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

Eric Cole
Eric Cole

Reviewing The Brew

Milwaukee Brewers shortstop Cooper Pratt takes batting practice during spring training workouts Monday, February 17, 2025, at American Family Fields of Phoenix in Phoenix, Arizona. / Dave Kallmann / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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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Eric Cole

Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.