Whenever a young player has a breakthrough season, the team for whom they play is likely to have some interest in locking them up to a long-term deal. The Brewers are no exception to that rule. Often, though, by the time a player actually has that kind of campaign, it’s too late for the Crew to get them signed on terms they find agreeable. They did give Christian Yelich a big, market-rate extension after his superstar turn in 2018-19, but more often, they either succeed with proactive overtures to players before they really establish themselves as stars (as with Freddy Peralta, Aaron Ashby and Jackson Chourio) or end up trading those players or letting them walk as free agents (as with Josh Hader, Brandon Woodruff, Corbin Burnes and Willy Adames, among others).

If you try to put Brice Turang in one of those categories as he heads toward arbitration for the first time this winter, you’ll end up lumping him with the guys who departed Milwaukee. Turang hit 18 home runs and went from about 15% worse than a league-average batter to about 20% better than one, all while continuing to run the bases well and play plus defense at second base. A year ago, the Brewers could have at least hoped to sew up his services beyond late 2029 (when he’s currently scheduled to become a free agent) for under $60 million, in total. That’s out the window now. If they want to strike a deal that keeps Turang in Milwaukee for the long run, they’ll have to be ready to pay as much as $100 million. Even acknowledging how good he was in 2025, that feels unlikely.

Presumably, the Brewers will be willing to let Turang go after 2029, instead of committing that much money to him. That’s how they tend to operate. They’re ruthless; it’s a large part of what makes them great at team-building. With Jesus Made, Luis Pena and Cooper Pratt (among others) in the pipeline, they don’t need to lock themselves into eight-figure annual salaries for a second baseman—at least, that’s what you’d think at a glance.

Here’s the rub: According to MLB Trade Rumors, Turang is set to make somewhere around $4.4 million next year, in his first season of arbitration eligibility. That will be the first of four years of eligibility for Turang, who is just a week shy of three full years of MLB service time and will qualify for arbitration as a Super Two player this fall. The rules and norms of the league’s arbitration system are such that platform years (and platform earnings) are very important. Players can’t receive more than a 20% pay cut from one year to the next once they reach arbitration, and in practice, they nearly always see substantial year-to-year increases—even if they don’t have especially strong campaigns. Even one or two good years, on the other hand, can effect major acceleration in a player’s earning power.

That $4.4 million as a first-year award for a player headed for four trips through the arbitration system is the kind of number that imperils the Crew’s control of Turang for 2029. If he remains a productive player (the kind the team would love to retain, in a vacuum), by that final year of team control, he’s likely to be in line for nearly $20 million. The Brewers kept Willy Adames all the way to free agency and paid him $12.25 million in 2024, but after agreeing with Corbin Burnes at $15.6 million to avoid arbitration, they traded him. If Turang ends up in a position to earn more than Adames or Burnes (even accounting for salary inflation throughout the sport), they’ll have a hard time fitting him into their plans for that final year of what should be control over their former first-round pick.

Unfortunately, the team has little leverage over Turang, even at this relatively early juncture. He made just over $368,000 in bonus money via the league’s new pre-arbitration bonus pool arrangement last season, and will receive an even bigger payout sometime this winter. He also got $3.4 million and change as a signing bonus when the team took him in the 2018 MLB Draft. He’s already made more than $5 million in the game, and that figure will roughly double in 2026. To get him to sign a deal that tamps down his earning power over the next few years in exchange for a guaranteed payday beyond that, the Brewers are likelt to have to stretch beyond their comfort zone. A structure like this would make sense:

Signing bonus: $2 million

2026: $4 million

2027: $9 million

2028: $9 million

2029: $13 million

2030: $18 million

2031: $18 million

2032: $18 million

2033: $25 million vesting or club option, with $9-million buyout

That’s a seven-year deal worth $100 million, with a chance to stretch to eight years and $116 million. With some financial uncertainty ahead for the game as a whole and given the rough market for 30-something middle infielders, Turang might be willing to sign such a deal—but the Brewers would have to believe so much in his long-term viability (and the utility of, especially, his 2029 and 2030 seasons) than they’d be willing to guarantee so much and risk overpaying for a player in decline at the end of the deal. 

Normally, that’s out of the question for this front office, under this ownership group. However, Turang is an important cog in the machine that has churned out three straight division titles, and he took a huge step forward in 2025. If signing a deal like this is the best way to avoid the risk of losing him a year ahead of schedule, the Brewers might feel the gamble is worth it.