Brewers reinstate Willy Adames, option Brice Turang

The Brewers announced Wednesday that shortstop Willy Adames has been reinstated from the seven-day concussion list, with infielder Brice Turang optioned to Triple-A in a corresponding move.

Adames had a scary incident over a week ago when he was struck in the head by a foul ball while sitting in the dugout. He was sent to hospital for testing but seemed to avoid any serious injuries as he didn’t suffer any fractures and resumed baseball activities a few days later, which has allowed him to return after an absence of under two weeks.

The roster casualty of his return is Turang. Now 23, the youngster has been considered one of the top 100 prospects in the league at times during his rise to the majors. 

Baseball America gave him the No. 88 slot going into 2021 but didn’t have him on their list in the past two years. FanGraphs was still bullish coming into 2023, giving him the No. 65 slot in their preseason top 100.

The Brewers traded away Kolten Wong this winter, which opened the door for Turang to take over the second base job next to Adames. Unfortunately, his first taste of the big leagues hasn’t gone well. 

He’s struck out in 27.1% of his plate appearances while walking at just a 6.2% clip. His .205/.254/.307 batting line amounts to a wRC+ of just 52. He does have nine steals in 12 tries and has solid defensive grades at the keystone, but that batting line is clearly untenable.

He’ll now get a chance to get back into a groove in the minors, which will likely delay his path to free agency and perhaps arbitration. Since he cracked the Opening Day roster this year, he was on track to get a full year of service time but will now fall short of that as long as he spends 20 days in the minors.

With Turang gone, the second base duties will likely fall to some combination of Luis Urías, Owen Miller, Andruw Monasterio and Abraham Toro. 

Urías was just activated from the injured list and Toro was just recalled from the minors a week ago but Miller is hitting .313/.350/.463 on the season while Monasterio is at .350/.435/.550 in his first eight major league games.