Jackson Chourio and Andrew Vaughn Haven't Provided the Thump Brewers Expected

Throughout April, the Milwaukee Brewers' lineup struggled to scratch, claw, steal and bunt any run they could get across home plate. They survived a war of attrition in the first month of the season, covering for the absence of two players who were meant to be spark plugs in 2026: their young phenom Jackson Chourio and the resurgent former top draft pick, Andrew Vaughn. 

Combining for 41 games (22 for Chourio, 19 for Vaughn) since their return, though, they've managed to provide just three home runs. The Brewers have done Brewers things and continued to win, but they need to show more power if they're going to go all the way in 2026. So why haven't Vaughn and Chourio fired as expected?

Andrew Vaughn Misses His (Ha)Mate
The first one to tackle is, perhaps, the easier of the two. Vaughn was sidelined by a broken hamate bone in the first game of the 2026 season. That's an injury notorious for sapping bat speed. Bat speed is volatile and takes a while to even out, as the pitch location (and therefore swing length) have a big effect on the raw data. That being said, after a month, we have enough of a sample size to say Vaughn is swinging roughly 3 MPH slower than in 2025.

The good news: Vaughn is a hitter, not just a slugger, and he's found ways to keep the quality of contact high. He's not chasing; he's not whiffing; he's hitting a lot of solid contact in the air. It just isn't leaving the park.

Here are his 2025 exit velocity numbers by strike zone area:

In 2025, Vaughn was crushing basically every pitch, but his real damage came on the inner and middle thirds of the plate. If it was belt-high in those zones, he crushed it in the air. Vaughn averaged 70.7 mph of bat speed in 2025, good for the 27th percentile in baseball, meaning he's not likely to clear the fences to straightaway center and does rely on that pull-side power. That's why getting the bat around on stuff inside is so important to him. With slower bat speed, this year (down to 67 mph on average), he's struggling to get the bat sufficiently out in front on the inner third to turn on the ball, and that's been hurting him, with exit velocities dropping on the inner third:

The other big thing is that Vaughn had just enough in the exit velocity department to be a slugging threat last season. The majority of his batted balls in play were in the 100-105 range, compared with other 5-MPH increments, as you can see below:

In fact, he was one of the most consistent producers of high-quality contact in baseball last season. That's continued to some extent in 2026, but the entire histogram has shifted one step to the left, now hitting the majority of his batted balls in the 95-100 mph range:

This isn't terminal, and perhaps in two months' time, we'll see the bat speed return, as is traditional for hamate injuries. For now, we'll have to enjoy the quality of contact and strong at-bats, and perhaps hope for more of the power to come back in the second half of the season.

Jackson Chourio Has Found The In-Between
I couldn't resist a little Stranger Things metaphor. Chourio came into this year with one goal: to reach the heights his talent permits via better swing decisions. It showed in spring training, in his rehab stints, and even the World Baseball Classic. Chourio was being more selective, and there were hopes he could make strides in his chase rate. Let's take a look at his base for 2025 compared to the 2026 performance:

He was aggressive with pitches inside the strike zone, and his bat-to-ball was good enough that, even while chasing to this extent, he was putting a lot of balls in play. Those balls were ineffective, weak contact, however, and that was hurting his results. It's the one clear area where he could make a step forward.

Fast-forward to 2026, and Chourio is being more patient and less swing-happy... just on all the wrong pitches. His swing rate is down, but it's because he's swinging at fewer pitches inside the strike zone. If we look at the specific areas inside the strike zone, it's not pretty, either. It's more like intermittent passivity than being genuinely selective, although he does appear to be focusing on reducing swings on the outer third of the plate (these are how many percentage points up or down Jackson Chourio is swinging by zone in 2026 vs 2025)

He's swinging less at meatballs, less on the inner third, and it's hurting him. Watching the games, Chourio has some at-bats where he seems to really effectively decipher pitch types and locations, and others where he's just guessing. He has the ability to let the ball travel and drive pitches to right-center field, and then turn on any breaking pitches off the back of that. His timing is just off at present, and his approach looks completely lost.

The good news is, the under-the-hood swing mechanics are actually looking good. Bat speed is up; he's finding more ideal attack angles on baseballs despite not quite finding the barrel of the bat. That being said, these were never real problems for Chourio to begin with.

In 2026, Joey Ortiz has a better differential between his in-zone swing rate and his chase rate than does Chourio. That speaks volumes. As always, if he can find an approach that works for him at the plate, the sky is the limit for Chourio. There's no better team to work with him on that than the Brewers. Still, after two and a half years, one might have hoped to see a little more progress than we have so far, and in fact, 2026 has been a regression, rather than progress.

The Brewers need that to change. Thanks to Jake Bauers, they can live with a smaller role and a bit less pop than they might have hoped for from Vaughn. Not so with Chourio. To blossom into the superpower they can be, they need their young dynamo to become a more productive one.