“Brewers Baseball 2021: Exceeding Expectations, Redefining Excellence, and the Optimism of October”
Fall has begun, and with football season underway many Wisconsinites are enjoying something which, until recent years, has not been part of the state’s established sports culture: relevant October baseball. The Milwaukee Brewers are the National League Central Division Champions. They’ll be playing in the postseason for a franchise-record fourth straight year. They’ve set individual, team, and major league standards of excellence in a number of statistical categories, particularly from their starting pitchers. This year’s Brewers team is not a one-person show. They’ve received contributions from veterans and rookies; long-tenured and newly acquired players alike. They’ve improved their batting and defense throughout the season, overcome injuries big and small, reshuffled the roles of their middle relief bullpen pitchers, and maintained one of the most dominant starting rotations in all of baseball. They say the 162-game Major League Baseball season is a marathon, and not a race. With the postseason approaching, and the Brewers in realistic contention for not only a national league pennant, but a World Series title, they seem to have run the first leg of their journey exceptionally well. I’m as optimistic of a Brewers fan as they come, but I also remember looking at their preseason roster and seeing a lot of names on it that I didn’t recognize. Seven months later and I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t see the success of this team coming.
It’s not easy to become a postseason contender in Major League Baseball. Health is a concern for all teams, especially for those like the Brewers that play in small-market cities.
One of the most critical factors for winning in baseball is for a team to keep their players healthy. There are a lot of moving parts to a baseball team. Players run, throw, swing, slide, catch, and collide at the highest level of play on a daily basis. It isn’t a case of if injuries will happen, as much as when, and how severe. Small market teams are at a disadvantage when injuries strike. Even with Major League Baseball’s revenue-sharing system, teams like the Brewers often don’t have the same resources to go out and drop big money on a high-priced arm or bat to fill an immediate hole in their lineup. They need to be creative, which means solving their problems via the clubhouse, farm system, waiver wire, or, by way of reasonably-balanced trades. In 2021, we’ve seen multiple Brewers miss extended time, with several of them making multiple trips to the injured list. Kolten Wong. Christian Yelich. Lorenzo Cain. Corbin Burnes. Omar Narváez. Devin Williams. Josh Hader. Adrian Houser. Freddy Peralta. Eduardo Escobar. Willy Adames. Rowdy Tellez. These players are all contributors, and yet inexplicably the team somehow managed to win a Central Division title. Players, coaches, and members of the front office all deserve credit. They stepped up for each other, improvised, and adapted. It’s hard to say when the team was at its weakest since their opponents never seemed to catch on.
The Brewers ownership group has shown willingness to spend money, though they’ll never have the luxury of being able to outspend their competition. Player development, targeted free agent signings, and shrewd trade acquisitions are the keys to building a baseball team in Milwaukee that can compete in October. It also helps to catch a few breaks along the way.
As we’ve seen with the Brewers, reaching the postseason is a complicated, though not impossible task. The margin for error is small. Health is one thing, but there are other variables that must be met for them to at least have a chance of doing it. Here is a short, but not inclusive list of what I believe are some of the most important ones:
A handful of players (3-5 minimum) need to have career years: Consistency is one thing, but if everyone on the Brewers ended up playing to last year’s status quo then it wouldn’t get the job done. Large market teams have the advantage of keeping multiple players on their roster who are already at the peaks of their baseball careers. For the Brewers, they need guys who are just starting to break through right now. In other words, before they’re due for high-priced contracts. In 2021 they’ve been fortunate to have a number of players who fit that description. Brandon Woodruff. Avisaíl Garcia. Burnes. Peralta. Adames. Narváez. They’ve all had varying degrees of success in their careers, but not quite like the seasons they’re having right now. Let’s hope it keeps up.
Steady pitching from each section of the rotation: The Brewers starting pitchers deserve a lot of credit for the team’s success this year. In addition to Woodruff, Burnes, and Peralta, they’ve had solid contributions from Houser, Eric Lauer, and even Brett Anderson for long stretches of the season. Hader is as dominant of a ninth-inning closer as there is in baseball, and the same argument can be made for Williams as a setup pitcher in the eighth. Let’s not forget about the guys in the middle, though. Relief pitchers like Brad Boxberger, Jake Cousins, Hunter Strickland, and Brent Suter might not be household names, but they bridge the gap between the starters and closers on a daily basis, and have been just as indispensible to the success of this year’s team as anyone else.
Role player reliability: It seems like the Brewers have a knack for finding players who other teams cast aside, only to dust them off and refurbish them into serviceable contributors again. A few of the players who fit that description in 2021 include Boxberger, Strickland, and Jace Peterson. It’s hard to say why a player will struggle in one environment, and immediately thrive in another. Seems like a change of scenery is all that some of them need. As Yogi Berra once said, “Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.”
