Brewers 2023 Opening Day third baseman's fall from grace continues with Triple-A struggles

When the Milwaukee Brewers swung a deal to acquire Oliver Dunn in November 2023, it looked like another quiet win. The club sent outfield prospect Hendry Mendez and shortstop Robert Moore to Philadelphia in exchange for a breakout minor league star — one who had just posted a monster season in Double-A Reading with the Phillies' affiliate. For a team always seeking under-the-radar talent, Dunn was a lottery ticket worth scratching.

However, less than two seasons into his major league career, the question is no longer about Dunn’s upside. It’s whether the clock is already running out on him.

Dunn was never a top prospect — an 11th-round pick of the Yankees back in 2019 — but in 2023, something seemed to click. Playing in the Eastern League, he slashed .271/.396/.506, clubbed 21 home runs, drove in 78 runs, and stole 16 bases across 119 games. He led the league in walks (82), OBP, OPS, and extra-base hits. His performance earned him an Eastern League All-Star nod and sparked enough interest for the Phillies to cash in while his stock was hot.

Oliver Dunn may be running out of chances with the Brewers

The Brewers pounced, and it made perfect sense — they needed infield depth, and Dunn offered OBP skills, some pop, and defensive versatility. Even better, he followed his breakout year with a strong showing in the Arizona Fall League, where he hit .342 and continued turning heads.

Milwaukee penciled him in as an Opening Day contributor in 2024, bypassing Triple-A altogether. In hindsight, that aggressive promotion may have short-circuited his development. Over 41 games that year, he slashed a modest .221/.282/.316 with just one home run and seven RBI. His bat-to-ball skills and patience didn’t translate against big-league arms. A back injury landed him on the 60-day IL by midseason, and by the time he returned, the team had already started reshuffling pieces around the infield.

Still, the Brewers held out hope. Entering 2025, Dunn was given a shot as the club’s everyday third baseman. An experiment that did not go well.

Through 41 plate appearances, he batted .167/.205/.222 with zero home runs, six RBI, and 11 strikeouts. No defensive metrics or flashes of upside were enough to offset the lack of production. By mid-April, he was back in Triple-A Nashville — finally getting those missed reps, but now under a cloud of diminished expectations.

So far in Nashville, Dunn is slashing just .193/.301/.329  across 56 games. For a 27-year-old trying to claim a platoon job or even a bench role back with the major league roster, this version of Dunn isn’t moving the needle.

Despite his struggles, this doesn’t make him a total bust — his draft pedigree (Day 3 pick), minor league track record, and versatility still give him some value. But the Brewers traded for a rising asset, and so far, that bet hasn’t paid off. The early dream of a sneaky breakout contributor has faded into a far more pedestrian reality. In an unforgiving world of major league baseball, his opportunities might be running out.