Andrew Fischer keeps adding to the home-run total, but the number that matters most now is how high the climb still is.
Milwaukee’s top prospect went deep again for Double-A Biloxi on Sept. 3, giving him his second homer of September and No. 44 on the season. The 22-year-old started the year at High-A Wisconsin, where he launched 20 homers and drove in 50 runs before moving up to Biloxi. Since joining the Shuckers, he has produced 24 homers and 56 RBIs in 220 at-bats.
That power binge has Fischer sitting atop all of minor-league baseball in home runs, six ahead of Seattle prospect Lazaro Montes. Even in a 3-2 loss to Birmingham on Sept. 3, the milestone chase kept rolling for a Biloxi club that still has nine regular-season games left.
After that, the Shuckers will enter the Southern League playoffs by virtue of their first-half championship, opening a three-game division series on Sept. 15.
The winner moves on to the Southern League Championship Series, which begins Sept. 20.
As for where Fischer stands in Brewers and minor-league history, he’s not there yet. Per data compiled by Shuckers announcer Javik Blake, the Brewers’ and all-time minor-league record in the modern era belongs to Bill McNulty and Gorman Thomas, who each blasted 55 and 51 homers, respectively, in 1974.
That season came with a big asterisk of sorts. Both players were with the Triple-A Sacramento Solons of the Pacific Coast League, and the setup in Sacramento turned into a home-run paradise.
The franchise had moved from Eugene and had no obvious place to play, so it landed at Hughes Stadium on the Sacramento City College campus. The football venue was awkwardly converted for baseball, and the left-field fence sat just 233 feet from home plate.
Minor-league baseball waived the usual 250-foot minimum for one season only, with right field at 300 and dead center at 390 before the left-field wall was pushed back the next year.
Sacramento, in other words, became the home-run capital of the world.
McNulty’s path to that number was unusual, too. He was under contract with the New York Mets and asked to play for his hometown Sacramento team when the franchise arrived.
The Society for American Baseball Research says the Brewers bought his contract for the 1974 season. A minor-league veteran, McNulty had already started working in radio and had become a partner in a clothing store during the offseason because he expected his playing days were close to over.
He opened 1975 in Triple-A, then went to Japan midway through the year. He never reached the majors with Milwaukee, though he had previously spent time with the Oakland Athletics and got just 29 plate appearances there without hitting a big-league homer.
Thomas took a different route. He also appeared in the majors in 1973 and 1974, then broke through with Milwaukee by 1978, when he hit 32 home runs. He eventually finished with 268 in his career, most of them with the Brewers.
After McNulty and Thomas, the next names on the list are Ron Kittle with 50 for Edmonton in 1982 and four players tied at 46, including Ryan Howard in the Phillies organization in 2004.
Fischer’s own season has come with some eye-catching numbers beyond the home runs. He owns a 1.049 OPS and a .402 on-base percentage overall, and he’s at .987 with Biloxi. The warning sign is the strikeout total: 177 in 518 plate appearances, a 34% strikeout rate that could make life harder if he moves up again.
That’s the same kind of issue that derailed former top Brewers prospect Keston Hiura, whose strikeout rate from 2020 through 2022 was 38% at the big-league level, even though his minor-league rate was 25%. Fischer also draws a comparison to Kyle Schwarber, another left-handed power bat who keeps getting to his power despite whiffs; Schwarber has a 29% strikeout rate in his MLB career, though it’s climbed to a career-worst 33% this season. In the minors, his strikeout rate was 21%.
And if Fischer is chasing the all-time Pacific Coast League mark, he has an even steeper mountain to climb. That record belongs to Hall of Famer Tony Lazzeri, who hit 60 home runs for Salt Lake City in 1925.
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San Francisco is bringing him in with a clear immediate role in low-leverage situations, but the move also gives Kuhnel a chance to stick beyond the final stretch if he handles it well. For Milwaukee, it is another reminder of how quickly late-season relief depth can turn over, especially when clubs are constantly trying to find usable innings without losing flexibility elsewhere on the roster. [Read more 🡒]
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Brewers Just Took A Quiet Bullpen Hit After The Cubs Series
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San Francisco is bringing Kuhnel in for the rest of the year as an extra arm, and the Brewers now have to sort through the ripple effect of losing a pitcher who was at least in the mix. He had a 4.84 ERA with 22 strikeouts this season, but for Milwaukee the bigger issue is less the numbers than the fact that another depth option is gone at a time when every bullpen inning matters. [Read more 🡒]