2026 Team Previews: Milwaukee Brewers
A detailed fantasy baseball oriented team preview of the 2026 Milwaukee Brewers
Full Series Links and Explanation Page Here
I have done it again! More than 400 players were reviewed in the team previews series. At the end of the day, this is all just me sitting in a chair and typing. It comes up well short of an Olympic-level achievement. But I feel good about it, man. Is anybody else giving you a full written analysis of 400 players? I don’t think so, man!
It’s nice to be done. And it puts me in a great position to jam out a ton of other content and have my wits about me when talking about any player that might pop up in the news or in questions I get asked. I’ve looked at them all!
Add to that the six hundred prospects we talked about in the free Prospect Previews Podcast Series, and we’re just lapping the field in fantasy baseball content here. It’s a joke.
Thanks for being a part of it, and enjoy your final team preview.
Brewers Intro
That pretty much sums it up, I think. Generally speaking, last year, the Brewers were lame for fantasy baseball but great in real life. They won more games than anybody else (97). Which is pretty funny, because nobody thought they had any chance at a World Series going into the postseason. And, sure enough, they exited early.
They come into 2026 with a much worse team than before. They traded away Freddy Peralta, and they’re never a team to add on via free agency. They’re a small market team that plays way above their payroll. They’re a really impressive organization.
It will be even more impressive if they bring home 95+ wins this year. There are a handful of really strong players on the roster, but the depth isn’t there. On paper, I think I like the Cubs and Reds rosters. But the Brewers have done more with less for years now, so they’re very much in the hunt.
Who cares about that anyway? We just want to know which players to take from this team in fantasy leagues. So let’s get to that. And we’ll keep this one totally free the whole way down just because it’s the final hurrah.
Hitters
Jackson Chourio
Age: 22
Pos: OF
We’ll be talking about Chourio for a long time. He’s entering his third season and won’t turn 22 until March. He was one of the few names to make it to the Major Leagues as a teenager. And he’s had two pretty similar seasons so far:
Two straight 20-20 seasons to open his career, but in fairness, he’s barely gotten there and the batting average at .271 has been just pretty good. So he’s not exactly been a fantasy stud, but doing all of that before turning 22 is awfully impressive, and we would expect more and more growth to come.
The skills:
A 9.7% Brl% and a .250 xBA with a .323 xwOBA aren’t great. His EV90 was 105.9 overall last year, and 103.8 on fly balls was also less than inspiring. He swings aggressively (53.4%) and, therefore, chases a lot (37%). And to keep pouring on, he doesn’t pull it much (11.7% Air Pull%) or get to a high sweet spot rate (36%).
The most similar players to him, via the player comp app:
You like JRod being there, but Michael Harris II and Luis Garcia Jr. being there show you the downside of this sort of profile.
We’re really banking on improvement from Chourio if we’re getting to this price. He’s a mid-second rounder right now. The 20-20-.270 he’s given you so far isn’t too far off from that valuation, but it’s not a smash pick in the second round by any means.
I guess the floor plus inherent age-driven odds of improvement make him worthwhile in the second round. But what if he doesn’t improve? You’ll be left wanting a bit with your first or second hitter chosen.
I think I’ll be a little bit lower on Chourio compared to the consensus.
Projection
Ranking
William Contreras
Age: 28
Pos: C
Contreras was the breakout catcher of 2024 and was the first catcher off of boards last year. That was a TRAP! Just 17 bombs and six steals for the guy in 150 games, and the batting average fell to .256.
That’s the risk you take with catchers! And it’s part of the reason why I won’t be touching Cal Raleigh’s ADP this year.
Conteras has always hit the ball hard, but he’s rarely lifted it. He has a Vlad/Yandy Diaz type swing, it seems, where most of his EV comes on bad angles. And you can see that in this table:
A 107.4 EV90 is awesome, but a 6.4% Brl% is bad. He rarely pulls it in the air, and his GB% of 50.4% is a problem for his power production - and that was the best of the last four years for him!