Clubhouse culture: Baseball season is long. When a group of people spend as much time together as professional baseball players do, it helps if they can get along. Baseball is a game after all, and for many years it’s seemed like Brewer players and coaches have been aware of that. When TV cameras point at the dugout we routinely see people laughing, joking around, and above all…celebrating each other. They look like they’re having fun. As an organization the Brewers have built a brand that connects with their fans in much the same way. I think baseball players on any team would agree that it’s easiest to perform their work when they like their job.
Reaching the postseason is a tremendous accomplishment, but then there’s the matter of winning it. The whole thing. A World Series title.
I’m no professional athlete or coach, but I’ve played and watched enough sports to know this: Winning isn’t always about being the best team. All that matters is that you be the best when the moment requires it. Time can slow down in postseason baseball. Things become very situational. It’s important for players and coaches to stay mindful in these moments, and not to become overwhelmed by the pressure that every inning, at-bat, and pitch can carry. The goal is to place themselves in the best position possible to succeed, particularly late in games when the stakes become highest. To make that happen, there are a number of guiding baseball principles they should remember.
Hitting: Work the pitch counts early in games. Push the opponents’ starting pitchers to try to knock them off the mound by the sixth or seventh inning. Force managers to use their bullpens earlier than they’d like to so that by the time the fifth, sixth, and seventh games of the series come around, batters will have had multiple at-bats against the same relief pitchers. A patient plate approach will encourage batters to hit for average, and force opposing pitchers to throw strikes later in counts. When batters know that pitchers need to throw strikes, it gives them a better opportunity to swing away for a chance at the long ball.
Pitching: Throw first-pitch strikes. Get ahead of batters in the count and force them into situations where they need to take defensive swings at off-speed pitches outside the strike zone. Limit walks and trust the defense to make plays in the field.
Defense: Keep the ball in front of you and make the simple play. Defense is an aspect to the game that’s easy to overlook, but in playoff baseball it can be the deciding factor in many games. Most Brewers fans should remember the Wild Card play-in game in 2019 against the Washington Nationals. Leading 3-1 with two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning, Brewers outfielder Trent Grisham let a ball roll under his glove in right field, giving up three runs on the play. The Nationals went on to win the game and, eventually, the World Series. One play. It goes to show how quickly the tables can turn.
Coaching: One of the things I like most about the Brewers is seeing Craig Counsell represent them as their head coach. Wisconsin native. Childhood Brewers fan. Former Brewers player. Two-time World Series champion. Every ten great decisions a baseball coach makes are overshadowed by the one we disagree with. That’s the nature of the job. Whenever I hear people being critical of Counsell’s game management, I like to remind them of the 2018 season. The strength of that year’s team, aside from National League MVP Yelich, was their bullpen. Counsell used an assortment of wildly unorthodox decision-making strategies to direct the team to 96 wins in the regular season, and a trip to game seven of the National League Championship series. I’m curious to see how far he can lead them this year, now with front-line starting pitchers, another deep bullpen, and arguably a more balanced lineup of hitters. Knowing what his players are good at, trusting their abilities, and finding balance between his instincts and the analytics will be the keys to him helping advance the team in the playoffs.
There’s something about watching the Brewers play in October that makes me feel hopeful.
I appreciate the grind of the baseball season, and how difficult it is for a small market team like the Brewers to compete with some of the most storied franchises in all of sports. When I hear the Brewers being mentioned with the likes of the Dodgers, Giants, Braves, Red Sox, and Yankees, I get the feeling like we’re the team that, instead of being invited to the party, had to crash the front gate to be let into the house. Will the Brewers take a page from the Bucks’ playbook this year and bring a second world championship home to Milwaukee? If the answer is yes, then there are certain players who’ll have to be not just good, but great. Woodruff, Burnes, and Hader are a few who come to mind. If you noticed that I didn’t mention Yelich, it isn’t because I forgot about him. I’m reserving him for a different category. Yelich is the one player on this Brewers roster who’s capable of bringing the magic to the ballpark. As many of us know, he hasn’t been the same since he broke his kneecap at the end of the 2019 season. Nagging injuries and a breakthrough COVID infection cost him over 40 games this year, but even though his offensive numbers are down from what we’d normally expect, there’ve been moments in recent weeks when he’s shown flashes of his old self. I see it in the way he’s running the bases again. He’s not all the way back to his old form yet, but perhaps a fresh dose of postseason scenery is just what he’ll need to return. These things are hard to predict, but when I remember Yogi’s words then I know it’s at least possible.
The postseason awaits. Enjoy the ride everyone!
- Todd
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