The Brewers may not need a long-term answer at first base this winter. They may just need a steady bridge.
If Jake Bauers walks, Milwaukee will have a hole to fill next to Andrew Vaughn, and Nathaniel Lowe looks like the kind of short-term fix the club tends to like. He’s an eight-year veteran who has already bounced through six major-league teams, and after a season that included stops with the Reds and Guardians, he could be available on a deal that doesn’t lock the Brewers into anything beyond the near term.
Lowe’s path has been a winding one. Drafted by the Rays in the 13th round in 2016, he spent two seasons in Tampa Bay before moving to Texas, where he piled up 11.5 bWAR across four years with the Rangers.
After the 2024 season, he was traded to the Nationals, lasted only half a season there, and then got dealt to Boston. His time with the Red Sox was rough, as he posted the worst OPS of his career at .689, which helped push the 31-year-old into a cheap, one-year deal with the Reds.
The bat still played better in Cincinnati than it did in Cleveland. Lowe hit .266/.341/.480 with the Reds, good for a 126 OPS+, then dropped to an 83 OPS+ with the Guardians while slashing .226/.275/.376. Even so, his career OPS+ sits at 115, and in a weak position-player market, that kind of track record still carries weight.
That matters for Milwaukee because Bauers’ likely departure would leave a real void. He was the Brewers’ primary first baseman in 2026 and led the team in OPS and home runs, but he was offered the qualifying offer recently and is expected to prefer a multi-year deal over the one-year, $23.15-million guarantee that comes with accepting it.
Vaughn is still under team control for another season, but the Brewers probably shouldn’t hand him the job outright. He did hit .764 OPS in 198 plate appearances against right-handed pitching in 2026, yet his career mark in those spots is only .708.
That’s not enough if Milwaukee is trying to replace Bauers’s production. And with the way the Brewers handle players who have one year of control left, even Vaughn’s place on the roster isn’t completely settled.
Lowe would fit into a more specific role: handling right-handed pitching and sharing the position with Vaughn. He owns a .793 OPS against righties for his career, which gives Milwaukee a useful platoon option without forcing a long commitment.
The Brewers also have first base prospects on the way, especially Andrew Fischer, who also hits left-handed. Some fans may want Fischer in the majors right away in 2027, but that’s neither likely nor advisable.
Defense is part of the equation too, even if first base in Milwaukee has been driven more by offense than glove work. Bauers and Vaughn were both worth -4 OAA at first base last season, and neither graded well as receivers, with Bauers in the 22nd percentile and Vaughn in the 6th percentile.
Lowe isn’t a Gold Glove-type defender, but he would be a slight upgrade. He finished last season at -3 OAA, though that split differently depending on where he played: 2 OAA with the Guardians and -5 OAA with the Reds. As a receiver, he checked in at the 36th percentile, which is only a modest improvement but still better than what Milwaukee got from its primary first basemen last year.
That’s the appeal here. Lowe may not solve the position for good, but he could help stabilize it. A short-term deal would give the Brewers a veteran bat, a workable platoon partner for Vaughn, and a way to buy time for Fischer, Blake Burke or Luke Adams to develop.
It’s the kind of move Milwaukee has made before: low-cost, low-risk, and built to preserve flexibility. If Bauers signs elsewhere, Lowe would make sense as the player who keeps first base from becoming a problem while the next wave gets ready.
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Henderson at least drew some support in the voting, which says something about how close Milwaukee came to getting a bigger foothold in the race. The broader picture is still a reminder that awards ballots do not always line up neatly with what a club sees on the field, and for the Brewers, the frustration is less about one missed trophy than about a promising young group that did enough to get noticed without quite breaking through. [Read more 🡒]