Top Brewers prospect's strong start making spring training roster battle interesting

One of the areas under the spotlight for the Milwaukee Brewers in spring training in 2025 is, without question, their infield. After losing Willy Adames, we know that Brice Turang and Joey Ortiz are going to feature heavily in the team's infield plans and Rhys Hoskins has returned for another season. Other than Hoskins at first, the exact configuration of Milwaukee's infield alignment remains somewhat unclear.

That isn't to say that there haven't been some clues as to the Brewers' plans here. Manager Pat Murphy has already said that Turang is so good at second base that he is a bit hesitant to move him to shortstop. There has also been a lot of chatter about the roster chances of both Tyler Black as well as Caleb Durbin who both seem likely to get significant playing time in 2025.

However, another name that Brewers fans are probably familiar with, top prospect Cooper Pratt, is making a pretty strong case early in spring training as well.

Cooper Pratt is doing his best to force the Brewers' hand down at spring training

Now we are still talking about a small sample of early spring training games here, but the talented young shortstop has been impressive thus far. Through four spring games so far, Pratt has posted a 1.222 OPS including three doubles while driving in three runs. Assuming he can keep up the good work, Milwaukee is going to have some interesting choices to make in camp.

One thing that Pratt has going for him as a roster candidate is that he has the ability and experience to play shortstop without question which could allow Milwaukee to keep Ortiz over at third base where he graded out very well in 2024 with 11 Outs Above Average. Pratt also is versatile enough to play second base and has the arm to play third if needed as well. Compared to Black who is going to be defensively limited and Durbin who might be best suited to a super utility role, that could give Pratt an edge.

Coming off a season where he posted a relatively tame .768 OPS in the minors, this whole discussion comes down to whether or not the Brewers think his bat will play in the majors yet. Odds are, the team will let Pratt get more seasoning in the upper minors against more advanced pitching before giving him a shot, but he is making that decision a bit more difficult the more he shows out this spring.

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