The bad news aside, the floor is very nice for Contreras. He plays more than pretty much any other catcher and gives you a nice batting average floor. It’s tough to get that at the catcher position, but yeah, Contreras was very obviously overpriced last year.
The Savant page:
Pitchers didn’t really want to pitch to him much after the big 2024 season. He earned a high 38.7% Ball% and took the walk rate to 12.2%. And that’s while having about a league-average swing rate. So he gets a boost in points leagues.
But for standard roto leagues and stuff, I’m just not really seeing the price still. It’s a better price than last year, and the floor does help, but should he be the #2 catcher off the board? I think I’d take Rice and Langeliers over him, and you could make a case for Goodman and Ramirez in there too. But, of all of those names, he’s the safest.
Projection
Ranking
Brice Turang
Age: 26
Pos: 2B
The most surprising power breakout of the year was Turang.
Going from six homers to seven to EIGHTEEN should throw up some red flags. And then there’s the fact that he hit ten of those in August. It was just a strange year for Turang, but an extremely good one.
He was one of nine players with 15+ HR, 20+ SB, and a batting average above .280.
Where will the homer total go in 2026? That’s a tough thing to figure out.
One positive is that his bat speed did increase a ton from previous. He was swinging harder and turning in a competitive EV profile
→ EV90: 104.2
→ EV90 IN AIR: 104.5
→ Brl%: 17.9%
→ Air Pull%: 5.9%
That last number is scary. Just a 6% Air Pull%. Even in August-September when he was jamming all of those homers, it was just 9.4%. So that does seem like a pretty fortunate run of homers there.
I’d expect him to draw back in dingers, for sure. But there’s good reason to think he can still hit 12 bombs and get back to stealing more bags.
The value in 2024 came from him swiping 50 bases. He hit .254 with seven homers for gravy, but he was mostly a steals guy. But then the attempt rate drops from 35% to 17%, and the K% actually jumps up to 23%.
There’s a super wide range of potential outcomes here. We’ve seen him excel in all three categories we’re worried about (AVG, HR, SB), but not all at the same time.
It’s a really weak 2B position, and Turang has a path to a 15-homer, 30-steal, .280-average season, and that would put him in the top tier almost surely. But doesn’t the worst case scenario feel like eight homers, 20 steals, and a .265 average? That would be pretty rough.
Projection
Let’s see what the different systems are telling us:
My model is out of control here with 19 bombs. I don’t think that’s going to happen, and I’m also the high man on steals. So if you’re fully reliant on my system, you’ll have yourself a ton of Turang.
I have no idea, man. I suppose we should say that you’re unlikely to be super disappointed, because he does have three paths to value. And you’ll probably end up getting at least decent across-the-board production, but I don’t feel super great about the uncertainty of it all.
Ranking
Christian Yelich
Age: 34
Pos: OF
I keep forgetting about Yelich. The Brewers don’t make a lot of headlines, and Yelich has been sort of flying under the radar for a few years now. But he’s coming off one of his best seasons. He stayed healthy and racked up 29 bombs with 16 steals.
You’ll notice a few things here. The batting average fell to .264, and the stolen base attempt rate came down to 13%. The 29 bombs were nice, but that’s not something we can bank on with him and his ground ball-heavy ways.
This Brewers offense and his high OBP have been very nice to him in the R+RBI department. He scored 88 times last year and drove in 103. That’s a big year. He was previously their lead-off man, but with Chourio and Turang in the fold now, as well as them liking Sal Frelick as a lead-off man against righties, Yelich was moved back to a run-producing spot in the lineup.
So he was almost always in the 3-4 spot in the lineup, but he’s a guy they’ll move up to the top if they need. Either way, the R+RBI production is great.
Health has been an issue for him, although not as much as I remembered. He’s played 154, 144, 73, and 150 games in the last four. So only one season with a significant missed time. He’s old, and the back issues I don’t think are ever fully cured, but it’s reasonable to project him for 140+ games again this year.
