The Milwaukee Brewers’ offense is hanging on by a thread at the moment. Brice Turang and William Contreras are doing what they can, and Jake Bauers and Gary Sánchez have offered some early season boom-or-bust help. But without any of Jackson Chourio, Christian Yelich, or Andrew Vaughn in the lineup, the lineup is struggling. Sal Frelick hasn’t hit well. Joey Ortiz is still, unfortunately, a zero. Milwaukee has gotten very little from any of Brandon Lockridge, Blake Perkins, Greg Jones, or David Hamilton. Luis Rengifo can be added to that group, too, even if he’s come around a bit in the past week.
But there is one other player who has been helping to keep the offense afloat during this tough stretch: Garrett Mitchell. He’s already had some big moments. An extremely concerning spring raised a lot of questions around whether Mitchell was any sort of answer at all in the outfield, much less a long-term one. Many of those questions still remain, but Mitchell has also quietly raked this season; as of the start of play Wednesday, he has a 148 OPS+, leads the Brewers (along with Brice Turang) with 18 RBIs, and—I’m not making this up—leads the National League with a .437 on-base percentage.
But what can we learn from Mitchell’s odd start to the season?
When it’s hit, it stays hit
Mitchell’s Statcast page currently lights up like a Christmas tree. He ranks 90th percentile or better in average exit velocity, barrel percentage, hard-hit percentage, launch-angle sweet-spot percentage, bat speed, chase percentage, and walk rate. We should be extremely encouraged by all of this. Mitchell is being very selective, he is swinging hard, and he is crushing the ball when he makes contact. These are major harbingers of success.
But that Statcast page also lights up in a bad way. Mitchell is in the bottom-three percentile in squared-up percentage and is crucially in the very bottom percentile leaguewide in whiff percentage and strikeout percentage. As encouraging as the good stuff is, the bad stuff is perhaps even more worrisome. Mitchell swings and misses a ton. His strikeout percentage sits at 38.8%; last year, the worst K-rate among qualified hitters was Ryan McMahon at 32.3%. Mitchell is way beyond that, to a point that probably isn’t sustainable; the highest single-season K-rate in the last five years was when Joey Gallo struck out 34.6% of the time in 2021, and the all-time record for a hitter in a full season (that wasn’t 2020) was Chris Davis at 37.2% in 2017. At 38.8%, Mitchell is approaching Keston Hiura levels — Hiura struck out in 40.6% of his plate appearances during his last two seasons in Milwaukee.
Given that data, it’s fair to ask whether Mitchell is even a viable major leaguer if he continues to strike out that much. He is doing damage when he hits the ball, and the Statcast data in that regard is good. But Mitchell is also rocking a BABIP of .522 right now; the highest BABIP ever recorded (since the dawn of the American League in 1901), according to FanGraphs, was 99 points lower than that. It was in 1923, and the guy’s name was Babe Ruth. The highest BABIP in a full season in the last 50 years was Rod Carew at .408 in 1977. Just one of the greatest pure hitters of all time in a season in which he hit .388, had 9.7 WAR, and won the MVP.
Mitchell has always been a high-strikeout player; in the 141 games he’d played prior to 2026, he held a career 33.9% strikeout rate. Even that would be too high, but Mitchell has always managed to be relatively productive despite a large number of strikeouts. When you add his other skills to that, it helps too — Mitchell is very fast and he’s a very good fielder. As for decreasing the strikeouts, a glance at the “Zones” page on his Statcast profile tells you what you need to know: he can’t hit pitches up in the zone. Pitchers are spamming fastballs in the top third of the zone, and Mitchell is missing them. Until he fixes that, they’ll keep doing it. It’s not a mystery what needs to be done here, but that’s extremely easy for me to say.
An everyday option?
If Mitchell can work on the strikeout issue, though, he could offer the Brewers something that they need: an outfielder who can play every day, no matter who is pitching for the opposition.
The Brewers have protected Mitchell a bit versus left-handed pitching this season, and he’s only got 16 plate appearances, but he’s hitting .300 with five walks in those 16 plate appearances, good for a .533 OBP and .833 OPS. He’s doing damage against righties — all of his extra-base hits this year are against right-handed pitching — but Mitchell is using his patience as a strength against lefties.
This isn’t a one-year blip, either. Mitchell is certainly a better hitter against right-handed pitching in his career (.792 OPS in 422 PA), but he’s not bad against lefties. Mitchell has a higher batting average and a higher OBP in his career against lefties (.264 versus .253 and .349 versus .346). His career OPS versus lefties is lower (.697 in 88 plate appearances), but that split between lefties and righties isn’t nearly as dramatic as some other players on the Brewers, and that .697 OPS versus lefties is certainly playable.
If Mitchell can find a way to cut down his strikeouts and get some of the power he shows against right-handed pitchers into his profile against lefties, he could become a downright offensive weapon. Again, that’s easy for me to say, and of course we all know the dangers of putting too much faith in Mitchell and his health.
But there’s a good player here, one who is already helping to prop up a struggling Brewer offense. Remember, before the 2025 season there were those who were predicting an All-Star appearance for Mitchell. (Me, I was one of those.) There are some major issues with his game right now, and his career is sort of teetering in a place that could go either direction. But the goal is clear, and if Mitchell can put it all together, the Brewers could really have something.
