Brewers: 3 Players Who Could Lose Their Roster Spot When Luis Urias Returns

While the Milwaukee Brewers pitching staff is currently being decimated by the injury bug, the team's offense luckily has largely fared better in that respect this season. Soon, they should be adding another healthy player back to the roster.

On Monday we learned that infielder Luis Urias would be starting a rehab assignment with Triple-A Nashville this week. With him eligible to be reinstated on May 30th, it shouldn't be long before he is back in a Brewers uniform.

Urias is on the 60-day injured list, which means that not only does someone have to lose their active roster spot for him to return to the team, but someone has to lose a 40-man spot as well. There are at least a few candidates on the roster who could fall into one or both categories.

Here are three Brewers players who could lose their roster spot when Luis Urias returns from injury.

#1 Brewers player who could lose their roster spot: UTIL Mike Brosseau

Upon his return, Urias joins a mix of players who can play multiple positions on the infield. You can only have so many of those types of guys on the roster at the expense of other positions, so it may be a case of the worst performing utility infielder losing his spot.

That "honor" would then likely go to Mike Brosseau, who has started the season off on the cold side. Through 24 games, he is slashing just .230/.277/.459 in 65 plate appearances with 17 strikeouts compared to only four walks. He also already has five errors at third base on the season.

Meanwhile, Owen Miller, who could have been a candidate for this earlier, has played himself into an everyday role in May with a .347 average and .893 OPS in 2023. And while rookie Brice Turang only has a slightly higher average (.235) and OBP (.289) with a lower slugging percentage (.333) than Brosseau, he is already playing elite defense at second base, a quality the Brewers covet highly.

#2 Brewers player who could lose their roster spot: 1B/OF Darin Ruf

In what has been an unpleasant trend for Brewers fans to watch in recent years, the Crew have continued to struggle hitting left-handed pitching in 2023. And when one of their supposed specialists against them went on the injured list (more on him in a bit), the team brought in recently released veteran Darin Ruf.

Ruf actually had decent numbers with the Giants in 27 plate appearances (.261/.370/.348) before the roster math stopped working in his favor there. He's only had 14 plate appearances for the Brewers but has done his job well here too, going 4-for-13 with a double and a walk, striking out only twice.

For Ruf, it will be a matter or roster math once again. He has been used sparingly since his acquisition so he isn't needed to cover many at bats. And whether or not he is retained may be determined by what the team decides to do with the final player on this list.

#3 Brewers player who could lose his roster spot: 1B/DH Luke Voit

Speaking of specialists against left-handed pitching, that's exactly what Luke Voit was supposed to be once he won a roster spot coming out of spring training. So far in 2023, he has very much been not that.

Voit's overall numbers this year aren't great with a .221/.284/.265 slash line over 74 plate appearances, but they're even worse against lefties at .091/.091/.121 and a whopping 60.6% strikeout rate in 33 plate appearances. It had some wondering whether his roster spot should've been in jeopardy before he hit the injured list recently.

Voit is now on a rehab assignment with Urias in Nashville, but there's a possibility he doesn't return from it. The real question is whether the Brewers would prefer to keep him or Ruf going forward seeing as neither have minor league options and it's highly unlikely they coexist on the active roster. If you strictly go by the numbers, Voit could be on the losing end of the roster battle.

Get a look at some of these players while you can because by this time next week, one or more of them could be gone.