up, I would think we could remove his name from the "sending down" list.  Hopefully, he keeps it up because his defense is still very, very good.

[maxximus]

34 minutes ago, long ball said:

Why do you believe the team is more likely to option Ortiz than Hamilton? Or was that a typo?

 

same. Hamilton is fast, and if he gets on, he's very likely to get to 2nd base, but that speed isn't worth what Ortiz offers, and given that the team values defense as it does, there's no way they're rolling with Hamilton as the everyday SS and Jett as backup, having no true SS on the active roster.