Despite a payroll that ranks in the bottom third of the league, the Brewers have become the best team in baseball by prioritizing contact over power.
As sports are primarily a business, every company, team, and player constantly searches for any type of edge or market inefficiency that will help bring them wins or improved results.
In Major League Baseball since the Athletics’ Moneyball years in the early 2000s, that’s meant focusing on analytics and sabermetrics, followed by the Statcast revolution of launch angle, exit velocity, and pitchers regularly unleashing 100-mile-per-hour fastballs. It’s led to an era of homogeneity in baseball, marked by an increase in home runs, walks, and strikeouts, partly due to rule changes banning the shift and introducing a pitch clock to shorten games and boost contact.
But this year, MLB has a World Series frontrunner dominating the competition by excelling in areas other teams have been taught to abandon. After starting 32-28 over the first two months of the season, the Milwaukee Brewers have gone 45-18 since then, including a recently snapped 14-game winning streak, a franchise record. It’s helped them earn baseball’s best record by more than five games, and the Brewers are doing it the old school way, with a payroll of just under $113.3 million that ranks 23rd among the 30 teams.
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Milwaukee is second in MLB in runs scored by putting the ball in play and creating havoc on the basepaths. It’s also second in each of team batting average, stolen bases, and total hits, prioritizing contact over power. The Brewers rank 18th in total home runs and 13th in slugging percentage, but have the fifth-lowest strikeout rate in the game and the fifth-highest walk rate, helping the team place second in the sport in on-base percentage.
And once the team gets on base, it runs, with 136 total steals in 180 attempts. A whopping seven Brewers have double-digit stolen bases this season, from 21-year-old ascendant star Jackson Chourio to 32-year-old former MVP Christian Yelich. And since Milwaukee acquired discarded 27-year-old first baseman Andrew Vaughn from the Chicago White Sox on June 13, he’s hit nine homers with 36 RBIs in 33 games with an insane .979 OPS in that span. The Brewers are 27-6 when Vaughn has been in the starting lineup, catching lightning in a bottle with the former prized prospect in an almost unfathomable, unexplainable way that makes baseball so unpredictably mesmerizing when a player and a team can successfully confound the quants.
Yelich is the only player on the team making more than $8 million this season, at $24.1 million, and a vast majority of their key contributors on offense have at least a few years of team control. Aside from a $12 million team option on catcher William Contreras that they’ll pick up and mutual options on catcher Danny Jansen and first baseman Rhys Hoskins that the Brewers probably won’t pick up, this uniquely dynamic offensive group should remain in place for years to come.
Less unconventional is the team’s pitching, which is third in baseball with a 3.58 ERA and seventh in strikeouts per nine innings. Milwaukee’s percentage of baserunners that don’t score, 75.9%, is also second in MLB. Longtime Brewers starter Freddy Peralta is tied for the MLB lead with 15 wins and 26 games started with a 2.78 ERA, but the rest of the starting staff has been built in different ways, typical for one on a budget. Quinn Priester is a 24-year-old journeyman acquired from Boston on April 7 who’s gone 11-2 with a 3.48 ERA, and José Quintana was signed for $2 million last offseason and has a 3.32 ERA in just over 105 innings.
Flamethrowing prospect Jacob Misiorowski has grabbed the headlines, but more impactful could be the return of two-time All-Star Brandon Woodruff from injury. The 32-year-old is 4-0 with a 2.06 ERA in seven starts, helping cement a deep starting rotation ready for a postseason run. The bullpen ERA is a solid ninth in MLB despite trading longtime All-Star closer Devin Williams in the offseason, led by veteran Trevor Megill, who was named an All-Star for the first time at age 31.
Like the offense, almost the entire pitching staff is under team control next season and beyond. The $8 million club option on Peralta will get picked up, but mutual options on Woodruff and Quintana will have to be negotiated to add to the young depth Milwaukee now has with Priester, Misiorowski, and surprisingly strong 27-year-old rookie Chad Patrick.
Milwaukee now has the blueprint of what every small-market team aspires to achieve. They have a strong young nucleus under long-term team control that’s winning on offense in unconventional ways. The Brewers built an offense that’s embraced a style popularized in the 1980s and have obliterated everyone in their path over the last three months. A successful postseason that leads to the team’s first-ever World Series title could lead to other teams trying to emulate Milwaukee’s style and perhaps lead to baseball’s next team-building evolution.
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