Let’s check on these power indicators. You saw above that the K% came up quite a bit to 26%. That would be okay if he were also hitting more balls in the air and hitting it harder.
That’s not what we see, though! More barrels, yes, but another super high GB% and a really low air pull rate.
So I don’t think we’re buying into that home run rate. And the projections aren’t either. The highest system is OOPSY at 20 (not counting my own 21-homer projection).
His xBA of .250 with the steals coming down makes him a somewhat replaceable fantasy player. The thing working in his favor is that he’s a proven player who will hit in a prominent spot in a lineup that should be at least average.
At age 34, with the injury history, we shouldn’t completely forgive yet, and these indicators are trending in the wrong direction. Yelich isn’t going to be a guy I’m jumping ADP to get. But I do see a very solid upside if he does stay healthy. The floor is solid. I don’t see him falling short of 15 bombs, 10 steals, and a 160 R+RBI if he’s playing 140+ games.
Projection
Rankings
Sal Frelick
Age: 25
Pos: OF
I wonder if Frelick got inspired by Brice Turang last year. Or maybe he felt betrayed. Those two were super similar player types before last year. Smaller dudes who get a ton of balls in play and rely on defense and base running to stay in the lineup. And then Turang blasts off for ten bombs in August and probably thinks he’s way cooler than Frelick now.
To Sal’s credit, he too reached a career-best in homers.
In fact, he quadrupled his previous high in homers! You like the .288 average and the 19 steals, and 12 homers does sweeten the pot there. The guy was a lot better than last year than I remember. But I cannot tell you how little Brewers baseball I watched or cared about last year. Well I guess I can, almost none. Why do people say “I can’t even tell you” about things they absolutely can tell you about.
fScores:
Just kinda sucky in everything except durability and discipline, and who cares about those categories. We want bombs and bags, bro!
Can we get another double-digit homer season from him? Probably not!
He’s like Yelich! A homer count that vastly outpaced the barrel rate. The Brewers must be onto something. He’s not even the last Brewer on this list we’ll talk about!
Frelick had a 14% Air Pull%, but a 46% GB%. Nothing great here, but fine numbers. You’d expect 5+ homers every year with those numbers.
But just a 100.3 EV90 on fly balls!
Bottom line - there is no guarantee of homers from the guy. He’s certaintly a guy who can go a couple of months without hitting one.
His SB attempt rate of 15% is also pretty low. That’s way too close to the league average for a guy we think might end up hitting seven bombs.
So he’ll be really, really reliant on a big batting average to make hay in fantasy leagues. And the xBA was .254!
It’s all pretty bad news for Frelieck. But the Brewers, more than almost any other franchise, do seem to have this ability to maximize talent. They squeeze every bit of production they can get from these “flawed” player types. Maybe that can happen again with Frelick, but I don’t thin I’m buying into this profile for 2026.
Projection
Ranking
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Caleb Durbin
Age: 26
Pos: 3B
The DURBINATOR, as our cohort Doc would say. It took awhile for the guy to get to the bigs, and now he’s at the elevated age of 26 heading into his second season.
Let’s remind ourselves of the minor league career:
He was a high steals guy with elite contact ability and always at least a decent batting average. And he put up some monstrous OBPs. So when he came up last year, we were thinking he could immediately splash as a 40-steal guy.
Instead, we got 11 homers and 18 steals on a .256 batting average in 136 games played. Not awful production, but just another Milwaukee player who wasn’t making a positive impact in the fantasy game.
So he’s a discipline-first hitter. He makes a ton of contact (91.3% in zone) and kept the K% below 10%. That’s good stuff, but it comes with a lack of power, resulting in a 4% Brl% and a low .316 xwOBA.
But he has more power upside than Frelick, I’d say. A 16% Air Pull% is nice, and Milwaukee is a pretty hitter-friendly park.
The EVs leave a lot to be desired:
And he has just 6th-percentile bat speed. So we’re thinking this is probably a guy who will max out around 15 homers, and the expectation should be a lot lower than that.
