Opening Day for the Milwaukee Brewers is tomorrow, and many other baseball outlets have given their bold takes, so I’m hopping on the trend and giving five of my own takes for the Brewers 2026 MLB Regular Season.

1. Kyle Harrison will finish the season with 120+ innings pitched and an earned run average below 3.40

A former top 20 prospect on MLB.com, left-handed starting pitcher Kyle Harrison comes with a lot of eyes on him, due to three seasons of interchanging between the majors and minors. Since Spring Training started, it’s obvious though that the Brewers traded Caleb Durbin to the Boston Red Sox for Harrison with intention. 

In 17 innings this spring, Harrison has doubled his usage of the changeup from the previous season going from a usage rate of 8% to 17% per the Real Sports app and baseballsavant.mlb.com. Not only have the Brewers doubled Harrison’s changeup usage, they’ve seemed to recommend he stops throwing a cutter and sinker. 

Without wasting energy on a variety of ineffective pitches, Harrison can focus on improving his slurve and changeup while relying on a dominant fastball led by his 71 percentile mound extension. 

Fangraphs.com projects Harrison to have a 4.27 earned run average (ERA) through 104 innings, I disagree and believe the changes being made set Harrison up for success in the 2026 season. Harrison being on the opening day roster, means he should reach 125 innings, the take truly depends on preventing blow-up starts.

2. Abner Uribe will be in contention for the Trevor Hoffman National League Reliever of the Year honors

It’s no secret how good Abner Uribe is anymore. Over the course of the 2025 Regular Season and Playoffs, Uribe threw for a 1.77 ERA through 81.1 innings. 

Among relief pitchers who threw 70 innings or more in 2025, Uribe ranked top 10 in each of these stats per fangraphs.com: ERA (first), Left on-Base Percentage (third), Home Runs Allowed per Nine Innings (fifth), Fielder Independent Pitching (sixth), Wins Above Replacement (sixth), Strikeouts per Nine Innings (seventh) and Ground Ball Percentage (eighth).

Uribe’s stats last season ranked amongst the best relief pitchers in the league, and after a rough 2024 season, he bounced back in one of the strongest ways possible.

As a projected split closer with Trevor Megill, Uribe’s numbers are limited, but this take comes along with the assumption that Megill is traded to make way for Uribe. Megill’s talent is undeniable but his team control ends in 2028, so I expect the Brewers to capitalize on Megill’s value and slot Uribe into an everyday closer role, where he should dominate. 

3. Jake Bauers’s production will mirror if not best Andrew Vaughn’s 

In the 49 plate appearances Jake Bauers had in Spring Training, he showed out. Wrapping up his spring with an On-Base Plus Slugging Percentage (OPS) of 1.725, which is more than DOUBLE the MLBs average. 

Thanks to what seems to be a new approach at the plate, Bauers lowered his strikeout rate from 27.1% last season to 14.3% in spring, which led to better at bats and his quality of contact actually showing. Instead of having to reconcile the many barrels Bauers provides for outs, those barrels are translating into hits due to the frequency of occurrence. 

One of the worst things you can do as a hitter is strikeout, and that’s what Bauers has fallen victim to in 29% of his career plate appearances. To counter that, you can draw walks, Bauers is doing that. What was an already impressive walk rate is seeing improvement, going from 14.7% last season to 16.3% in spring. These factors combined with his above league average Barrel Percentage, Bat Speed and Exit Velocity, he has the potential to be elite.

Regardless of those woes guys like Vinny Capra and Ji Man Choi gave us Brewer fans, things are looking up for Bauers and the opportunity to split time with Andrew Vaughn at first base is there, he just has to make the most of it.

4. Brice Turang finishes in the top eight of NL Most Valuable Player voting

Last year’s 14th place Most Valuable Player (MVP) vote getter, Brice Turang isn’t going to cool off soon and should continue expanding on his game-changing ability. Whether that’s defense, offense or base running, Turang looks like one of the few five tool players in the MLB. 

Following a 2024 where Turang broke out, taking the “Quantum Leap” manager Pat Murphy projected him to, Turang produced even more WAR and more than doubled his home run total. Turang found untapped power in the month of August specifically and has carried it over into the 2026 season. Through 46 at-bats in Spring Training and the World Baseball Classic, Turang has a slugging percentage of approximately 0.630, which is well above league average. 

Focusing more on the take, the departure of Pete Alonso to the American League automatically boosts him up a spot. Both Christian Yelich and Freddie Freeman are older guys and should regress (I’m sorry Yelich). Those three spots move Turang up to 11th if his numbers were to be consistent. 

Two other aging players ahead of Turang last year were Kyle Schwarber and Francisco Lindor, but chances of surpassing them are less likely. Regardless, I’m going to say he does. His value in all aspects of the field matches Lindor and it outweighs the value of Schwarber unless he’s mashing like last year, so Turang’s up to ninth.

Lastly, but not least, we have the other Philadelphia Phillies representative in the top five. That being Trea Turner. In Turner’s first two seasons with the Phillies, he didn’t receive any votes for the MVP trophy, which is why I believe he’ll fall down to that or at least enough to fall out of the top eight. 

5. Either Andrew Fischer or Jett Williams get called up by mid-May and put up at least 2.0 Wins Above Replacement

There’s a glaring hole on the left side of the in-field for the Brewers after the Durbin trade and Willy Adames left last off-season for the San Francisco Giants. Currently, David Hamilton, Joey Ortiz and Luis Rengifo man that side of the field while the Brewers sit on a magnitude of touted prospects bound for those positions. 

Two of them I’d like to focus on are Andrew Fischer and Jett Williams. Fischer, the Brewers first round pick in the 2025 MLB Draft seems to be ready for the majors already as he’s dominated minor league competition, the baseball classic and spring training with an OPS of 0.930 in 94 at-bats. Fischer is nearly 22 years old and looks like he’s got a swing for the majors. 

Williams case for the majors is easy. The starting shortstop Ortiz didn’t look good last year, and a month of repetition should make him lose his spot. That makes Jett Williams in line to at least be the backup, unless the Brewers pivot to Cooper Pratt. I don’t think they will though, I believe the front office would rather see what they got for Freddy Peralta rather than possibly waste two years of Pratt, who they’ve grown for years.