After a second straight 12 months watching main stars stroll out the door, the Milwaukee Brewers have the perfect file in baseball
After the Milwaukee gained the Nationwide League Central in 2023, the winningest supervisor in franchise historical past, Craig Counsell, left for more cash with the Chicago Cubs. The revered head of baseball operations, David Stearns, was employed by the New York Mets. One in every of their two ace pitchers, Corbin Burnes, was traded to the Orioles for 2 gamers who’d barely performed within the majors. Their different ace, Brandon Woodruff, had surgical procedure on his throwing shoulder and could be out for all of 2024.
Regardless of these losses, the Brewers improved from 92 to 93 wins in 2024 and comfortably gained the NL Central once more, one thing only a few anticipated. However after a heartbreaking loss within the NL Wild Card Sequence, the hits saved coming. All-Star nearer Devin Williams was traded to the Yankees for an undersized mid-level prospect and a starter who couldn’t keep wholesome. Willy Adames, the favored shortstop who served as clubhouse chief whereas pacing the workforce in homers and RBI in 2024, turned a free agent, and the Giants swooped in with a profitable supply the Brewers couldn’t match.
As soon as once more, the Brewers had been anticipated to take a step again, and for some time, it seemed like they’d. On Could twenty fourth, the Brewers had been 25-28 and fourth within the NL Central, and followers had been considering a deadline hearth sale that might reset the workforce round its youthful gamers. However on Could twenty fifth, the Brewers scored three runs within the eighth to steal a 6-5 victory over the Pirates. Since then, they’re a outstanding 51-16 and have two of the three longest successful streaks in baseball this season, an 11-gamer in July and their nonetheless energetic 12-game streak that began on August 1st. They’ve been the perfect workforce in baseball by far over that span, and have turned a 6.5-game deficit within the division right into a 7.5-game lead.
How did the Brewers once more defy the chances and handle to enhance after important losses? There’s not a single reply however as an alternative a number of components, some simple to know and a few extra mysterious, which have led to this unbelievable stretch.
For these acquainted with the Moneyball story, there are some comparisons between the 2002 Athletics and the 2025 Brewers. The A’s managed to enhance on 2001’s 102 wins regardless of dropping three star gamers to groups with extra sources: Jason Giambi, the 2001 MVP runner-up; Johnny Damon, the speedy middle fielder; and Jason Isringhausen, the nearer. In 2002, common supervisor Billy Beane changed these gamers with relative unknowns or over-the-hill former stars and, in opposition to all odds, Oakland improved to 103 wins.
Like these Athletics, the Brewers are constrained by monetary limitations; they play in baseball’s smallest market and have certainly one of its most shallow-pocketed house owners, Mark Attanasio. In keeping with an MLB Commerce Rumors roundup on the finish of 2021, Attanasio was tied for twenty seventh in web price amongst house owners, and in response to Spotrac, the 2025 Brewers are twentieth within the league in energetic payroll and twenty third in whole payroll.
The core conceit of Moneyball is, basically, that the Athletics recognized undervalued abilities. In that case, the talent was on-base proportion, however as Michael Baumann notes in a latest piece in regards to the Brewers’ shocking outfielder Isaac Collins, the talent modifications relying on the period.
For Collins, the undervalued talent was swing selections. However the Brewers have recognized baserunning and protection as market inefficiencies along with good plate self-discipline. After successful workforce Gold Glove awards in 2023 and 2024, the present Brewers rank second in Statcast’s Outs Above Common, third in Whole Zone runs above common, and fourth in FanGraphs’ all-encompassing defensive ranking. On the basepaths, they’re first, by far, in FanGraphs’ baserunning runs above common metric (14.4, with second place at 9.0) and within the high 5 in Baseball Reference’s model. They’re second within the league in stolen bases.
