Photo Credit: Scott Paulus
As the Brewers enter the second week of the 2021 regular season, they’re already dealing with the ramifications of a move that will impact their depth.
They entered the season with four infielders splitting playing time at three spots, with Kolten Wong, Orlando Arcia, Luis Urias and Travis Shaw all making the Opening Day roster. That arrangement lasted just four games, however, before the Brewers traded Arcia to the Braves. The timing was a bit unusual: Before Arcia the Brewers had only traded a player off their MLB roster between Opening Day and the end of April once in the last 13 years, sending reliever Damien Magnifico to the Angels in 2017.
The decision to move on from Arcia removes the safety net from below a couple of the team’s biggest question marks. First, it makes Luis Urias a near-lock to start at shortstop most days. Urias is a former top prospect and is still only 24 years old but has yet to find his way at the plate as a major leaguer. He’s off to a 2-for-27 start in the first nine games of the 2021 season and is a career .216 hitter with a .310 on-base and .306 slugging across portions of four seasons in the majors. The Brewers are understandably high on Urias, who they traded Zach Davies and Trent Grisham to get following the 2019 season, but they don’t have many options now if he struggles to live up to their expectations.
Meanwhile, early indications suggest the Brewers may not have had much playing time for Arcia at third base. Travis Shaw’s return to the organization at that position has paid near-immediate dividends, as he’s batting .308 with a .357 on-base and .577 slugging in his first eight appearances and has already connected for a pair of home runs. Shaw drove in just 16 runs across 86 appearances in the final season of his previous tenure in Milwaukee in 2019, and already has ten in 2021. If Arcia had stuck around, it seems unlikely the Brewers would have penciled him into the lineup over Shaw very often.
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Second Base
The Brewers’ situation at second base, however, adds another wrinkle to this transaction. Kolten Wong started each of the Brewers’ first five games at that position while struggling to overcome an oblique injury, then reaggravated it on Thursday and had to go on the injured list. Wong had drawn five walks but collected just two hits across his first seven appearances as a Brewer. The Brewers have suggested they expect Wong to return quickly, but recovery time for oblique injuries is notoriously difficult to predict.
As such, after trading Arcia and losing Wong the Brewers’ infield depth was depleted to the point where they had to recall infielder Jace Peterson, a career .226 hitter with a .316 on-base and .329 slugging in eight MLB seasons, and start him at second base in the eighth and ninth games of the season. Peterson went 0-for-7 with a walk in the final two games of the Cardinals series, struggles that were magnified by the fact that he came up with runners in scoring position in the first inning of both contests.
The Brewers did get something in return for Arcia, of course: Pitchers Chad Sobotka and Patrick Wiegel have both appeared in the majors before and add some depth to an organization that has demonstrated a strong tendency to shuffle pitchers in and out frequently. The Brewers also gained some small modicum of payroll flexibility in the deal: Arcia was due $2 million this season, while Sobotka and Wiegel will earn less.
Nonetheless, the Brewers have made an interesting decision to chip away at their infield depth this early in the season, and now are left to hope things work out with Urias and Wong.
