Small-Ball Brewers Are Thriving by Dominating on Baseball's Margins

Milwaukee's payroll ranks far lower than other contenders, yet the first-place Brewers are forging a new way to gain advantages with a roster full of reclamation projects.

Murphy walks on they field during an eighth inning pitching change against the Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. / Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

The Milwaukee Brewers play baseball as if they are trying to get to the World Series—the one in Omaha. They are defined by their youthfulness (80% of their plate appearances have gone to players between 20 and 28), their speed (they are the fastest team in baseball) and their manager (who built winning teams at Notre Dame and Arizona State). 

Watch the Brewers play baseball and some things become obvious. They want to run you off the field. They catch everything in sight. They throw a ton of fastballs. And they compete like walk-on freshmen trying to prove themselves to a head coach whose old-school attention to detail is the dominant force of the program.

It’s working. The Brewers are the best team you didn’t see coming. They have the biggest lead in baseball entering September and are making the Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies—with payrolls twice as large—sweat the possibility they may lose a first-round bye. 

When I ask manager Pat Murphy what makes him most proud about his Brewers, he replies, “They compete. They just show up every day. There have been very few games when we played like when we saw the Dodgers the last time.”

In a four-game series starting Aug. 12, the Brewers dropped the first two games by a combined score of 12–4 in which they squeezed out just six hits in each game.

“It was like Spinks fighting Tyson,” Murphy says. “We walked in like we were shell shocked and they beat the s--- out of us. The games were fairly close, but it’s just like we had nothing for them.”

Murphy was concerned the team had lost its spirit after learning that star outfielder Christian Yelich would be out for the year with a back injury that required surgery.

“And then they fought back,” he says.

After falling behind 3–0 before they took a turn to hit, the Brewers came roaring back in the third. They won that day. And the next. And four more days after that. They won all six games by one or two runs. They have kept it going to build their best month of the season (19–9).

“I didn’t say anything,” he says. “I wasn’t involved. It’s like they just came out and competed every pitch. That’s the team they’ve come to be—the team that comes out and just competes.

“Nobody expected s--- from us. But they just try to put it aside and play the right way. Obviously, we gamble a lot on the bases, and we put a lot of pressure on other teams. Even though it’s a gamble, the other teams still have to execute. And they grind out at-bats, they get big hits. And they know it’s going to be a close game.”

Frelick high fives shortstop Adames after the victory over the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park. / Katie Stratman-USA TODAY Sports

By the big picture narrative, Milwaukee has no business being here. Not when their $144 million payroll is less than half of what the Phillies and Dodgers spend. Not when their best pitcher (Corbin Burnes) and manager (Craig Counsell) were gone before the season started and they lost their best player (Christian Yelich) to back surgery. Not when they have blown through 17 starting pitchers—tied with the Dodgers for the most in baseball. Not when they have a right fielder who hits the ball softer than any regular in the game, not when they lean heavily on a bullpen in which their six most used relievers are journeymen who have pitched for 26 organizations and not when they have only seven players who have ever made an All-Star team. (Only the Reds and Rockies have fewer All-Stars among National League teams. The Phillies have 18.)

So why do the Brewers keep winning? A statistical analyst would tell you they win by beating you on the margins. A college coach would tell you they win by playing with a chip on their shoulders and paying attention to detail, a trait made obvious from Day 1 when Brewers first baseman Rhys Hoskins ticked off New York Mets second baseman Jeff McNeil by sliding hard into second base to break up a double play on Opening Day.

“A late slide,” McNeil called it.

“Playing the game hard and playing the game the right way,” Hoskins called it.

The tone was set. Milwaukee cannot out-slug you. So, it will out-work you. In an age of baseball ruled by power, the Brewers rock at the finer points of the game: speed, defense, base running, relief pitching and situational hitting, all elements that are far less expensive than power. The list of what they do well is long but not attention-grabbing to the casual fan:

Brewers MLB Ranks

Category	Rank
Adjusted ERA	1st
Relief wins	1st
Team speed	1st
Bullpen ERA	2nd
Save %	2nd
BB % (hitters)	2nd
Defensive efficiency	3rd
SB	3rd
ERA	3rd
Two-strike hitting	4th
RISP	4th
HR	17th

With his unique combination of humor and a firmness rarely seen or heard in today’s game, Murphy makes sure his team pays attention to those details. For instance, in a game Aug. 20 in St. Louis, rookie Tyler Black failed to score from third base when a pitch eluded Cardinals catcher Willson Contreras. Murphy was ticked because he knew Black made a mistake in fundamentals. Black had taken a short lead that was too far in foul territory. Every foot the runner veers away from the foul line, the more ground he must cover to get home. With a proper lead—a longer, walking lead closer to the line but still in foul territory—Black would have scored.

Murphy pulled him aside and said, “Hey, man, that’s a f---ing run.”

Says Murphy: “Defense and base running are attitudinal. Taking pride in your defense and taking pride in your base running is a prerequisite to playing here. And there’s levels to that. Being a good base runner is a lot more than being fast and capable of stealing a base.

“To emphasize those areas on the baseball field is non-negotiable. I don’t jump on players like I did in college. I try not to be negative ever.”

Another time, the Brewers were locked in a one-run game with the Dodgers in the sixth inning when speedy outfielder Garrett Mitchell reached first base with a two-out walk. The pitcher was Tyler Glasnow, who is slow to the plate. It was an obvious steal situation. The batter, Hoskins, took two pitches to allow Mitchell to run, but Mitchell didn’t budge. Hoskins gave Mitchell a confused look as if to say, “When are you going to run?”