He’s not a standard league player, I don’t think, but if he becomes one, it will be because of the steals. He has 70th-percentile sprint speed, which isn’t great, but an 18% attempt rate should get him past 20 steals every year that he’s a regular.
Some trend stuff:
Goooood news there! He went for a .341 OBP and 12 steals in the final three months. Look at September! A .359 OBP with seven steals.
That’s the hope. The upside will be realized if he goes for a .340+ OBP in 140+ games with a 20%+ attempt rate. That’s a potential 40-steal player with non-zero power. And you have batting average upside any time you have a guy messing around with a sub-12% K%, which he should keep doing.
Projection
Once again, my system is wonky and overly optimistic. But look at OOPSY - 12 homers, 28 steals, .318 OBP. I’d take that at his ADP gladly.
Ranking
Andrew Vaughn
Age: 28
Pos: 1B
The White Sox finally had enough of Vaughn, which is really saying something given how many games they’ve won in the last couple of years. They cut him, and it was the best thing to happen to Vaugh. He landed on Milwaukee and ended up putting up some numbers for the Beer Makers.
That Milwaukee sample was 254 PAs. So it wasn’t like three weeks of work. He hit nine bombs and put up the team’s best OPS on the season.
Wild stuff, man. And that makes Vaughn really tough to evaluate for 2026. One thing is for sure, he certainly earned himself a job at first base for the beginning of 2026. His defense isn’t good, so he’ll have to continue to hit to hang around, but they don’t have much behind him threatening his reps.
More numbers from his Brewers games:
That makes you doubt that he’s a serious home run guy. Maybe 15-20 bombs in a 150-game sample. Probably not much of a 25-homer, 90+ RBI threat.
But the Zone Contact was above 86%, and he hit a bunch of line drives while getting the FB EV90 above 105.
Maybe he will fall back into the White Sox problems. But I’d rather be on the buy side. It seemed like he was less than happy in Chicago, and they never seemed to like him, either. So I can almost buy the fresh start, clear head narrative here. Or maybe he was just mailing it in to get out of there, knowing that some team would take a free bet on his former top prospect upside.
Projection
Ranking
I might be over my skiis on Vaughn. We’ll see where he ends up when I finish this up and go back through and do a bunch of refinements on the rankings.
Joey Ortiz
Age: 27
Pos: SS
Ortiz took the spot Adames vacated when he headed to the bay, and I thought the dude would have an interesting season with the bat. But he didn’t. It was pretty bad.
This was his real opportunity. He dropped the K% to an elite 14.6%, but just seven bombs and a .231 AVG to go with it kept him off any winning fantasy teams.
He has middling bat speed. He’s not a total slouch, but his hard hit balls go right into the ground. The EV90 on fly balls was 97mph. A very, very bad number.
He runs well, but a 15% attempt rate with the .277 OBP doesn’t work out very well. There aren’t many opportunities to begin with. And all of that puts him at the very bottom of the Brewers lineup. They might even be looking to get Jett Williams in there for him this year if he continues his struggles with the bat.
If he plays a bunch for the Brewers again, it will be because of his defense. Shortstop defense is very important. But you’re not going to want the dude starting on your fantasy teams.
With 55th percentile bat speed and 85th percentile sprint speed, I suppose there’s some 15-15 upside for him. Not a lot of guys have both of those things, but it’s also not very easy to escape a 3rd percentile average EV and xSLG.
Projection
Ranking
Pitchers
Brandon Woodruff
Age: 33
We got Woody back late last year, but we didn’t see him in the postseason as he finished the year with a lat strain. He had major shoulder surgery in 2023. That cost him the 2024 season and a good portion of 2025 as well. They took it very slow with his rehab, so he made just a dozen MLB starts last year.
But they were pretty great! A 32.3% K% and a 5.4% BB%. I really did not see that coming, and that performance has him in the fold for fantasy leagues again in 2026.
A lat isn’t a shoulder, but it’s still bad news that he couldn’t have a healthy season. But it’s hard to believe in Woody as a volume guy again.
