The Brewers Are Showing A Disturbing Lack Of Relentlessness In 2025

There isn’t a whole lot this team is doing well right now. They certainly could just be a mediocre team all year long, but it’s way too soon to tell

Some records through 5/3 last year:

NYM: 16-16

SDP: 17-18

HOU: 12-20

ARI: 14-19

All these teams ended up winning at least 88 games. I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but there’s plenty of time to get things on the right track. It starts and ends with the stars starting to play like stars

Early in the year last year, there were some that were saying the Brewers should trade Adames because he was in his final year of his contract.  We knew the Brewers would not be able to afford him, so the Brewers should get as many prospects as they can by trading him.  I was not a fan of that not only because he was adding value on the field, but was adding value in the clubhouse.  There is something to be said for clubhouse chemistry, but it is something that can't be measured with Fangraphs or Baseball Savant.  As far as I know, there aren't any fantasy leagues that have a category for "Clubhouse WAR."

The team is young this year.  The Brewers have the fifth youngest team this year according to BetMGM at 28.31 years of age (https://sports.betmgm.com/en/blog/mlb/youngest-oldest-mlb-teams-ranked-by-age-bm03/).  Last year, they were 16th youngest at 29.0 (https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2024-misc.shtml).

How are the five youngest teams doing so far:

1.  Miami Marlins:  13-19 (Last in NL East)

2. Tampa Bay Rays:  15-18 (Fourth in AL East)

3. Washington Nationals:  15-19 (Third in NL East)

4. Cleveland Guardians:  19-14 (Second in AL Central)

5.  Milwaukee Brewers:  16-18 (Third in NL Central)

So, there is most likely a combination of lack of veteran "leadership" coupled with significant injuries with the pitching staff.  It is tough to be relentless time and time again when you are down 5-6 runs in the third inning over and over again.  It also doesn't help that Magill didn't close out some saves.

My take?  Let's relax.  Also, let's be careful when arguing that, "[Player X] is doing well at Nashville, so he MUST get a chance with the Brewers."  The Brewers' margin for error is much smaller than most every other team.  Get more consistent starting pitching and things will improve...

... I hope. 😉

I think Bauers should see more playing time, in LF or at 1B..  He may add more power with regular play time.  And, I wonder what future there is for Mitchell and Ortiz.  Mitchell unfortunately gets injured before he finds a groove and Ortiz looked better at 3B.

It has been seeming like a new wave of pitchers would be needed next year no matter what with Freddy potentially being traded, Cortes/Civale/Woody free agents, and so on.  So if we can't turn it around, it would seem like the second half should be about Miz, Henderson, Rodriguez, Gasser, maybe KC Hunt, Ashby/Hall, etc. to get their feet wet or prove they deserve to stick in the starting rotation for next year.  Lots of unknowns, but if enough of them are successful we'd have an almost completely homegrown, cost controlled rotation with lots of potential.

6 hours ago, Samurai Bucky said:

 

So, there is most likely a combination of lack of veteran "leadership" coupled with significant injuries with the pitching staff.  It is tough to be relentless time and time again when you are down 5-6 runs in the third inning over and over again.  It also doesn't help that Magill didn't close out some saves.

My take?  Let's relax.  Also, let's be careful when arguing that, "[Player X] is doing well at Nashville, so he MUST get a chance with the Brewers."  The Brewers' margin for error is much smaller than most every other team.  Get more consistent starting pitching and things will improve...

... I hope. 😉

Great post, but the paragraphs above make some particularly good points. And along with Megill failing a time or two, there were the back-to-back games on the most recent road trip where Alexander failed in what were winnable games, toiling as the '2nd lefty' in the pen while Hudson was in Nashville re-learning how to throw strikes & Ashby was hurt. And as for the starters, yeah. No one can guarantee performance but between Woodruff, Myers, Civale, Cortes, Miz, Rodriguez & Henderson (Gasser probably more of a '26 hope IMO)---that's a LOT of potential options to right that ship.

Before this team traded for Willy around May 20th several years ago, they began that season with a similar middling vibe. I’m not comparing the players on those teams as much as the team’s identity.

Willy came over and immediately injected life and confidence into the Crew. He’s gone now and a lot of that life and confidence seems to be too. I’m not saying this is the ultimate correlation, but man he was a leader. They do not have one now.

I simply love Matt Arnold and know he is hamstrung by Attanasio, but I will say he appears to be penny wise and pound stupid at times. Already knowing Yelich ties up such a colossal percentage of the salary, he has invested heavy money in Woodruff, Hoskins, and to a lesser part Civale. Knowing Yelich is already someone who deals with a constant injury, it seems unwise to invest so much in guys who are either coming off career altering injuries, or in Civale’s case someone who rarely comes close to a full season. Add in blithely ignoring the flexor strain Cortes ended last season with, almost all the money being spent on the big league roster is tied up in injuries or ineffectiveness.

I’m not criticizing the moves individually. Individually I agreed with almost all of these deals. But collectively, we need to target other types of players with what little money there is for this team. 
 

I think the team missed an opportunity not signing or trading for a veteran infielder in the offseason.  I also do not understand signing Woodruff if he wasn't going to contribute by now. I hope the medical team didn't miss something on Cortes otherwise the trade made some sense and it's just been unlucky.

Thank goodness the team signed Quintana. The Priester trade is too early to tell even though I probably would have preferred they used that kind of package on an infielder.

I don't know if the team should invest more resources into the team at this point. The NL is extremely strong so it will take a fair amount of wins to get into the playoffs. The good news is that the minor leagues is incredibly deep so they have options if they want to go that route.