In a pair of moves that is surely to promote some mixed feelings amongst Milwaukee Brewers fans, the club itself took to Twitter to officially announce that shortstop Willy Adames has been reinstated from the seven-day concussion injured list. On the flip side of that, promising young infielder Brice Turang has been optioned down to Triple-A Nashville.
SS Willy Adames reinstated from the 7-day concussion list.
INF Brice Turang optioned to Triple-A Nashville. pic.twitter.com/Vt9KmxTBWb
— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) June 7, 2023
Brewers active Willy Adames, option Brice Turang ahead of Wednesday’s contest.
Getting Adames back from the injured list is going to be huge for the Brewers. While the club has not necessarily been struggling without him (six wins in nine games since he went down), injecting his bat, glove and swagger to the team is massive.
Back on May 27th, Adames was struck in the head by a line drive that Brian Anderson hit foul into the Brewers’ dugout. Such a moment is always going to prompt everyone’s heart to stop, but this time a player was physically struck, which can never be a good sign. Sure enough, the 27-year-old Adames was placed on the injured list shortly after the game.
With him out of the lineup, the Brewers have gone with a mixture of Turang and Andruw Monasterio at shortstop. The latter only just recently made his big league debut for the club and has been off to a hot start at the plate. On the opposite end of that, the former has struggled mightily to get going in his rookie season.
After cracking the big league roster out of Spring Training, Turang, 23, had sky-high expectations placed on him. After all, he was ranked as high as No. 1 prospect in the Brewers system as recently as the 2020 campaign.
In the first 57 games of his major league career, Turang has struggled at the dish. In 166 at-bats, he has just 34 hits (good for a .205 batting average) with four doubles, a pair of triples, four home runs and 14 runs driven in. He has mixed this with an OPS of just .561 and and OPS+ of 55. The OPS+ in particular suggests that he’s been 45 percent below league-average at the plate this year. His promotion comes at an unfortunate time, as he only just went 2-for-4 in last night’s win over the Orioles.
His demotion to the minor leagues does not in any way mean that he’s done getting looks in the big leagues, though. There were still plenty of positives Turang put on display in his first showing in the majors, perhaps none more than his sharp glove at both second base and shortstop. He could stand to cut back on his strikeouts while he’s down in Triple-A, as his K% spiked from 19.6% last year to 27.1% this year.
Again, Turang is going to be back. However, the return of Adames is easily the biggest news here, as he has turned himself into one of the best players on the Brewers both on and off the field. After a truly dominant performance at the plate and in the field in both 2021 and 2022, his bat hasn’t quite been there through his first 51 appearances of 2023, but his time will come.
So far, the slick-fielding shortstop has nine home runs with 23 runs scored and 27 driven in. His .205 average and 86 OPS+ leaves a bit to be desired, but there are definitely some encouraging signs from this year compared to last; this is best highlighted by his slight dip in K% and improvement in BB% from 7.9% in 2022 to 10.7% in 2023.
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