That said, the performance is hard to be mad about:
A 26.8% K-BB% man! It was a sparkling 2.07 JA SIERA, and he held batters to a .175 xBA.
The heater came in at 93mph, quite a ways from where he was at his peak. But it worked marvelously with a silly 59% Strike%. It was elite. The 21% GB% is insane too, so he might have been lucky to only give up the three homers. But it was just 298 pitches.
He’s always been a fastball variation guy with the sinker and cutter also a big part of his pitch mix. And the changeup is good.
He pitched like a legit ace when on the bump last year. So if you think he’ll stay healthy, you have something here even at ADP 125. I don’t think I feel good enough about it for that price, but he could, in theory, be a top 15 SP this year.
Projection
Rankings
Jacob Misiorowski
Age: 23
The ALL-STAR! Man, that was the dumbest thing of the 2025 season.
Miz showed us his upside early on, and his downside later on. His ERA was 4.36 in 66 innings with a 1.24 WHIP. The strikeouts will never be a problem, and the rate went off at 32% last year.
The issue is the command. His minor league BB% was 14%. You could say that it was encouraging to see 11% at the big league level, but that’s still too high.
The 34.5% Ball% beats the 11% BB%. That’s good news. And his stuff is so, so filthy that he can afford an extra point or two on the walk rate compared to other guys who can’t get this many strikeouts.
Pitch mix:
It’s heavy four-seamer usage, but that’s fine with the height and the velo the guy has. It’s one of the top fastballs in the game, even if you include relievers.
It still makes me wonder if he won’t end up being a reliever. I still think that’s somewhat likely, but probably not in 2026.
He can throw the fastball for strikes, but so far, none of his other pitches are very reliable. Again, if anybody can get by with just a four-seamer, it’s this guy.
But the command needs to be cleaned up, and he does need to improve the secondaries. A 9.5% SwStr% on the slider is discouraging, but it was good to see a high 47% Strike% on it. The ball rates were good on every pitch. So there’s some hope for a 9-10% BB% in 2026. If that happens, he’ll be pretty studly.
When hitters do get balls in play, they’re in the air. A 35% GB% is low, and that’s what you’d expect from someone like this. So maybe there’s a slight home run issue, but I still sort of doubt it. It’s really hard to hit a 99mph out of the ballyard.
So there you go. I guess this is an endorsement of Misiorowski. I’d take the over on 10.5 saves from him in 2028, but there’s huge upside for him if some these ball rates really do turn into a solid BB%.
Projection
Ranking
Quinn Priester
Age: 25
Priester joined Milwaukee, his third pro team, and they worked their magic on him. He’s a real piece of this rotation now after having a breakout 2025 season.
The good numbers came mostly from a dominant stretch of starts in the middle of the season. The end of year 3.32 ERA was good, the 1.23 WHIP was fine, and the 12.6% K-BB% was mediocre.
The advanced numbers send you mixed signals. A 56% GB%, .240 xBA, and .303 xwOBA show that he was tough to hit. But his actual strike-earning numbers are quite bad.
A 20% K% with an 11.3% SwStr% and a horrible 43.9% Strike%. Those are alarming numbers. But everything does look better if you chop off the beginning of his season. Let’s see the pitch mix data:
Sinkerballer! We don’t like that, at least not for strikeout purposes. A 5.8% SwStr% is bad, but the 65% GB% shows you what the pitch is for. He wants to keep the ball in the yard and let that good infield defense go to work.
And his slider was good enough to help with an 18% SwStr%, but it’s more useful against righties. So he doesn’t have much to throw at lefties, and that splits show that:
A very bad K-BB% and 41.9% Strike% against lefties with a .326 xwOBA allowed. The sinker + slider make him tough on righties, but I think you’ll see teams stack lefties against him whenever possible next year.
Outside of a two-month stretch in 2025, Priester’s MLB career has been bad. He possesses a career 4.41 ERA with a 9.9% K-BB% up here. So I have my doubts.
