MLB Playoffs: Underdog Brewers propelled to success by young stars

Overlooked all season, the Brewers are ready to make their mark in October.

After the Milwaukee Brewers clinched the National League Central on September 18th, the team’s social media accounts posted a list of where several prominent national publications pegged them to finish in the division. There were a lot of fours and fives.

Sure, the Brewers were the defending division champs. But they were down two ace-level starting pitchers in Brandon Woodruff (out for the year with a shoulder injury) and Corbin Burnes (traded to Baltimore in February in advance of a free agency that Milwaukee would never be able to afford). The winningest manager in club history, Craig Counsell, jumped to the rival Chicago Cubs in November, a move that shocked and angered Milwaukee’s fanbase. Their star closer, Devin Williams, would be out until August. The conventional wisdom was that the Brewers would take a significant step back.

The pundits were missing something, though. The new manager, Pat Murphy (who’d been Counsell’s bench coach since 2016), proved to be a hit with players and fans alike, endearing himself with his folksy demeanor and underdog attitude. General manager Matt Arnold, elevated to the top job after David Stearns’ departure, seemed to know what he was doing. And, crucially, Milwaukee just had more talent than people realized; they’d won the division by nine games in 2023, a season in which Woodruff pitched only 67 innings and Burnes, while good, was a tick below where he’d been from 2020-22.

The 2024 Brewers do not boast an MVP candidate (Christian Yelich was somewhere near that conversation before injuries ended his season in July) nor a Cy Young front-runner. However, they’ve made up for a lack of top-level star power with balance. 11 different players finished the season with at least 2.0 WAR, as measured by Baseball Reference, a mark matched this season only by the Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks.

Milwaukee has gotten great production from their bullpen and some unexpected contributions in the starting rotation. But a youth movement consisting of position players who can do a bit of everything, none of whom had played even 150 major-league games prior to 2024, has propelled this team. These aren’t exactly players with no expectations; three were Brewers first-round draft picks (Brice Turang, Garrett Mitchell, Sal Frelick) and another, Joey Ortiz, was a top 100 prospect when Milwaukee acquired him from Baltimore in the Burnes trade. This group is versatile,each bringing plus defense and baserunning, and while the level of offensive production varies, none has been a black hole.

Turang, who might have been the worst regular hitter in baseball last season, upped his OPS+ by 24 points, his excellent defense has made him a Platinum Glove contender (he’s tied for second in Fielding Bible’s defensive runs saved metric), and he’s having one of the best seasons as a base stealer in franchise history (50 steals in 56 attempts). Mitchell broke a finger in spring training and didn’t play his first game until July 1st, but he has an OPS over .900 since mid-August. The 26-year-old has been one of Milwaukee’s biggest weapons down the stretch. Ortiz, a shortstop by trade (and the heir apparent to Willy Adames, who is likely to leave in free agency after the season), has been solid at the plate and outstanding defensively at third base, a position he barely played in the minors. Frelick (whose status for the Wild Card round is up in the air after a collision with the wall over the weekend) has been disappointing offensively (he has one of the worst Statcast pages in the league) but he’s a classic “110% effort” guy who plays good defense.

But the biggest revelation has been the league’s youngest player, Jackson Chourio. After back-to-back stellar minor-league seasons in 2022 and 2023, Chourio shot up prospect lists, and the Brewers signed him—while he was still a teenager—to a massive deal. At just 20-years old, his contract could reach 10 years and nearly $150 million, including the most guaranteed money ever given to a player with no major-league experience. With no financial incentive to keep him in the minors, the Brewers put Chourio, who was rated as the league’s No. 2 prospect by Baseball America and MLB Pipeline before the season, on their Opening Day roster.

It was a struggle at first. At the end of May, Chourio was hitting .210 with an OPS well under .600. But as soon as the calendar turned to June, things turned quickly, and he’s proven to be remarkably consistent since then: his OPS by month from June-September is .897, .876, .926, and .831. With Chourio excelling, the Brewers were able to overcome the absence of Yelich.

Entering the fall season, Chourio’s production reached historic heights. On September 12th, he became the youngest player ever to have a 20 homer-20 stolen base season. He finished the season with 3.8 WAR (via Baseball Reference). Since expansion in 1961, only 14 position players have finished with 3.8 or more bWAR in an age-20 or younger season. Of that group, four are Hall of Famers (Ken Griffey Jr., Johnny Bench, Roberto Alomar, Adrián Beltré), six will be or have a good shot (Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Juan Soto, Ronald Acuña Jr., Carlos Correa, Manny Machado), and two are great players with steroid complications (Alex Rodriguez, Fernando Tatís Jr.). The other two—the worst players in this group—are Jason Heyward (over 40 career bWAR) and Claudell Washington (nearly 2,000 hits and over 300 stolen bases in a 17-year career).

What Chourio is doing at 20 is, if not unprecedented, exceedingly rare. The company that he’s put himself in at such a young age suggests that he has a very good chance of being an all-time good player. Milwaukee fans are rightfully ecstatic.

I don’t mean to shortchange the team’s veterans. Adames, who is one of three players on the club who has played in the World Series, has had a very good season, and William Contreras—one of the team’s more experienced players, even though he’s only 26—has been arguably the best catcher in the league. If the Brewers are going anywhere in the postseason, you’d expect those two, plus Rhys Hoskins (who has had a disappointing season but provides savvy leadership and also has World Series experience), to lead the way.

But the Brewers are where they are in large part because of the speed, defense, and energy that their youth has provided. It made them the first team to clinch their division this season. We’ll see what happens next, but no matter what, the future is bright in Milwaukee.