{"id":613234,"date":"2026-03-08T12:06:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T12:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/613234\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T12:06:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T12:06:41","slug":"milwaukee-brewers-2026-preview-by-position-second-base-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/613234\/","title":{"rendered":"Milwaukee Brewers 2026 preview by position: second base"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Milwaukee Brewers have an obvious choice at the top of their second-base depth chart, one that should be a big part of, at least, the next few years. After that, it\u2019s a little less clear, but there are a bunch of potential options, and as long as Brice Turang\u2019s health holds out, we shouldn\u2019t really need to worry about that question.<\/p>\n

In fact, the biggest question surrounding second base is probably whether there could be a shift to shortstop in the future. But Turang is already probably the best second baseman in Brewers\u2019 history, he\u2019s 26, and he has four more years of team control.<\/p>\n

The emergence of Brice Turang has been quite something to watch for Brewers fans over the past three seasons. It\u2019s not that Turang was unheralded as a prospect \u2014 he was a first-round pick, he was a top 100 prospect prior to the 2021 season, and he hit quite well at Triple-A Nashville in his last full minor league season in 2022. But Turang struggled so badly at the plate in 2023, it was difficult to remember all of those things. He made steady improvement as a hitter in 2024 and emerged as one of baseball\u2019s best defensive players and baserunners, and while his defensive and baserunning numbers took a step back in 2025, he made a large \u2014 one might say \u201cquantum\u201d \u2014 leap at the plate.<\/p>\n

From the beginning of the 2025 season through July, Turang was, again, showing steady improvement. Through the first 104 games of the season, he hit .271\/.339\/.363; a modest but meaningful improvement of 38 points of OPS over his 2024 numbers (after his OPS jumped from .585 to .665 from 2023 to 2024). Then August happened. Turang hit 10 homers in August and another on September 1; in 29 games, he nearly matched the 13 homers he\u2019d hit through his first two MLB seasons. Turang\u2019s August batting line looked like something Albert Belle would\u2019ve done in the mid-90s: .343\/.398\/.694.<\/p>\n

Turang finished the season as a .288\/.359\/.435 hitter, giving him a 121 OPS+, behind only Ketel Marte and Jazz Chisholm Jr. among second baseman who appeared in at least 100 games last season.<\/p>\n

The step back in defense and baserunning prevented Turang from putting up a true superstar season in 2025, but that could be coming if you believe two things: first, that the defense and baserunning are still in there, and second, that Turang can replicate the season he had at the plate in 2025.<\/p>\n

Do I have any belief that Turang can be the hitter he was in August of last year (or even August and September, when he hit a slightly more modest but still absurd .321\/.399\/.580) over the course of a full season? No, not really \u2014 the .979 OPS Turang had over the season\u2019s last two months would\u2019ve been fourth in the league, behind two of the greatest hitters of all time (Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani) and a guy who had a rookie season for the ages (Nick Kurtz).<\/p>\n

But could Turang replicate the .794 OPS he had over the full season? Sure! If we imagine that the true Turang is somewhere between the \u201cperfectly fine\u201d hitter he was from March through July and the \u201cmonstrous\u201d hitter he was in August and September, it doesn\u2019t seem unreasonable to think he could be a guy who hits 20 homers with a high batting average and reasonably good on-base skills.<\/p>\n

If he can replicate an OPS near .800 and add in 2024\u2019s baserunning and defense, then something truly special could be in store. I\u2019ve talked about this before, but we\u2019re talking MVP-level production if you get the best version of every part of Turang\u2019s game \u2014 the baserunning and defense of 2024 plus the hitting of 2025, even if you\u2019re using the full season numbers rather than the last-two-months numbers. (I covered a lot of this in-depth last season<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not predicting an 8 WAR season for Turang. That would be silly. But I\u2019m not saying that it couldn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

Here is as good a place as any to preview Williams, a super-utility type player who is filled with promise (he is on all of the major top 100 prospect lists) but doesn\u2019t yet have a clear position. As a minor leaguer, Williams has played most often at shortstop but has spent time in center field and at second base, and he was a popular choice for \u201cpossible opening day third baseman\u201d before the Brewers signed Luis Rengifo.<\/p>\n

Williams isn\u2019t viewed as a bad shortstop, but he\u2019s also not viewed as a particularly good one, and the Brewers have options there \u2014 Cooper Pratt and J\u00e9sus Made \u2014 who both likely project better defensively. That might mean that, if Williams\u2019 future isn\u2019t in the outfield (which is certainly possible, especially if all of Made, Pratt, and Williams emerge as viable major leaguers while Turang is still in the organization), second base might make the most sense for him.<\/p>\n

Either way, Williams will surely start at Triple-A Nashville. He finished in Triple-A last season in the Mets\u2019 organization, but he didn\u2019t really catch up to the pitching at the higher level in the 34 games he spent there: Williams slugged (seven homers, five doubles, two triples in just 151 plate appearances) but hit only .209 with a .285 on-base percentage. Encouragingly, there wasn\u2019t much of a change in Williams\u2019 strikeout percentage at Triple-A, and while he walked slightly less in those 34 games, Williams has always walked a lot: he has a 15.9% walk rate in 294 minor league games across four seasons.<\/p>\n

The offensive profile for Williams is intriguing. He might strike out kind of a lot and he might not hit for a high average, but he has a .388 career OBP and while he is small, he swings very hard and has surprising pop (17 homers in 130 games in 2025). He\u2019s also extremely fast, which means he\u2019ll steal bases (34 in 2025) and boosts his extra-base hit numbers: in addition to his 17 homers in 2025, Williams had 34 doubles and seven triples.<\/p>\n

Assuming things go well in Nashville, I\u2019d expect to see Williams in Milwaukee in 2025 \u2014 possibly pretty early. His versatility is a huge plus, and he\u2019s a little further along than the Brewers\u2019 other top infield prospects. An injury to any outfielder or non-first-base infielder could result in a promotion, provided it\u2019s far enough into the season that the Brewers maintain that extra year of service time.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to save David Hamilton for the third base preview, but he\u2019s likely to be the guy who fills in at second when Turang gets off days. Rengifo has played a bunch of second base in his career, and depending on which defensive numbers you trust, he might\u2019ve been better at second than at third in 2025 (Total Zone and Defensive Runs Saved both peg him as a better second baseman than third baseman last year). But it seems like Rengifo was acquired to be Milwaukee\u2019s primary third baseman, and the reps at second for a backup second basemen are going to be few and far between, anyway.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve already covered Williams, who would probably be the first choice to come up if something happened to Turang. Eddys Leonard also played some second base last year, so he could be in the mix if he stays in the organization beyond spring training. Someday, the Brewers will need to make choices about who plays where: their top two prospects, Made and Luis Pe\u00f1a, are both listed at shortstops, as is Pratt. That\u2019s the most compelling reason why Williams\u2019 long-term future may very well be in the outfield.<\/p>\n

For now, though, those are mostly questions for tomorrow, and Turang has the second base job on lockdown. A bold question for the 2026 season: could Turang become the best all-around second baseman in the league? I think it\u2019s in play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Milwaukee Brewers have an obvious choice at the top of their second-base depth chart, one that should…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2401],"tags":[5,136,843,59,79489,4906,4280,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-613234","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-milwaukee-brewers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-brewers","10":"tag-milwaukee","11":"tag-milwaukee-brewers","12":"tag-milwaukee-brewers-analysis","13":"tag-milwaukee-brewers-roster","14":"tag-milwaukeebrewers","15":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116193475972765589","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}