Milwaukee Brewers Best- and Worst-Case Scenarios For 2026: First Base

[Harold Hutchison]

Image courtesy of © Jovanny Hernandez / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

For a Brewers franchise that has had some legendary first basemen in its history (Cecil Cooper, Prince Fielder, Richie Sexson), first base has been more of a hodgepodge in the last six seasons, featuring four different starters, each of whom posted a negative Wins Above Replacement (WAR) at least once, according to Baseball Reference. No primary starter has posted a WAR above 1.5 since Jesús Aguilar in 2018.

Can that change in 2026? Let’s take a look.

2025 Review
Rhys Hoskins, Andrew Vaughn, and Jake Bauers combined to provide adequate production at first base over the 2025 season. Hoskins missed time with an injury and was then displaced by Vaughn, who was on a hot streak. But the Brewers have had a couple of players have hot streaks when they arrived, only to fade away, like Rowdy Tellez and the aforementioned Aguilar. Vaughn's staying power as a slugger is a key question about the position entering 2026.

Current Roster Situation
Vaughn and Bauers could form a soft platoon at first base for Milwaukee, at least to start the 2026 season. Behind them, there is Andruw Monasterio, who handled first base for 15 games in 2025, and Tyler Black, a former top-100 prospect who could be more suited as a supersub. William Contreras could handle first base, in case Vaughn is injured or reverts to his form with the White Sox, especially if Jeferson Quero has an excellent spring and forces Milwaukee to call him up from Nashville.

In the upper minors, the Brewers will have Blake Burke and Luke Adams. The former, the team’s 2024 sandwich-round pick acquired in the Corbin Burnes trade, is a lefty masher, while the latter has split time between the hot corner and the cold, getting on base often both by drawing walks and joining the Caleb Durbin “plunk me” club, while still having a potent bat of his own. Third-base prospects Brock Wilken and Andrew Fischer could also slide across the infield.

Best-Case Scenario
For the Brewers, the best-case scenario would involve Vaughn getting the bulk (about 130) of the starts at first base, with the other 32 (give or take) going to either Bauers. This would indicate that Vaughn’s breakout in Milwaukee was for real and not just a hot streak, which also would have positive implications for the 2026-2027 offseason: the Brewers might be able to net a decent return by trading Vaughn. Recall that the Adam Lind deal worked out very nicely for Milwaukee.

Worst-Case Scenario
Andruw Monasterio gets more than 10 starts at first base. If this is happening, then the Brewers have had things go south, either on the injury front or because players have slumped, while prospects in the minors aren’t ready to step up, either.

Monasterio’s not an incompetent hitter, but his offensive ceiling is very limited. If he becomes the team’s best option, then expect the Brewers to make a sudden deal to bolster the position or elect to rush up a top prospect. Either way, it will not be a good situation.

Overview
First base can either go really well for the Brewers, or it can be a significant weakness on the team. Milwaukee’s faced both extremes over the last six years. There are also a lot of middle-case scenarios, which could include Contreras seeing time at the position (this would mark some good news at catcher regarding Quero’s development/health), Black getting a lot of starts (he won’t have the power of Vaughn or Bauers, but he can draw walks), or one of Burke, Adams, and Wilken forcing their way to Milwaukee with their performance.

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[Michael Trzinski]

Let's hope like hell that Vaughn can post somewhere around a 3.0 bWAR. That would be nice...

[Harold Hutchison]

In the aggregate, Hoskins, Bauers, and Vaughn got to 2.9 WAR per Baseball Reference.

 

[Michael Trzinski]

42 minutes ago, Harold Hutchison said:

In the aggregate, Hoskins, Bauers, and Vaughn got to 2.9 WAR per Baseball Reference.

 

True, but those numbers are over 683 ABs, so if that is reduced to Turang's team-leading number (584), it is more like 2.5. But, maybe Vaughn can keep it up for a whole season. Time will tell!