The Brewers’ roster is affected by velocity and protection. Brice Turang, Sal Frelick, Jackson Chourio, Collins, Blake Perkins, Caleb Durbin, and Joey Ortiz all match this invoice. Out of that group, all however Ortiz has been above common offensively this season.
Most Brewers followers and several other outstanding nationwide writers had been clamoring for a splash on the commerce deadline. Eugenio Suárez’s title swirled in rumors for weeks. However the Brewers as an alternative did what they often do: they moved within the margins, despatched out solely Nestor Cortes Jr. (who’d made solely two appearances for the membership) and a minor prospect, and purchased a stable bullpen arm, Shelby Miller, and one other speedy defensive kind, backup outfielder Brandon Lockridge.
Had the Brewers not gone on a large successful streak instantly after the deadline, which will have rankled some. However this technique is core to what the Brewers do: they don’t sacrifice promising prospects for short-term expertise until they should. This strategy, which isn’t all the time in style, has led to unprecedented depth each on the main league stage and within the minors, the place the Brewers had been lately ranked because the primary farm system within the league by Baseball America.
For a deeper dive into the Brewers’ depth, take a look at my latest piece at Brew Crew Ball. However the primary level is that this: whereas the Brewers don’t have any superstars, they relentlessly put stable ballplayers on the sector. There simply isn’t anybody dangerous on this workforce. Ten place gamers on the present 40-man roster have not less than 1.2 WAR, 9 of whom have an OPS+ over 100. 16 pitchers have thrown not less than 25 innings for the Brewers this season; an unbelievable 14 of them have an ERA+ of not less than 117. No different workforce in baseball can boast this kind of depth.
Placing gamers ready to succeed
Milwaukee did make one commerce early within the season by which they gave up a superb prospect (Yophery Rodriguez, who was of their high ten previous to the season) and a aggressive stability draft choose. That was for Quinn Priester, the previous first-round choose of the Pirates who struggled in Pittsburgh earlier than getting traded to Boston, the place he didn’t make the opening day roster.
Priester seems like he ought to be an influence pitcher, but it surely wasn’t working for him. He was strolling too many and never hanging out sufficient. However the Brewers noticed in Priester not a failed strikeout pitcher, however a participant who had a superb sinker that would induce quite a lot of floor balls that their wonderful infield would eat up. They made a minor tweak or two, added a cutter, and centered on attacking the zone with transferring fastballs. After a number of begins Priester locked in. The outcomes have been wonderful: he’s 11-2 with a 3.49 ERA in Milwaukee.
Priester is only one instance of the Brewers understanding their gamers’ strengths and weaknesses. They regularly put gamers in positions the place they will lean on their strengths and conceal their weaknesses, and don’t ask them to do greater than they’re able to. Their depth permits them to maintain gamers out of roles by which they’d be requested to do an excessive amount of, and administration’s belief of their guys has given lengthy sufficient leashes to gamers like Ortiz, Turang, and Durbin in order that they might discover their manner via struggles and thrive.
There’s nonetheless some thriller about this workforce. How did they unlock Andrew Vaughn, even when some optimistic regression was probably after his horrid first half in Chicago? Why does it appear to be pitchers simply get miraculously higher upon arriving in Milwaukee? These are the issues that for years bothered Brewers followers in the wrong way when it was the workforce in St. Louis who appeared to have the “Cardinals Satan Magic” (that some at the moment are referring to as “Uecker Magic”).
However this workforce isn’t a whole thriller. Frelick, Turang, and Vaughn are former first-round picks, and Chourio and Ortiz had been blue-chip prospects. Woodruff, Christian Yelich, William Contreras, and Freddy Peralta are all established stars. Matt Arnold and the Milwaukee entrance workplace have accomplished an unbelievable job filling the gaps, and the outcomes communicate for themselves.
The final query is whether or not the Brewers will resemble the Moneyball As in terms of postseason success, or a scarcity thereof. They’ll be hoping that’s one place the place they break the mildew as they search the primary World Sequence title within the franchise’s 55-year historical past.
