The Brewers Have One Of The Smartest Front Offices In Baseball

If you’ve been a fan of the Brewers for more than a single offseason, then you should already know how they do business. Buy low, sell high, don’t sign big contracts, and try to find funky pitchers with weird arm angles. Many organizations try to replicate this perfect blend of fiscal responsibility and baseball intelligence, but few are successful. Milwaukee is in the latter group, having missed the postseason just once since 2018.

But hey, don’t take my word for it. After all, I’m just a random guy who got conscripted to write about this team because my ticket got pulled in a 620 WTMJ raffle. Instead, take the word of other baseball executives, who were polled by The Athletic about their top front office rivals. Outside of the Brewers’ placement, the results, while unsurprising, are nonetheless fascinating to see.

The first thing you might notice is that the distribution is immensely skewed. In fact, you might notice that the list is a little shorter than 30 entries long. That’s because 10 teams (one of which is the Chicago Cubs) received no votes, mostly due to everyone being busy singing the praises of the powerhouse that is the Los Angeles Dodgers. Unlike the more Moneyball-esque teams below them, they have both the brains and the financial backing to build a team you might find in a four-man fantasy baseball league where three of the players stopped setting their roster after week two. Right below the Dodgers are the Rays, the organization known for shoestring budgets and creating talent out of seemingly nothing, and in third place we have the mighty Brew Crew.

What makes the Brewers so special isn’t necessarily their ability to consistently find undervalued talent. After all, the Rays and Guardians are just as good (if not even better) at doing that. Instead, what makes Milwaukee special is that this ability to find and develop exceptional personnel extends past the players on the roster.

After years with the organization, David Stearns was poached by the Mets and has done a great job thus far, most notably helping them reach a record-breaking contract with Juan Soto. Craig Counsell developed a strong reputation before being picked up by the Cubs and being made the highest-paid manager ever. (You know, for one year.) What did the organization do after losing these two? They promoted from within, elevating Matt Arnold and Pat Murphy to fill the vacant roles. The former is among the most well-respected general managers in the sport, and the latter won the most recent NL Manager of the Year award, so it’s safe to say the replacements are doing just fine.

For the Brewers, 2025 has been a difficult year rife with injuries and falling victim to odd-shaped bats. However, the organization continues to find ways to make it work. A few weeks ago, the trade for Quinn Priester was deemed an overpay, and he now has a 0.90 ERA over his first two starts of the year. Jose Quintana was signed to a one-year, $4-million contract and has a 0.71 ERA in his first two starts. If we take a look at starting pitchers alone, past moves made to acquire the likes of Aaron Civale, Tobias Myers, Colin Rea, and Wade Miley provided unconventional stopgaps in the face of injuries and insufficient homegrown talent that resulted in division titles and Wild Card berths.

If you really wanted to, you could gather your friends around a small bonfire, crack open a couple of Miller Lites, and spend hours recalling some of the best decisions the front office has made. Extending Jackson Chourio before he ever debuted in the big leagues and signing Jesus Made are a few you can start with, but the list really goes on and on.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: any team can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on shiny free agents. It takes real brains to run an organization on a shoestring budget while still being a perennial contender for the playoffs. The argument can be made that they should loosen the purse strings a tad and commit to World Series ambitions, instead of just settling for first- or second-round postseason exits, but in a league full of teams like the Pirates and Rockies, it’s comforting to know that the organization we all love and cherish is in relatively good hands.