The Milwaukee Brewers Won The Central After Losing Their Manager And Key Players

The Milwaukee Brewers might be the most under-covered story in the 2024 Major League Baseball season. 

Heading into the new season, the Brewers lost their manager, Craig Counsell, to the rival Chicago Cubs. Because of the team's small market budget, they traded Corbin Burnes, one of the best starting pitchers in baseball, to the Baltimore Orioles. Brandon Woodruff, another one of their homegrown star pitchers, was set to miss the season recovering from shoulder surgery.

It was reasonable to view the Brewers as the third-best team in the National League Central behind the rejuvenated Cubs and the always tough St. Louis Cardinals. In fact, per Fangraphs, the Brewers entered the season with just a 31 percent chance of making the postseason, well behind the Cardinals at 50 percent and the Cubs at 41.1 percent.

Though they jumped out to a hot start, a season-ending injury to star outfielder Christian Yelich presented yet another hurdle for Milwaukee to overcome. The Brewers clinched their division this week with the biggest lead of any first-place team in baseball anyway.

MILWAUKEE - Christian Yelich of the Milwaukee Brewers dives back to first base against the Miami Marlins at American Family Field on October 2, 2022. (Photo by John Fisher/Getty Images)

Milwaukee Brewers Show Value Of Player Evaluation Over Managerial Expertise

The Brewers replaced Counsell, one of the game's most respected managers and someone with a lengthy track record of success, with Pat Murphy. Murphy had been on the Brewers coaching staff since 2016, but his only major league managerial experience came as the interim head coach of the San Diego Padres back in 2015.

They replaced Burnes and Woodruff with a series of journeyman starters like Frankie Montas and Aaron Civale and a career minor league in Tobias Meyers. Instead of high-priced free agents, they relied on a core group of players like Willy Adames and William Contreras while adding Rhys Hoskins on a short-term deal and betting on 20-year-old Jackson Chourio.

Boy did it work.

Contreras has been outstanding, putting up a 5 WAR season with a .280/.363/.467 batting line and excellent defense behind the plate. Adames too, has been excellent, with well-above average shortstop defense and 32 home runs. Chourio has exceeded all expectations at the plate after a slow start, with a 118 wRC+ (100 being league average), while going 21/20.

Joey Ortiz, the key return for Burnes from the Orioles, has been worth nearly three wins above replacement and key depth like Garrett Mitchell has helped lessen the blow from losing Yelich.

The Brewers' rotation has suffered, but they've made up for it with depth and consistency. Devin Williams has been nearly unhittable, Meyers and Freddy Peralta have been solid at the top of the rotation, and Colin Rea's made 25 starts. 

What Milwaukee did this year is show definitively how little managers actually matter. The Cubs gave Counsell a record salary and are on pace to finish with the exact same record they had in 2023. And finish exactly the same amount of games behind first place.

Evaluation is key, and the Brewers correctly believed that Adames, Chourio and Contreras could fuel their offense. They believed their defense would help run prevention behind their starting staff. They were right. And it paid off. Don't pay for managers.