2024 Brewers Positional Previews: First Base

After a disappointing season of regression and injury trouble for Rowdy Tellez in 2023, the Brewers moved on in November. They first seemed to have taken a low-risk, low-reward, low-cost approach to replacing Tellez, but in January, that changed in a big way. 

You want a first baseman? You GOT a first baseman pic.twitter.com/R5E2cK24S6

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) January 26, 2024

The Starter: Rhys Hoskins
2023 Stats: Did Not Play - Injured; 2022 Stats: 156 G, 672 PA, .246/.332/.462, 30 HR, 10.7% BB, 25.1% K, 2.3 fWAR, 2.9 bWAR, 2.3 WARP
2024 Projections: ZiPS: 146 G, 630 PA, .233/.336/.442, 26 HR, 1.5 fWAR; PECOTA: 128 G, 530 PA, .233/.322/.433, 22 HR, 1.5 WARP

Scouting Report: Hoskins might just be the quintessential modern slugger. His swing is geared to lift the ball, ideally to his pull field. He'll never collect many hits on balls in play, but that's ok. When he connects the way he's always trying to, the ball will often fly over the fence. He has enough of a hit tool to make that happen fairly regularly, too. While his strikeout rate is higher than the league average, it's because he's so willing to trade a little contact for a lot of damage, not because there are many real holes in his swing.

Home runs pile up in vain if that's all a hitter does, but Hoskins's approach adds a different dimension of value, as well. He waits patiently for the pitch he can torch, and that means plenty of walks. From his entry into the league in 2017 through his last healthy campaign in 2022, he ranked 13th in walk rate (of 161 qualifying hitters), keeping his on-base percentage above average despite the strikeouts and the BABIP-unfriendly swing plane.

In the field, Hoskins has never been a whiz, exactly. He's better on balls hit to his right, toward the hole between himself and the second baseman, but lets some get down the line when they oughtn't. Though it rarely comes into play, he also has a lousy arm, and is slow at starting the double play. Getting someone else in there when the Crew are trying to protect late leads would be wise.

Other Options: The Brewers briefly appeared set to enter the season with Jake Bauers as their starting first baseman. He was acquired at one of the offseason's roster-machination deadlines in November, and after he slugged 23 home runs in 108 games between Triple-A and MLB last year, that seemed thinly plausible. Still, Bauers is miles better as a fallback plan than as a first option. Ditto for minor-league veteran Wes Clarke.

By contrast, first base might be the fallback plan for Tyler Black, the prospect whose offensive breakout in 2023 has him knocking loudly on the door of the big leagues. Black is, perhaps, the inverse of Hoskins, with good bat-to-ball skills but uncertain power upside. The hope is that he can play a competent third base, but with many questions swirling around that aspect of his game and all the outfield spots spoken for, he has to stay in our mental picture of the position. Hoskins could always move to DH, if needed.

The Big Question: When you sign a player of Hoskins's hitting probity, you're not supposed to have to worry much about the spot thereafter. Alas, his flimflam left ACL and his mendacious right meniscus make him less trustworthy than most such sluggers. You have to ask, in his case, how well 31-year-old knees that have each been operated on within the last 18 months will bear up as he revisits the challenge of a long baseball season. You have to ask whether, for a hitter so dependent on power, the leg drive will be there. If these questions weren't there for him, of course, he'd have been far beyond the Brewers' price range. It's frustrating to have to keep them in mind, but it's nice to have a cleanup hitter with sufficient upside to lend the questions such high stakes.

How are you feeling about the Brewers' signing of Hoskins? Which other players excite you at the cold corner, in 2024 and beyond?