The Brewers Have Some Defensive Changes to Ponder in 2025

The Brewers' decision-makers may be tempted to change Sal Frelick's role for the upcoming season, but is it a risk worth taking?

MILWAUKEE, WI - JUNE 26: Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Sal Frelick (10) throws the ball after fielding a line drive during an MLB game against the Texas Rangers on June 26, 2024 at American Family Field in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
MILWAUKEE, WI - JUNE 26: Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Sal Frelick (10) throws the ball after fielding a line drive during an MLB game against the Texas Rangers on June 26, 2024 at American Family Field in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Over the course of the past few years, few teams have sent a more sound defensive unit to the field on a nightly basis than the Milwaukee Brewers.

In both 2023 and 2024, the Crew finished in the top-10 in Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) and Outs Above Average (OAA). 2023 in particular was especially impressive, as the club finished either first or second in all of baseball in each of these categories.

This past season was no different. Willy Adames, Brice Turang and Joey Ortiz formed a solid defensive infield while the likes of Jackson Chourio, Blake Perkins and Sal Frelick held it down in the outfield grass.

Adames, of course, signed with the San Francisco Giants earlier this offseason, leaving the door wide open for the slick-fielding Ortiz to shift over from third base to shortstop in 2025. Ortiz has a decent throwing arm, but he’ll cover a ton of ground at shortstop.

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Outside of Adames, the rest of this group of strong fielders will be returning in the upcoming campaign.

The Brewers have always loved themselves some positional flexibility, and it’s obvious by looking at their current roster that this is still very much the case. Most of their outfielders can play all three spots out there while Turang, Ortiz, Caleb Durbin, Tyler Black and Oliver Dunn can shuffle around all over the field on any given night.

However, the Brewers don’t have an established third baseman for the coming season. As things currently stand, Dunn is projected to share the position with Durbin. Both are seriously unproven assets at the big-league level, so there’s a fair amount of risk involved in going with this pair.

Alex Bregman remains the best available option on the open market to take over at the position, but the small market Brewers are certainly not going to mess around with all of that. Ha-Seong Kim could be an option, too, but he’s something of a question-mark due to his recent injury history.

The Crew has tried to bring some out-of-the-box thinking to the table before when it comes to their third base depth. As a matter of fact, they tried something extremely “out there” during this past spring training. This quirky move never really took off, but the temptation to give it another go is going to be strong for Milwaukee once camp opens up this year.

Sal Frelick: Brewers Third Baseman?

In February of this past year, Brewers manager Pat Murphy announced that Sal Frelick was going to get some looks in the infield during spring training. At the time, Murphy had said that Frelick reminded him a lot of Dustin Pedroia (whom Frelick wound up working out with during the spring) and that Frelick himself welcomed the opportunity to expand his versatility.

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At the time, the young outfielder hadn’t played a single inning in the infield in his professional career. He’d called center field his position by trade but seen time in both outfield corners as well.

Sure enough, once spring training rolled around and Frelick got a ton of looks at the hot corner. All told, he made 12 appearances there, including nine starts, and racked up six putouts and five assists with one error in 67 innings of work.

It was never difficult to see why the Brewers were open to trying this experiment. Coming up as one of the Brewers’ top prospects, Frelick had regularly shown off an above-average throwing arm and excellent range wherever he called home in the outfield.

Even though he delivered when called upon during spring, Frelick never got much of a look at third during the regular season. In the end, he made just two appearances there, making two putouts across four innings of work.

Outfield Performance

That throwing arm and his range were on full display all year long, so it’s no wonder why the Brewers just kept Frelick in the outfield rather than try him at third base on the fly. Pair this with the fact that Ortiz was holding down his own at third, the need for Frelick to make a shift just wasn’t pressing at any point.

A Garrett Mitchell injury and Joey Wiemer’s complete inability to hit a baseball helped bring this experiment to a screeching halt, too.

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In the outfield, Frelick finished the 2024 campaign in the 91st percentile in OAA while sitting comfortably in the 67th percentile in Arm Value and 68th in Arm Strength. He and Perkins made one hell of a duo in the outfield and were both heavily featured in highlight reels as the season marched on.

The Case For Making A Change

Now that Adames is gone and Ortiz is set to take his place, there’s a rather large hole at third base for the Brewers. Dunn had a .597 OPS and .282 OBP through his first 41 games in the big leagues this past season and is far from a “sure thing.”

Other options don’t bring much more in the way of experience, as Durbin has yet to make his debut and Black is completely position-less at the game’s highest level.

Frelick hit just .259 this past year with a .655 OPS and 83 OPS+, but he’s got recent history of success at the plate – in the minors. He finished 2021 with a cumulative wRC+ of 139 while coming in at 137 in 2022. He’s always going to have speed and he’ll draw his fair share of walks, but this change only works out to its highest potential if Frelick is able to find his stroke at the plate once again.

Frelick is quick on his feet, has excellent instincts and a strong enough throwing arm to hold down the position on a nightly basis. Much stranger things have happened elsewhere in the league, just look at the flawless position changes Bryce Harper, Jackson Merrill and Mookie Betts made this past season.

An outfield of Perkins-Mitchell-Chourio (with Christian Yelich as the DH) would still give the club an outstanding defensive alignment. Perkins finished this past year with a whopping 11 OAA, while Chourio finished with 5 and Mitchell with 3.

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Giving Perkins some more playing time would allow one of the game’s very best defenders to take the field every single night, rather than simply using him as a part-time player. His bat is so-so and will certainly never been his main calling card, but the glove is legit. Handing him a consistent spot in the outfield would immediately give the Crew another obvious Gold Glove contender.

The Case Against Making A Change

The case against making such a move is simple: why should the Brewers mess with a good thing?

Having so many Gold Glove-caliber outfielders on the active roster gives the club an embarrassment of riches, but it may not be ideal to shake things up when all is already going smoothly.

Perkins and his 11 OAA are out-of-this-world in the grass, but Frelick and his 7 OAA isn’t that far behind. If the Brewers wanted to lean more into the offensive side of things, keeping the outfield alignment of Frelick-Mitchell-Chourio with Yelich as the DH is likely the way to go. Perkins didn’t show a whole lot of offensive upside in his first season as an oft-used fourth outfielder.

There’s a fairly significant risk at play for the Brewers in this situation as well. What happens if Frelick gets a look at third base and he has a hard time adjusting while the outfield unit excels? Suddenly, he’s being squeezed out of a roster spot altogether, but that’s nowhere close to ideal for a player who was recently viewed as one of the organization’s best prospects.

Without having a whole lot of reps under his belt to form too deep of an opinion either way, such an experiment could either work out very well, giving the Brewers a new third baseman while allowing the new-look outfield to catch every flyball ever hit; or it could go sideways and leave Frelick on the outside looking in, not only in the outfield but on the 26-man active roster as a whole.

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Closing Thoughts

Coming off of a 93-win showing in 2024, the Brewers are in a good place as we near the new season. The club has been alarmingly quiet this winter, but that’s no different than a typical offseason for the Crew. Losing Adames and swapping Devin Williams for Durbin and Nestor Cortes may be the most active they’ll get this winter.

A clear lack of a third baseman for the upcoming season is going to tempt Milwaukee’s decision-makers into making what may be a risky move. Frelick looked excellent in the outfield last year – he’s got the hardware to back it up – but we simply don’t know if he can cut it as an infielder.

Going strictly off of potential, he has what it takes to be an above-average infielder and an above-average outfielder. The Brewers need to pick a lane with him and stick to it, because messing around too much with something that’s been working is risky business.