But he’s somewhat Jose Soriano like. He gets ground balls and is tough to get in the air, so he can have some great starts when the ball goes at people, and his end-of-season ERA probably won’t be awful. I just don’t think you’re getting help in strikeouts or WHIP.
Projection
Ranking
Logan Henderson
Age: 24
The Brewers didn’t want Henderson in the bigs last year. It was one of the weirder things we saw. He got the call-up to make a spot start on April 20th, and he struck out nine Athletics in six brilliant innings. And then he was sent back down. And okay, fine, that was their plan and they weren’t going to let one start change it. But he got back up in May and made three more starts with a nice 20:5 K:BB and three runs allowed in 15 innings. But then, right back to the minors.
It was finally Henderson time in August, but he got hurt in his first start and spent the rest of the year on the IL with right elbow inflammation. The health update tells us this:
I think there might be two famous Logan Hendersons.
The update on the Brewers guy is that he’s healthy and ready to go. But yo, he finished the year with elbow inflammation. So that’s a little bit concerning.
The minor league numbers:
Good to see. He was a K-BB% beast all year long.
Now, the pitch mix:
This guy is short. He has 19th percentile extension and pretty low velo. But he makes it work with strong iVB on the heater, and you can see how effective it was against big leaguers last year with a sick 58% Strike% and 16.1% SwStr%. Bryan Woo’s heater is the most similar to his by shape, although Woo has +2 on him in velo.
The size and velo are a concern. You don’t see too many big league aces at six feet tall (if he’s even that tall). His changeup was also good, but we’re in small-sample-size territory. The minor league fScores never liked him much:
So that’s not the greatest thing in the world.
We’re looking at a guy with a limited pitch mix and a questionable fastball. I think his upside is overstated after his success last year, and he seems like a dude the league will figure out after seeing him a few times.
I guess I’m a hater. Maybe I just hate short people. Even though this dude has at least two inches on me.
Projection
Ranking
Chad Patrick
Age: 27
He finished the season as a reliever for them last year, but I think he’s getting tossed in this rotation after they trimmed off Freddy Peralta. He certainly has the volume potential after putting up 120 innings last year.
And there was a good amount of success there. A 3.54 ERA with a 1.28 WHIP, you’ll take that if you’re the Brewers. Most of his relief appearances were multi-inning as well, so he was mostly stretched out. I say that to point out he probably wasn’t ripping off a ton more gas in the bulk of his relief appearances. Sometimes being a reliever can boost your ratios because you’re able to go full out, while you have to reserve some energy as a starter.
The 4.01 JA ERA is not good. The 11.8% SwStr% and 32% GB% bring that down. But his 25.3% K% beat his SwStr% and he did not have a big home run problem (better than average with that 38.6 PA/HR), so the SIERA stat likes him.
I have trouble believing in a 25% K% with a sub-12% SwStr%. But let’s get into this pitch mix to see what’s going on:
There’s a little Drew Rasmussen here. No true breaking ball, but his cutter works as that sort of fastball/slider hybrid. He’s throwing three different fastball types at dudes, with differing movement profiles on all of them.
It’s anecdotal, I guess, but those types to me seem to more often add some extra strikeouts. They get extra called strikes because they’re freezing the hitter who thought it was a cutter, but it turned out to be a four-seamer, and it got on them quicker.
But the lack of true breaking balls or offspeed pitches is probably a bad thing for him, and he has significantly less velo than Rasmussen, which matters quite a bit. I think Patrick can be serviceable, but he’s not a breakout threat in the sense that he could be a true difference-maker in fantasy.
He had trouble against lefties, and that’s what you’d expect without a changeup or splitter or neutralizing off-speed pitch:
If he’s out there trying to get through the order three times, the numbers will fall off. I think he’s probably like a 23% K% with an 8% BB% and probably a home run issue against lefties. But we’ll see, he’s put up impressive numbers so far, so maybe he can be more Rasmusseny than I’m giving him credit for.
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