Brewers' Fischer named Hitting Prospect of the Year after historic campaign

Pete Alonso and Andrew Fischer share common threads as SEC infielders who quickly took to the Minor Leagues. More generally, they are two sluggers who can absolutely pulverize the ball. But Alonso is nine years Fischer's senior and has the second-most home runs in the Major Leagues since his debut season of 2019 (307, only Aaron Judge has more with 313), so when the younger hitter came across a video in which the five-time All-Star broke down his approach, he was all ears.

"He was talking about the best two-strike approach is to treat it like you're 2-0," Fischer said. "You have to believe in the hitter you are. It's about putting yourself in an advantage count at all times. I want the pitcher to know that I feel comfortable, and once a pitcher knows that the hitter's feeling comfortable, I have the slight edge. 

"It doesn't matter the count. How can I make this 51 percent me, 49 percent them, and go up there and play with my odds?"

The Brewers' No. 5 prospect found enough advantages in 2026 to enjoy a historic first full season, and as such, is this year's MLB Pipeline Hitting Prospect of the Year.

Fischer finished with 48 homers over 126 games between High-A Wisconsin and Double-A Biloxi, giving him the most in the Minor Leagues since Ron Kittle hit 50 in 1982. It was also the fifth-most in the Minors since the Majors adopted the Player Development Contract in 1963 that began Minor League Baseball's modern era. While offense was up across MiLB this season, no one else was particularly close to Fischer in the dinger department; Jesús Báez (Cardinals) was second with 39, while Lazaro Montes (Mariners) and Billy Amick (Mets) tied for third with 37.

The left-handed-hitting corner infielder also led full-season qualifiers with his .654 slugging percentage, 1.067 OPS and 287 total bases, while finishing second with a 162 wRC+ and third with 68 total extra-base hits, giving him the advantage over fellow award finalists Theo Gillen (Rays) and Rainiel Rodriguez (Cardinals).

Heading into last year's Draft, Fischer was known for his power after going deep 56 times across three collegiate seasons with Duke, Mississippi and Tennessee, including an SEC-best 25 during his one season with the Volunteers in 2025. Searching for outlier traits they could plug into an already deep farm system, the Brewers took him 20th overall that July and sent him to High-A Wisconsin to begin his pro career. Fischer hit .311/.402/.446 in 87 plate appearances with the Timber Rattlers, but after only going deep once, he knew he'd have to take to the Brewers' approach more entering his first full season.

"I was a little closed-minded because I was like, let me just finish the season before I start buying into your guys' stuff," Fischer said. "You could see the power metrics weren't there. All of a sudden, it's like okay, I'll go through this winter, come back in the spring, and it'll be full buy-in. I want to do it the Brewer way, and they clearly know how to win at the highest level. So how can I do that? And I mean, the results speak for themselves."

Fischer defined "the Brewer way" as focusing on swinging at strikes and key performance indicators like barrel percentage over on-field results. By buying into that, he found the process that gave him a profile geared perfectly for power in the modern game, and voila, the on-field results also followed.

The most efficient way to pile up home runs is to hit the ball hard, hit it in the air and hit it to the pull side. Well, the lefty slugger had an average exit velocity of 94 mph (Alonso averaged 93.9 mph in 2026) and a 90th-percentile EV of 107 mph (Alonso, 107.5). Fischer led 724 Minor League full-season qualifiers with a 56.8 percent flyball rate, and his 55.0 percent pull rate ranked 14th-highest among the same group. By comparison, Kyle Schwarber -- a consistent but optimistic comp -- had a 46.3 flyball rate and 56.7 pull percentage in the Majors this season.

What pops about Fischer's 2026 as much as the raw numbers was the consistency of his success at the High-A and Double-A levels. He posted a slugging percentage above .500 in all six months of Minor League play and clubbed between five and 11 homers in those same timeframes. He credited detailed scouting reports from coaches and instructors for his ability to stack up weeks, but there had to be some adjustability in there too.

When asked about his favorite Fischer homer of the season, Biloxi hitting coach Kevin Martir circled No. 47, a solo shot in the sixth inning at Pensacola on Sept. 10. Facing Marlins right-hander Luis Moreno for a third time, Fischer took two balls to start the at-bat: the first well inside, the second just missing the outside corner. The third pitch he saw was a slider that caught too much of the plate and was sent screaming out to right field.

"Talking with him throughout the game, [I was saying] these guys don't want to throw you fastballs in the zone," Martir said. "They know you crush fastballs. You have to be able to be attentive to what's going on, how they're attacking you. They're kind of trying to nibble around the zone with heaters. Then he got a hanging breaking ball in an advantage count … and he did damage."

That gets to what can make Fischer such an enticing and oft-debated prospect among scouts and evaluators. He chased at 23 percent of pitches outside the zone in 2026 per Synergy (MLB average is 30.4 percent), but he did whiff often, finishing with a 33.0 percent strikeout rate. He only made contact on 63.4 percent of his swings against High-A and Double-A pitching, and that number dipped to 54.8 percent against breaking pitches in particular (thus Martir's enthusiasm for that specific homer).

Those numbers would be difficult to carry in The Show, but Milwaukee officials note that this is only the first season of Fischer's pro development and they don't want to take away too much of his optimized power in search of more generic contact.

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"[Fischer] did it a little bit differently," Brewers senior director of player operations Tom Flanagan told MLB.com's Adam McCalvy. "I know people talk about the strikeout totals, but he also walked 100 times. He's going to get better. And then the fact that he really didn't miss a day -- he answered the bell and was the guy pulling guys together down the stretch to go as far as they could during the postseason. It was a tremendous year for him."

"You have to let him be who he is," Martir said. "There's some risk and reward, right? The guy's going to hit a lot of home runs, and he might swing-and-miss a little bit more. In training, we're trying to bridge that gap by challenging him in terms of environments that we create to help him improve his contact, whether that's using different training bats or different types of baseballs that move a certain way. He's been open to it."

That circles back to Fischer's willingness to take on feedback in the pro ranks, but there is something to be said for keeping the main thing the main thing. And in his case, that's getting off an "A swing" that's already proven capable of hitting homers by the historic buckets on his way to Milwaukee.

"Once I make my decision," Fischer said, "it's full go."