Once Willy Adames officially ended his Brewers tenure by signing with the Giants, the conventional wisdom was that Joey Ortiz would move from third base take over the shortstop position, as Ortiz had been a standout defensive shortstop during his time in the Orioles’ farm system. Indeed, Ortiz got the bulk of looks at shortstop for most of Spring Training, but in recent days, the Brewers have been going with a new alignment of Ortiz at second base, and Brice Turang moving from the keystone over to shortstop.
Manager Pat Murphy stressed that the situation was still very much in flux, telling MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy and other reports that “We haven’t made a final decision. I haven’t made a final decision. I really believe in looking at all of it, taking in all the information and listening to others. I was dead set on, ’Turang is going to be our second baseman, and Ortiz can handle short.’ I still believe that. But, then we toyed with this new setup and I was like, ’This might be better for everybody.’ ”
There is nothing stopping the experimentation from continuing into the regular season, though McCalvy writes that the team wants “Turang and Ortiz set at their positions as much as possible, rather than moving around.” Milwaukee used 108 different defensive lineups during the 2024 season, yet the cornerstones of that shifting lineup were Adames at shortstop, Turang at second base, William Contreras at catcher, and Ortiz with 124 of the starts at third base. Ortiz did make six appearances at second base last year, as well as one appearance as a shortstop.
Turang was a Gold Glove and Platinum Glove winner last season as a second baseman, with public defensive metrics (+22 Defensive Runs Saved, +6 Outs Above Average, +2.1 UZR/150) all wowed by his work at the position. Ortiz was also excellent at third base, posting +8 DRS, +11 OAA, and a +5.0 UZR/150 in 1098 1/3 innings at the hot corner. Against this backdrop of success, the Brewers naturally face some risk in rocking the boat too much on what is already a strong defensive alignment, even if there seems to be little doubt that Turang or Ortiz would adapt well to new positions.
In explaining why Ortiz might be an ideal fit at second base, Murphy noted that “We ask our second basemen to do a lot. What I mean by that is when you play the middle of the diamond the way we play our second basemen for most all right-handed hitters, and the ground we ask them to cover, it’s not too awfully different than short. The number of times you end up throwing a ball from the outfield to a base, the number of times you end up directing a ball in a first-and-third steal situation, the number of times you wind up touching the ball because you’re turning two.”
As for third base, Oliver Dunn has been making a strong bid for the job with a big Cactus League performance. Dunn made his MLB debut last season and hit .221/.282/.316 over 104 plate appearances, playing primarily as a third baseman before a back injury cut short his season in mid-June.
Dunn is a left-handed hitter, so Caleb Durbin (acquired from the Yankees in the Devin Williams trade) was thought to be the top candidate for at least a platoon role at the hot corner. However, Durbin hasn’t hit much this spring, while an unheralded option in Vinny Capra has been tearing the cover off the ball. Capra has a .439 OPS over all of 37 career PA at the big league level, and his .271/.366/.384 career slash line in 984 Triple-A plate appearances is uninspiring but respectable. Because Capra is out of minor league options, the Brewers would have to sneak him through waivers in order to send him down to Triple-A, which might help his chances of breaking camp with the team if the decision is made to give Durbin more seasoning in the minors.
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