The Milwaukee Brewers position players officially report for Spring Training today, February 16. Looking ahead to the 2026 MLB season, fans have a great deal to be optimistic about regarding the team despite the departure of some notable members of the 2025 roster. These, of course, include two-time All-Star Freddy Peralta and 2025 NL Rookie of the Year candidates Isaac Collins and Caleb Durbin.
All three of them were traded in separate deals throughout the course of the offseason.
And while Milwaukee has the pieces in place to fill the voids left by Peralta and Collins, the departure of Durbin (along with Andruw Monasterio and Anthony Seigler), leaves a glaring hole on the left side of the infield. It should come as no surprise, then, that the third base position has been identified as the the Brewers’ position battle to watch this spring.
Third Base named as the Milwaukee Brewers position battle to watch in Spring Training
The problem that many fans had with the Durbin-Monasterio-Seigler trade to the Boston Red Sox was that those three players made up their entire Major League third base depth chart. Indeed, it is not clear right now who their Opening Day third baseman will be, but whoever it is will be their seventh different Opening Day starter at the hot corner in the last seven years.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Joel Reuter of Bleacher Report named the third base competition as Milwaukee’s biggest position battle in Spring Training:
“The Brewers traded away 140 starts at third base earlier this month when they dealt Caleb Durbin (119 starts), Anthony Seigler (16) and Andruw Monasterio (5) to the Red Sox. That leaves versatile veteran Luis Rengifo and trade pickup David Hamilton as the leading candidates to man the hot corner.
“The wild card here is Jett Williams. The prize of the Freddy Peralta blockbuster could force his way into the shortstop job, shifting Joey Ortiz back to third, but with only 40 games at Triple-A, that feels like a long shot.”
Reuter names Luis Rengifo, David Hamilton, and Jett Williams as the team’s best options to start at third base. Rengifo is a utility player who was recently signed to a Major League contract in free agency while Hamilton and Williams were acquired via trades.
Of these players, Reuter predicts it will be Rengifo who emerges as the starting third baseman at the beginning of the season. He is coming off of a year in which he hit just .238/.287/.335 with nine home runs and 43 RBI in 147 games for the Los Angeles Angels. However, in 74 games in 2024, he hit .300/.347/.417 with six home runs and 30 RBI.
Williams could end up taking over after the season starts, though, much as Durbin did last year. Like Durbin in 2025, Williams has not played third base as a professional before, but could eventually emerge as the everyday player there if his defense proves solid enough and he swings a good bat.
More Milwaukee Brewers news from Wisconsin Sports Heroics
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- Former Brewers pitcher Andrew Chafin signs with Minnesota Twins
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