Quietly Climbing: The Milwaukee Brewers Have Silently Ascended to Become One of the Smartest Clubs in Baseball

If there is one thing the last decade of baseball advancement has taught us, it’s that sustained success is not something that can be bought on the open market. Big market teams such as the Mets, Angels and Red Sox have struggled to compete with the obsessively stringent clubs such as the Guardians and Rays.

While acquiring top-shelf talent still can’t be done without writing checks worth more than the entire GDP of small nations, those guys alone aren’t enough to jump into immediate contention. Instead, forward-thinking front offices have learned to develop rosters with large rosters full of reliable options that can survive the grueling marathon that is an MLB season.

While every franchise is attempting to re-work their models to fit this form of roster construction, where depth is prioritized over top-end production, some have clearly mastered it faster than others. Big market like the Astros, Dodgers and Braves have learned how to use their wealth of resources to create unstoppable player-development machines while other franchises, such as the aforementioned Rays, have simply given up on free agency all together, instead investing every possible resource on creating a farm system that constantly filters out talent to the big league club.

Still, there have been a number of clubs who have taken steps forward over the past few seasons. The Mariners, Guardians and Orioles have all begun to see results from pushing more of their resources into developing players, and each franchise is miles ahead of where they were even a couple seasons ago.

Perhaps no team has advanced faster, though, than the Milwaukee Brewers, who have seemingly created one of the deepest rosters in baseball without anyone noticing.

The Brewers have been considered one of the best organizations in baseball at developing pitching for a few years. Their successes in 2018 and 2019 came largely from their piecing together one of the best bullpens in baseball, headlined by superstar closer Josh Hader.

Since then, they’ve only continued to push out top level arms. Over the last few seasons, they’ve produced 2021 Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes, all-stars Freddy Peralta, Brandon Woodruff and Devin Williams, as well as an endless supply of average to slightly better than average arms who fill out the rest of their innings.

What has gone completely under the radar, though, is how well the Brewers have become at filling out the other side of the ball.

While their lineup still has plenty of transplants from other organizations, Milwaukee has still produced a number of exciting players that seem to have exceeded expectations. Luis Urias has played at an all-star level for a couple of years now, and Garrett Mitchell, Brice Turang and Joey Wiemer have all shown strong starts to their careers as well.

They even have more help on the ways as well. Despite recent promotions they still have one of the deeper farm systems in baseball, headlined by top shortstop prospect Jackson Chourio.

Milwaukee also has become adept at helping established big leaguers improve their production after signing with/being traded to Milwaukee. Outside of the obvious example of Christian Yelich, Willy Adames and Rowdy Tellez each enjoyed more success with the Brewers than they had with their former teams (this is particularly impressive in the case of Adames, whose previous team was development savvy Rays). While its early, 2023 newcomers Brian Anderson and Jesse Winker seem to have improved from previous seasons as well.

The Brewers have even found a way to improve defense, especially in catchers. Omar Narvaez and William Contreras each showed significant improvement in every aspect of their play behind the plate after joining The Crew, from blocking to pitch framing even to pop time.

While the public tends to focus on their pitching machine, Milwaukee has sprung ahead of the curve on essentially every aspect of organizational development. Even as they’re consistently picked to go only as far as the Wild Card, it’s clear that this is one of the most intelligent front offices in all of baseball, and it may be time to give them more credit.