The Milwaukee Brewers prove that major league teams don鈥檛 need a huge payroll to stay in the playoff chase year after year.
They also prove that teams shouldn't need many years to rebuild a roster. Due to their tight budgeting, they must retool on the fly in every season 鈥- and yet they keep contending.
In short, they make rival franchises look stupid by outsmarting them week after week, month after month, year after year.
The Brewers just wrapped a 6-0 road trip by sweeping the Braves in Atlanta. They have won seven straight road games,12 of their previous 13, and 24 of their last 30.
They have the best record in baseball, 70-44, and the greatest run differential, 127. They just ripped through a 61-game segment with a 45-16 mark.
They are streaking toward their seventh playoff appearance in eight years. Remember when the Cardinals enjoyed that sort of success?
People are also reading…
鈥淧eople . . . 聽don't believe in us, but for some reason we've been doing a great job,鈥 starting pitcher Freddy Peralta told reporters. 鈥淚t鈥檚 something special that we have.鈥
What鈥檚 so special about the Brewers?
鈥淲e focus on the little things,鈥 shortstop Joey Ortiz told the Washington Post. 鈥淭rying hard not to be something you鈥檙e not. Being a good base runner. Being a good defender. Working on my hitting to do whatever I can with the bat. Everyone here just preaches: 鈥楤e the best you that you can be. Don鈥檛 try to be someone else, someone you鈥檙e not.鈥 Everyone understands their role on the team, and everyone tries to be really good at their role.鈥
They embrace their role as scrappy underdogs.
鈥淭hey're hungry,鈥 Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. 鈥淭hey play hard. We try to create whatever we can create. I feel like we're always hanging on the cliff, you know what I mean? 鈥 You know, 鈥榬isk鈥 isn't a word we worry about. We're not trying to ever play safe. We just want to go for it, and I think they kind of bought in.鈥
Also, this franchise has the uncanny ability to develop young pitchers and maximize the performance of veterans they acquire.
鈥淲hen I was in talks to come here, that was one of the first things I talked about: They do something good with their pitchers. They pick the right guys at the right time,鈥 Brewers hurler Jose Quintana, a former Cardinal, told the Post. 鈥淛ust look at Quinn Priester. So great, first-round pick, he鈥檚 always had that talent in there. And they were able to fix it.鈥
Chelsea Janes had this take on the Brewers for the Washington Post:
By all the preferred measures of modern baseball aptitude, the Milwaukee Brewers do not make sense. Even when measured against basic baseball logic, they offer a surprise.
Take their weekend at Nationals Park as an example:
On Friday, the Brewers learned their budding young superstar, Jackson Chourio, would be out for longer than expected with a hamstring injury. On Saturday, the player tied with Chourio for the team lead in FanGraphs WAR, Sal Frelick, was pulled from the game with a knee injury. And a few hours before Sunday鈥檚 series finale, the Brewers announced their 23-year-old pitching prodigy, Jacob Misiorowski, would be heading to the injured list instead of the pitching rubber.
But instead of one plus one plus one adding up to an understandable dip in momentum, the Brewers swept the series against the Washington Nationals聽by a combined score of 38-14. Those numbers make the whole thing seem closer than it was.
This is math by Milwaukee, as inscrutable to those who would like to emulate it as it is indefatigable regardless of who participates in it. The Brewers are so much greater than the sum of their parts, so consistently, that they could make a reasonable observer wonder whether he or she knew anything about baseball math at all. They lead MLB with 68 wins as of Tuesday despite spending about a third as much on their payroll as the sport鈥檚 highest spenders. They do not hit for much power, and they let go of big stars year after year, only to find they did not need them much anyway . . .
The Brewers tend to acquire 鈥 through the draft, trades or international signings 鈥 pitchers with elite tools: Their organization has the highest fastball stuff plus 鈥 an advanced metric that evaluates the nastiness of a pitcher鈥檚 stuff based on velocity, spin rate and shape 鈥 of any team in baseball. And they know how to develop them.
Let鈥檚 hope Chaim Bloom is taking notes.
Here is what folks have been writing about Our National Pastime:
Levi Weaver, The Athletic: 鈥淗ere are two major additions to the 2025 Milwaukee Brewers: Jacob Misiorowski (debuted June 12) and Brandon Woodruff (returned from IL on July 6). No team in baseball added two starters of that quality, and it didn鈥檛 cost the Brewers a single prospect. One could (and should) make the argument that Eugenio Su谩rez would have been a fun power-blaster addition to the run-and-gun Brewers offense. Sure, they have the best record in the sport, but the deadline is about setting up a playoff roster, not just maxing out the fun for the regular season. As constructed, Milwaukee has a very dangerous rotation, a fun and effective style of offense, and a bullpen that isn鈥檛 bad (and just added Shelby Miller). We鈥檒l see how that translates in October!鈥
R.J. Anderson, : “It's to be determined what Chaim Bloom will do with this Cardinals roster his first offseason in charge, but (Brendan) Donovan makes a lot of sense as a trade candidate. Most importantly: he's nearing both his 29th birthday and his free agency date (after the 2027 campaign), and the Cardinals happen to have some internal candidates in line to replace him (including top prospect JJ Wetherholt). Donovan would no doubt appeal to contenders seeking a versatile left-handed hitter who is on pace for his third consecutive season with an OPS+ of either 113 and 114.”
Ginny Searle, Baseball Prospectus: 鈥淲hile the Cubs did聽something聽at the deadline, the chances of those moves amounting to much already appears low. Mike Soroka left his first start with the team due to shoulder discomfort, getting shut down for a week or more, and Hoyer has stated that the team was aware of that particular red flag when they traded for him. Injury risks aren鈥檛 necessarily reasons to nix a move, especially for a pitcher, but when you need a starter as badly as the Cubs do, it鈥檚 unclear why two starters weren鈥檛 a priority.聽Willi Castro聽is a strong utility addition, he just isn鈥檛 what the Cubs needed, really, and the revelation that they聽knew聽the only starter they did add might not have had what they needed, either, further sours an already frustrating deadline for Chicago fans.鈥
Davy Andrews, FanGraphs: 鈥淟eading up to the deadline, the Red Sox certainly looked like they were in position to buy once again. Our Playoff Odds had the Red Sox with a 60% chance of making the postseason. Only the Rangers, at 43%, were closer to a coin flip, which is to say that Boston was one of the two teams for whom upgrades could have made the biggest possible impact. The Red Sox had a big payroll. They had maybe the best assemblage of young talent to deal from. They had serious needs, with one of the worst backup catcher situations in the league, and injuries to their first baseman, second baseman, and too many pitchers to count. Lastly, they had the聽Rafael Devers聽trade hanging over them. If they miss the playoffs, this will go down as The Year The Red Sox Traded Their Best Player And Missed The Playoffs (Again). That鈥檚 a narrative no chief baseball officer wants on his shoulders. It seemed like a recipe for big additions, but it didn鈥檛 go down that way. The Red Sox made only marginal upgrades, adding聽Dustin May鈥檚 4.85 ERA to the rotation and lefty聽Steven Matz鈥檚 3.38 ERA to the bullpen.鈥
MEGAPHONE
鈥淚 don鈥檛 think they look at it as home and away, they look at it as, 鈥極K, there鈥檚 a ballgame tonight.鈥 Maybe you call it unawareness. That uncommon thinking about it is bliss. It鈥檚 beautiful.鈥
Brewers manager Pat Murphy, on his team鈥檚 road success.