[rafa79]

You wanna make some good money?  Bet anybody who thinks that Vaughn was a flash in the pan during 2025. Give me a minute Brewer Nation.

Vaughn was the 3rd pick in the 1st round of the 2019 draft by the White Sox.  Yeah, only 2 guys selected ahead of him.  He was immediately sent to Rookie ball, then to A ball, then High A ball, all during 2019. 

No baseball in 2020!  So, what do the White Sox do?  They bring up Vaughn in 2021 with a grand total of 37 minor league games under his belt, never reaching AA or AAA. You want more?  Then, the Sox put him out in Left field for the 2021 season, a position he had never played!

Geez, what happened to Andrew Vaughn huh?  I'm not kidding, look it up, 37 minor league games, then a full year without baseball and people wonder why he didn't progress as a player, and they have him playing the outfield which he was NOT good at and clearly affected his offense.

Hey, he gets traded to Milwaukee, plays his normal position and is doing well, what a surprise.  Vaughn's 1st year in MLB should have been 2024, maybe 2023 at the earliest.  He was thrown to the wolves, heck Chourio spent much more time in the minors than Vaughn and we know Chorio was in AAA for a cup of coffee.

Vaughn's going to hit about .275 with 22 home runs, maybe a few more.  Book that, he was trashed by that awful baseball team called the Chicago White Sox and is just now coming into his own. 

 

 

 

[keephopealive]

Quote

...with the other 32 (give or take) going to either Bauers.

Is that a subtle Euchre reference?

[Brewersfan1]

2 hours ago, rafa79 said:

You wanna make some good money?  Bet anybody who thinks that Vaughn was a flash in the pan during 2025. Give me a minute Brewer Nation.

Vaughn was the 3rd pick in the 1st round of the 2019 draft by the White Sox.  Yeah, only 2 guys selected ahead of him.  He was immediately sent to Rookie ball, then to A ball, then High A ball, all during 2019. 

No baseball in 2020!  So, what do the White Sox do?  They bring up Vaughn in 2021 with a grand total of 37 minor league games under his belt, never reaching AA or AAA. You want more?  Then, the Sox put him out in Left field for the 2021 season, a position he had never played!

Geez, what happened to Andrew Vaughn huh?  I'm not kidding, look it up, 37 minor league games, then a full year without baseball and people wonder why he didn't progress as a player, and they have him playing the outfield which he was NOT good at and clearly affected his offense.

Hey, he gets traded to Milwaukee, plays his normal position and is doing well, what a surprise.  Vaughn's 1st year in MLB should have been 2024, maybe 2023 at the earliest.  He was thrown to the wolves, heck Chourio spent much more time in the minors than Vaughn and we know Chorio was in AAA for a cup of coffee.

Vaughn's going to hit about .275 with 22 home runs, maybe a few more.  Book that, he was trashed by that awful baseball team called the Chicago White Sox and is just now coming into his own. 

 

 

 

I’m sold!!

[Lathund]

Vaughn made real changes when he got to the Brewers. Yeah it's a matter of luck too; a near-average .313 xwOBA with the Sox, but a .230 wOBA, due to things like running a BABIP 70 points below his career numbers. Just getting average luck the rest of the way would've seen meaningful improvement. 

But he made real changes to the tune of putting up a .377 xwOBA, with an almost exactly mathcing wOBA. There is some noise and uncertainty in xwOBA too, sometimes you get better batted ball results even by doing the same thing. But not by this much. And not when walk rates, strikeout rates, swing decisions etc. all improve. He is genuinely better. Will he put up a 140 wRC+ again? Maybe not, but count on him outperforming his career numbers by a fair bit. 

Bauers was another one who showed real improvement to underlying numbers. His improved production looked real as well. I don't envision a strict platoon, Vaughn will play against plenty of righties too, but there is the potential to get the best out of both of them. For the first time in a while, I think it's fairly safe to say that the Brewers will get solid production out of 1B. Not elite, but it's hard seeing it being less than above average unless injuries hit *real* hard.