Hoskins fouled the next two pitches. Finally, Murphy yelled from the first base dugout to Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, “Freddie, will you tell Mitchell to run on this pitch?”

Freeman laughed, shook his head and announced to the infield, “He’s running!”

Glasnow threw over to first base. Mitchell finally ran on the next pitch, but Hoskins struck out.

Freeman later told Murphy, “I’ve never had to relay signs for an opposing team before.”

Milwaukee relies so much on base running and stringing hits together that it ranks fifth in runs per game despite ranking just 13th in slugging. And only one team, the Cleveland Guardians, is younger. What pop the Brewers do have comes mostly from shortstop Willy Adames, whose 12 three-run homers are one off the MLB record of Ken Griffey Jr., and catcher William Contreras, a steal in a trade from the Braves.

Mostly, Milwaukee relies on an unending bucket line of slash hitters such as right fielder Sal Frelick, whose average exit velocity of 83.3 is the worst of 279 hitters who have seen 1,000 pitches, but who hits .308 with runners on and is 16-of-19 stealing bases. Likewise, second baseman Brice Turang, 24, hits .293 with runners on and is 39-for-45 in steals. The growth of Frelick, Turang, defensive whizzes Joey Ortiz (25), Blake Perkins (27) and Jackson Chourio (20)—the best hitter in baseball since June 2 (.321) after a slow start—is a credit to Milwaukee’s major league staff in player development, an increasing separator in a game in which players are moved faster to the majors.

The same compliment applies to what Milwaukee does with pitching. The Tampa Bay Rays may be lauded more for “coaching up” unheralded pitchers to their best level, but the Brewers do it just as consistently, if not more so. Ever since Milwaukee spent $60 million to build a high-tech pitching lab at their Arizona spring training facility, the Brewers have struck out more batters than any team but Houston and rank fifth in the majors in ERA (3.85).

Even with the investment in high tech, the Brewers win with an old-school emphasis on fastballs. The Brewers are not loaded with many elite power arms. Their average velocity on fastballs is well below average, ranking  27th at 92.7 mph. And yet they throw more fastballs than any staff in baseball (63.6%).

For example, look what they’ve done with Frankie Montas, an under-the-radar trade deadline pickup. With Cincinnati, Montas was 4–8 with a 5.01 ERA. With Milwaukee, he is 2–1 with a 3.82 ERA. The Brewers are 5–1 when he starts.

What happened? Milwaukee raised his arm slot a couple of inches and bumped his fastball use from 67.4% to 82.1%. With those changes, his velocity has kicked up a full mile per hour.

Montas throws against the Cincinnati Reds in the first inning at Great American Ball Park. / Cara Owsley-USA TODAY Sports

Such stories are common on this team. Starters Colin Rea, 34, and Tobias Myers, 25, are a combined 18–9. “That’s the most underrated story, those two guys,” Murphy says. Together Rea and Myers have pitched for 11 organizations, been traded five times and released four times. Just two years ago Myers was 1–15 in the minors with 7.82 while bouncing among Giants, Guardians and White Sox affiliates. The Brewers, he said, unlike other organizations, did not try to implement wholesale changes but, like the Rays, “they shove in my face what I’m doing really well” and build on strengths. For Myers, that means a four-seam fastball with elite carry.

The bullpen, which Murphy relies on heavily, is stocked with never-been-better journeymen to get the ball to elite closer Devin Williams: Bryse Wilson, 26 (the Brewers are his second team), Bryan Hudson, 27 (third team), Jared Koenig, 30 (fourth team), Trevor Megill, 30 (fourth team), Joel Payamps, 30 (seventh team) and Hoby Milner, 33 (fifth team). With still a month to play, the Milwaukee bullpen already has set a franchise record for wins (46) and is just four short of the NL record by the 2023 Giants.

“It’s just the belief,” Murphy says when asked why this bullpen is so good. “Guys like Koenig and Hudson, they just know we need them. They know they have a big role for us. And I think that’s the key. They believe they have a spot here.

“Payamps knows he has a spot even through thick and thin. Milner’s always been a reliable guy. But they’re also really conscientious. They’re just good people that know we need them. There’s a long list of guys that have contributed and they’ve all been DFA’d. They all are finding a home, so to speak. Even if it’s for a year, they’re comfortable with, ‘Hey, I’m going to pitch. I’m going to pitch important big-league innings. And that’s going to help me in my career.’”

Just about everywhere you turn, whether at bat or on the mound, the Brewers keep attacking opponents with players that have something to prove. 

“Yeah, I think that works,” Murphy says. “Guys like Turang, Ortiz, Chourio to some extent. Contreras lives with a chip on his shoulder. He’ll have a chip after 10 years. Hoskins is that type of guy. Sal’s really that guy, for sure. He’s five-foot-six and hits the ball about 80 miles an hour and he just finds ways to win. Our premium defender, Ortiz, thought he was going to be in Norfolk this year behind Gunnar Henderson.

“So, these guys, yeah, they’re happy they’re here.”

The Brewers have been in first place all but 14 days, including every day since April 30. By now, it is obvious there is nothing fluky with how Murph’s crew is getting it done. They began September leading all of baseball in run differential, most fastballs thrown, most games won out of the bullpen, fastest team sprint speed, most qualified hitters age 28 and younger and most hits with runners on. And, though no stat sheet tracks it, they lead in one other category: most chips on shoulders.