Any conversation about the best hitters in baseball in 2026 should begin with the two MVP frontrunners, Yordan Alvarez and Pete Crow-Armstrong. It probably includes some of the game's dynamic young stars, like Junior Caminero and James Wood, as well as the generational talents slugging their way to Cooperstown, like Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto.
These are all likely names that you've heard of. But do you know about Jake Bauers?
There are so many metrics that can properly evaluate a player's offensive production. Whether you prefer OPS+ or wRC+ or wOBA, the answer is the same: Bauers is one of the game's best hitters. The lefty slugger has been an undeniable force for the first team in the Majors to reach 90 wins.
Highest Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA), 2026
Among 244 qualified hitters
- Yordan Alvarez (HOU): .424
- Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC): .302
- Juan Soto (NYM): .398
- James Wood (WSH): .392
- Willson Contreras (BOS): .390
- Jake Bauers (MIL): .385
If you're new here and wondering what wOBA is, think of it as a version of on-base percentage that awards increasing values to extra-base hits, instead of treating each time on base equally. The league-average wOBA is .316; Bauers is right above Bryce Harper (.384), Caminero (.383) and Ohtani (.381).
This is remarkable production for any hitter. It is why the Brewers are being cautious down the stretch as Bauers battles shin splints, an issue that has kept him out of the starting lineup for the last three games. This is not someone they can afford to lose. As manager Pat Murphy said this week: "We need him in there."
It's worth emphasizing who we are talking about here. Bauers entered the year with a .211/.307/.365 career slash line and an 84 OPS+ across parts of six MLB seasons, meaning that his production was 16% worse than league average across more than 1,500 at-bats. There was a whole lot of evidence that he was not a productive MLB hitter. Among 253 players to take at least 1,500 at-bats in the six-year span from 2018-24, only nine hitters posted a lower OPS than Bauers (.662).
Now, in his age-30 season, Bauers is -- statistically -- the most dangerous hitter on baseball's best team. He's slashing .268/.395/.490 with 24 home runs and 78 RBIs. Again, this is a guy who, before this year, had never hit more than 12 home runs in a season and had only once posted a slugging percentage above .400.
How in the world did this happen?
This doesn't have much to do with luck. Only eight qualified hitters have a higher expected wOBA than Bauers' .376 mark. His expected slugging percentage is in the 86th percentile of MLB. In other words, the quality and quantity of contact support his production.
Let's start off with some things that Bauers already did well before this season. For one, he has always swung the bat fast. Statcast's bat-tracking data dates back to the second half of the 2023 season, in which Bauers ran a 57.5% fast-swing rate (put another way, over half of his swings produced bat speeds 75+ mph). This year, among qualified hitters, Bauers has the 13th highest fast-swing rate, at 68.8%. His average bat speed is 76.6 mph; only 12 qualified hitters swing faster.
Swinging a fast bat and getting your 'A' swing off that often should translate to hard contact. Sure enough, Bauers excels in this department. He ranks in the 96th percentile of MLB with a 52.9% hard-hit rate, while his 13.6% barrel rate is in the 90th percentile.
Like every other Brewers' hitter, Bauers is also highly selective. Milwaukee has the lowest full-season swing rate of any team since 2019 in part because of Bauers, whose 40.1% swing rate is lower than all but seven qualified hitters. Among Brewers hitters to have at least 200 plate appearances this season, only Andrew Vaughn and Gary Sánchez swing the bat less often.
Bauers hunts his pitches as well as anyone. Where are those pitches? Well, they're up in the strike zone. Only Junior Caminero has a higher slugging percentage than Bauers' .765 mark against pitches in the upper third of the strike zone (min. 75 PA). Bauers swings at these pitches 65% of the time. Compare that to pitches in the lower third of the strike zone, which Bauers attacks just 55% of the time.
Here, Bauers aligns with Milwaukee's hitting philosophy. In other areas, though, he zigs while the club zags.
As MLB.com's Mike Petriello explored last month, the Brewers are the only team without a pull-side bat orientation, which means that the bat is instead moving to the opposite field at the closest point with the ball. That helps explain why Milwaukee has the lowest pull rate of any team in the Majors, and the lowest pulled-air rate of any team in the past decade.
Bauers is one of just two Brewers hitters with a league-average pulled-air rate or better. He owns the highest pull-air rate (19.2%) and pull rate (43.4%), along with the most pull-oriented attack direction (1 degree) among Brewers hitters to have at least 100 batted balls this year. That's not to say that Bauers is an all-or-nothing pull-side hitter. He also has a .620 slugging percentage on non-pulled batted balls, which ranks among the best in the Majors. But the ability to lift the ball in the air does explain part of what makes Bauers successful.
This also isn't anything new. Bauers was swinging a fast bat and pulling the ball in the air at similar levels before. So, why is he suddenly tearing the cover off the ball this season?
There are a few small things that we can point to here that are at least different. Bauers changed how he stands in the box, using a 29° open stance -- far more open than he's been in the past. He's narrowed the distance between his feet, too. All of this is really about how a player feels in the box, and judging by the results, it's fair to assume that Bauers is plenty comfortable.
The other part of this is that Bauers hasn't thought about his mechanics in the box since Spring Training started. He's simplified everything. As Bauers recently told Yahoo Sports, he changed his mindset on a whim last September and hasn't turned back. As we noted earlier, a lot of these skills were already there -- swinging hard, making good swing decisions, lifting the ball. Bauers knew that, too.
"My goal was I didn't want to think about mechanics at all," Bauers said back in March. "I think that's unlocked a little bit of my mind. I'm able to focus on just playing baseball. ... Carrying it out for the regular season is going to be a challenge, for sure, but I think I have a good base."
He's made it all look rather easy.