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’s a little less clear, but there are a bunch of potential options, and as long as Brice Turang’s health holds out, we shouldn’t really need to worry about that question.
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’ history, he’s 26, and he has four more years of team control.
Brice Turang
The emergence of Brice Turang has been quite something to watch for Brewers fans over the past three seasons. It’s not that Turang was unheralded as a prospect — 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. But Turang made steady improvement at the plate in 2024 and emerged as one of baseball’s best defensive players and baserunners, and while his defensive and baserunning numbers took a step back in 2025, he made a large — one might say “quantum” — leap at the plate.
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’d hit through his first two MLB seasons. Turang’s August batting line looked like something Albert Belle would’ve done in the mid-90s: .343/.398/.694.
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.
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.
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 — the .979 OPS Turang had over the season’s last two months would’ve 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).
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 “perfectly fine” hitter he was from March through July and the “monstrous” hitter he was in August and September, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think he could be a guy who hits 20 homers with a high batting average and reasonably good on-base skills.
If he can replicate an OPS near .800 and add in 2024’s baserunning and defense, then something truly special could be in store. I’ve talked about this before, but we’re talking MVP-level production if you get the best version of every part of Turang’s game — the baserunning and defense of 2024 plus the hitting of 2025, even if you’re using the full season numbers rather than the last-two-months numbers. (I covered a lot of this in-depth last season.)
I’m not predicting an 8 WAR season for Turang. That would be silly. But I’m not saying that it couldn’t happen.
Jett Williams
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’t 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 “possible opening day third baseman” before the Brewers signed Luis Rengifo.
Williams isn’t viewed as a bad shortstop, but he’s also not viewed as a particularly good one, and the Brewers have options there — Cooper Pratt and Jésus Made — who both likely project better defensively. That might mean that, if Williams’ future isn’t 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.
Either way, Williams will surely start at Triple-A Nashville. He finished in Triple-A last season in the Mets’ organization, but he didn’t 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’t much of a change in Williams’ 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.
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’s also extremely fast, which means he’ll 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.
Assuming things go well in Nashville, I’d expect to see Williams in Milwaukee in 2025 — possibly pretty early. His versatility is a huge plus, and he’s a little further along than the Brewers’ other top infield prospects. An injury to any outfielder or non-first-base infielder could result in a promotion, provided it’s far enough into the season that the Brewers maintain that extra year of service time.
Who Else?
I’m going to save David Hamilton for the third base preview, but he’s 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’ve 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’s primary third baseman, and the reps at second for a backup second basemen are going to be few and far between, anyway.
We’ve 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 Peña, are both listed at shortstops, as is Pratt. That’s the most compelling reason why Williams’ long-term future may very well be in the outfield.
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’s in play.
