Monday Morning Notes: The Brew Crew

Written By Henry O’Brien

Good morning!

When Austin Hays fired a line drive single in the bottom of the 10th to bring home TJ Friedl, he and his team, the Cincinnati Reds, ended the best win streak in baseball this year. The Milwaukee Brewers finished with a 14-game winning streak after finally losing to the Reds 3-2; it’s their franchise-best winning streak and it cements Milwaukee as the best team in baseball at this very moment. You can extend that success past this 14-game run of success, however, as the Brewers are a league-best 22-5 since the All-Star break. No other team has a winning percentage above .600. Just Milwaukee, lying atop its perch. So how did we get here?

Well, you have to start at the top with the general manager and head of baseball operations, Matt Arnold. Once David Stearns left for the greener pastures of the New York Metropolitans, Arnold was now fully in control (even though he got control of baseball ops after 2022) and he had to oversee building a roster while knowing that he would eventually have to give his biggest stars away. Over the past two offseasons, Brewers fans have had to see some beloved franchise guys like Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes and Devin Williams, the reliever with his “Airbender” changeup, depart. But what has made Arnold thrive on the margins with a bottom-half payroll is who he can pick up on said margins. He can find journeymen like Jose Quintana, who can waffle from team to team. But now, Quintana has a 3.32 ERA and is another contributor to the rotation. While Quintana was already successful with the Mets in the prior two seasons, it’s still a testament to Arnold to find the right guys to fit his roster.

Another key face the Brewers had to replace was Craig Counsell, who had led the club to five postseason appearances in six seasons since 2018. In stepped Pat Murphy, the man who had success at the college levels at Arizona State and Notre Dame (in fact, Murphy was once Counsell’s manager at South Bend). Murphy had been with the Brew Crew since 2016 and had the respect of the players. It’s no wonder Christian Yelich gave Murphy his blessing when he was to become the manager.

The players are bought into Murphy’s style, which The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal detailed beautifully in his morning column today: “The Brewers are an outlier, exploiting a new market inefficiency – knowing how to play baseball. They obsess over little things, in part, because they generally do not pay for superstars who do big things. Most Brewers make too little money and possess too little service time to defy their detail-oriented leader, manager Pat Murphy. And the team’s highest-paid player, left fielder Christian Yelich, practices what Murphy preaches, inspiring his teammates to do the same.”

This focus on the little things has certainly paid off for all the hitters across the lineup. I mean, just look at these averages for the Brewers’ hitting core since the start of July.

Nearly every Brewers hitter with at least 50 plate appearances has a WRC+ (weighted runs created plus) over 100, which is the league average. Castoffs like Andrew Vaughn, who was picked up from the abyss (also known as the Chicago White Sox). Current staples William Contreras, Christian Yelich, Sal Frelick and Jackson Chourio (who is currently on the 10-day IL for a strained hamstring) all have been raking, and it has undeniably paid off. This is major especially in the case of Yelich, who, after being the best hitter in the league circa 2018-19, really fell off with chronic injuries. While Yelich isn’t probably gonna get back to the MVP level he once was at (though crazier things have happened), it’s still a testament to the Brewers trusting him and giving him the right information and guidance to keep him around and help him return to playing good baseball.

Just look at the pitchers as well and you’ll find similar success. Like Vaughn, starting pitcher Quinn Priester seemed like a failed prospect from the Pittsburgh Pirates, who couldn’t fully develop a full repertoire of pitches. Now, he has a beautiful set of a cutter, sinker, curveball and slider. The latter two of those pitches have a sub-.300 wOBA (weighted on base average). His ERA has jumped down to 3.48, a fact that Pirates fans are all too aware of. But also, look at the staples of the pitching core. Brandon Woodruff and Freddy Peralta are still around and they both have a near 2.00 ERA since July. You also have young guys like Jacob Misiorowski, who has dampened similarities to Paul Skenes by faltering a bit recently, but still can be a deadly third, fourth or even fifth option in a postseason rotation.

I know was just listing off a bunch of guys to you. And just listing off players can eventually have the same effect as two folks talking in a bar about baseball together. But all of this success comes down to an organization that in sync and has its vision when it comes to development and keeping players afloat.

I’ll end this post by saying that when my beloved Pirates played the Brewers, I tweeted out this.

While I was obviously dragging my team through the fire once again, this statement could apply to any of the teams that consider themselves a “small market team.” Being in a smaller market doesn’t inherently mean you are gonna have a tiny window of success before you have to trade all your players away and rebuild. Operating that way on shoestring budgets is, at the end of the day, a choice. The Brewers are not alone in this; just look at the recent success of the Tampa Bay Rays or the Athletics before all goodwill was lost with them in Oakland and around baseball circles. You can dominate from being in a small market; you just need the right folks leading your organization. Fortunately for Milwaukee, they have that in strides.

Standings Update

National League

American League

Quiz Time

On this winning streak that the Brewers are on/just completed, they also tied the record for consecutive road wins at nine, which was first set back in 2008. Who was the manager during the streak?

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