Can the Milwaukee Brewers get it Done?
Jackson Chourio, Photo by David Durochik
I should start with the obvious – this team is probably going to get the No. 1 seed again by winning the NL Central and clinching one of two BYE rounds in the NL to skip straight to the Divisional Series. Who they will face remains up in the air.
Anything can happen during 162. Milwaukee’s starters could get hurt, imploding the bullpen, and the season collapses. That is possible. The Brewers, however, seem to be following a decent October formula that helps us predict how the rest of their season will go.
The Crew has made four postseason appearances in the last five seasons, all by winning the NL Central. But… 2025 was the only year the Crew made it past the Divisional Series. Unfortunately, they were promptly stomped by the LA Dodgers 4-0. Tough.
The Brewers are a monstrous team when it comes to regular season consistency, and their system is cookie-cut:
Find a Cy Young candidate via “the lab,” as exampled by Corbin Burnes, Freddy Peralta, Kyle Harrison, and Jacob Misiorowski.
Fill out the rest of the rotation with genuinely competent arms. Dustin May, Shane Drohan, Logan Henderson, and Brandon Woodruff are the current workhorses in this role (beside the capsule strain for Woodruff).
Make a lockdown bullpen. The Aaron Ashby/Abner Uribe/Megill “three-headed-monster” is not new. The Brewers historically developed both Josh Hader and Devin Williams, with effective arms like Brent Suter and Taylor Rogers to fill out ages past.
Manufacture Runs. This season, the Brewers are 30th in home runs but top 5 in both batting average and OBP as fueled by the league’s second most walks. The Brewers are also third in stolen bases and fourth on Baserunning Runs Created on Statcast.
The “manufacture runs” portion seems to work absolute wonders in the regular season. A single by Jackson Chourio or Luis Lara quickly becomes a runner on 3B a couple pitches later. The Brewers have the lowest Chase % in the league by a real margin with the Tigers, and the highest Zone Swing % by a slight margin with the D-Backs. Put simply, the Brewers don’t swing at pitches they shouldn’t and swing at the ones they should. The Brewers are a genuinely excellent offense and fit the bill of “small ball,” a title I only give them, Cleveland, and Tampa Bay.
I can’t stress enough just how effective the Brew Crew’s strategy is. They depend on extremely good pitching to put up consistent zeroes on the box score and use a remarkably annoying offense to grind out just enough runs to win the game. The Brewers are 50 - 41 in one-run games in the last two years, and 29 - 23 in two-run games. For how “lucky” these sorts of scores are traditionally, the Brewers are very good at winning them.
William Contreras
But what about October?
This is the concern for the Brewers. They are an excellent regular season team. You should stress when your team has to go against them for a 3-game series. Imagine how Cubs fans feel. I’ve found one key metric for why the Brewers are so markedly bad in the postseason.
Brewers expected line against fastballs above 97 mph: .209/289/.309
That’s objectively bad for the Majors. Of course it is, extreme velocity and wipeout breakers are hard to hit for any offense, regardless of if it includes William Contreras. In fact, exactly zero Brewers hitters hit the 30 homer mark. (Chrisian Yelich was closest at 29).
But for some other playoff names (ATL, LAD, NYY) against those elite fastballs?
.214/.293/.329.
On the surface that doesn’t look like much of a change until you notice the 20 points of xSLG difference. The Brewers have a talent for tearing up 4.20 ERA mid-rotation arms, but just like everyone else, they struggle against the Zack Wheeler and Bryan Woo frontline arms of MLB. The only issue is that the power-heavy lineups can do 20 points of SLG better against these arms. That’s the October concern. If Kevin Gausman grooves you a 4-seam exactly where you were looking and you hit it, you must crush it. October baseball is chock-full of the league’s best arms, so mistakes are infrequent. Stringing together hits against Cam Schlittler is arguably harder than erasing a homer on just the right sinker.
Remember last year’s NLCS? In three of the four games, a Dodgers player hit at least one homer. The Brewers? Just Jackson Chourio went deep. That’s it.
Now, postseason baseball is such a small sample size that a slight offensive cold stretch can absolutely destroy a given team. The Braves won 104 games in 2023 and tied the single-season record of 307 homers, but in October they went 2-for-17 with RISP and left 26 runners on to drop the NLDS to the Phillies.
Unfortunately, this can just happen. However, the lack of power hitting for Milwaukee in favor of these speedy/hit-tool players make these sorts of October offensive collapses all too common.
It’s not like we should sit down for the Classic and just expect the Brewers to lose. They are going to be a postseason team for a reason. This is the Guardians strategy in their weak division. They put together a strong rotation and bullpen and just see if the offense can work it out. Cleveland almost did so in 2016 by pressing the Cubs with a 3-1 lead in the World Series. The Rays look to do the exact same thing they did in 2020 this season.
That’s the small market reality. These teams are fundamentally smart with where they spend and develop. It seems like a foolish notion, but just getting to the postseason is the most important path to winning the World Series. The Rockies couldn’t win in October last year because they didn’t qualify. Postseason series are so short that nearly any team that makes it can win. Are the Dodgers the favorite? Absolutely, and they should be. But were the Rangers the favorites in 2023? What about the 2019 Nationals? The 2022 Padres? The 2021 Braves?
It makes sense that the Astros and the Dodgers have won so many postseason series in recent decades, but it seems we are quick to forget that sometimes just scratching your way into October baseball is the most important part of being able to win it all.
The Brewers are undeniably good at that. They don’t just eke out enough dubs to get to the biggest stage, they are consistently in it to win it. However, the lack of serious pop within the offense, “star power,” if you will, is keeping them quiet against October arms. Their pitching can go toe-to-toe with the Dodgers, but the offensive gap is broad. When September ends and we look at the bracket, we’ll probably see the Brewers and Braves as the NL bulwark against the Dodgers. If you hate the 5-ace rotation, lockdown bullpen, and star-studded offense, or you simply love an underdog, the Brewers are the team to watch when LA inevitably comes calling. Given it’s likely either the Yankees or Rays in the World Series, we can safely say that both Tampa Bay and New York are hoping for our small-market juggernaut to upset the Dodgers. So if you’re looking for a dark horse in the October NL race, the Milwaukee Brewers are quite the pick.
About the Author:
This article was written by Ransom Fassett for Painting Corners. You can find more of his analysis here.