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The Brewers pulled the trigger on their first lineup turnover of 2025 relatively early, last week, by sending Oliver Dunn to Triple-A Nashville and recalling Caleb Durbin to take over third base. It can hardly be called a surprise, as poorly as Dunn was hitting, but it stings a bit that they had to make the change so soon. At a blush, it feels like an indictment of the choice to demote Durbin and play Dunn in the first place. Even once you review their process and the spring training each player had, it leaves a bitter taste, because it makes the potential for Dunn to contribute at all in the future a bit more murky.
Still, everyone knew that move was possible. Dunn's very rough first campaign with the Brewers left plenty of people wondering if he can hit big-league pitching, and Durbin is a promising (though probably not star-caliber) alternative, whom they were going to want to audition soon anyway. The hot corner swap is tolerable, if slightly unpleasant. If the team has to make a similar move with shortstop Joey Ortiz in the coming weeks, it's going to be a whole lot less palatable. The team is not, in any way, prepared for that, and no one would have predicted that they would face this dilemma even a month ago.
Ortiz's rookie season was slightly dimmed by the vicissitudes of batting eighth or ninth almost daily as a young player, and by a neck injury that cost him bat speed for much of the second half. He showed lots of encouraging signs, though, and the hope coming into spring training was that he would emerge as a secondary but helpful piece of the offense, in addition to taking over the position vacated by Willy Adames's departure in free agency.
He made that hoped-for future feel very close at hand all spring, raking and running all over the park. Little though spring numbers matter, it was impossible not to be influenced by his 1.145 OPS for the Cactus League campaign. He walked seven times, had nine extra-base hits, and only struck out 10 times. He looked like a dynamic, slashing player who could lengthen the lineup and make the whole batting order feel like a minefield for opposing pitching staffs—which is what he was during his best stretches in 2024, too.
Since the games started counting, though, Ortiz has just one extra-base hit. It came on a not-so-lively middle-middle fastball, and while it also counted as a Barrel, according to Statcast, even that was only so noted after the fact. It came on April 2.
Ortiz's plate discipline hasn't completely collapsed. He's making ample contact, and walking about 9% of the time. He's also shown as little power as it's possible for an athlete of his caliber to demonstrate, running the lowest average exit velocity in baseball and coming up with tons of feeble batted balls. Of his 13 singles this year, two were Texas Leaguers (bloopers into the space between the infielders and the outfielders); four were hit reasonably sharply, but at negative launch angles. and just saw their way through the infield; and two came on about the ugliest mishits you'll ever see. Of the latter two, one probably should have been called an error, rather than an infield single.
Nor has Ortiz been good in the field. There have been outright errors, but also a fair share of misplays that were just beyond the range where a fielder takes the brunt under modern scoring conventions. He's playing the right position to survive in the lineup while slugging .190, but he's not playing it anywhere near well enough to justify his place for long.
That all leaves us with the urgent question: What can the Brewers do about it? They don't have a second Durbin handy. Andruw Monasterio continues to go backward, and it looks increasingly like the neat story that was his emergence in 2023 as a playable, versatile infield stopgap was temporary. Given how late he bloomed, that's not surprising, or even disappointing. It's just who Monasterio was always most likely to be. Without him as an option, though, it's hard to figure out how the Brewers would handle it if they need to replace Ortiz in May.
Brice Turang could slide from second to short. After all, the team entertained that notion for an entertainingly long time this spring. That would still leave second base open, though. Vinny Capra has not been any better than Dunn or Ortiz this year, though perhaps a brief audition for him would be the right call, since he's out of options and hasn't gotten a shot to play even semi-regularly yet.
We've seen the Brewers address similar problems with in-season moves, even early in the year, very recently. Adames himself is one example. Their trade for Quinn Priester is another, of course. Could the team engage with the Rockies on a deal for Ryan McMahon, an oft-rumored target? Perhaps, although McMahon isn't off to a scorching start, himself. If the Diamondbacks get second baseman Ketel Marte back soon, they might be ready to talk about trading post-hype top prospect Jordan Lawlar, although players like that become available at moments like these only if something has gone wrong for them. The Royals could find themselves in seller mode and be willing to listen on either Maikel García or Jonathan India, but those are more options with warts or problems of fit to consider.
The wild card is Cooper Pratt. He won't even turn 21 until August, and he's not an option right away. He only has 70 plate appearances for Double-A Biloxi this spring. He's hitting, though, and not in a way that's obviously unsustainable. He played in some Cactus League games this spring and didn't look overmatched or intimidated by the speed of the game, on offense or defense. The longer he hits well in the minors, and the longer Ortiz struggles in the majors, the stronger the temptation will grow for the team to have them switch places. Ortiz is older than he seems (he'll be 27 in July), but he still has options, and he's certainly played a Triple-A caliber of baseball over the first three-plus weeks of this major-league season.
This was not supposed to be on Matt Arnold and Pat Murphy's list of possible dilemmas. Maybe Ortiz will break out soon, obviating the conversation. Right now, though, he's a scar on the lineup card, and the Brewers' margin for error feels narrower than in recent years. If things continue like this for long, they'll need to make a tough decision.
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