Top 25 Most-Viewed Brewer Fanatic Articles of 2024 (Part 5: 1-5)

#5: Let's Take A Peek At The 2025 Milwaukee Brewers: What Will The Roster Look Like?
Matt Breen
August 18th

With six more weeks left in the season, Matt Breen was already looking ahead to the future. He made several predictions about how the front office would steer the offseason and whether it would be reasonable to expect any major changes. For the most part, many of his predictions ended up coming true but when it comes to the Brewers, one can simply posit that they will "be kinda cheap" and be right most of the time. 

There are still a few more months before Opening Day comes around so there’s time for Breen to be proven wrong (and I'm sure most fans are still holding out hope), but so far he has read the organization like a book. 

#4: An Underperforming Rhys Hoskins All But Ensures He’ll Be A Milwaukee Brewer in 2025
Matt Breen
September 11th

After 517 plate appearances, Milwaukee fans knew that the Rhys Hoskins they had seen in 2024 was not the one they had hoped for when he was originally signed as the team's marquee free agent of the offseason. It was the worst year of his career in nearly every metric and led to him being slightly below a replacement-level player. 

To make matters worse, the structure of his contract included a player option heading into 2025 meaning that fans may be in for more of the same lackluster on-field performance. There’s a chance he turns it around but his expectations have fallen considerably from where they were when he joined the team. 

#3: Brewers' Opening Day Roster Starts Taking Shape After Latest Round of Cuts
Jack Stern
March 19th

As spring training drew to a close, the Brewers slowly but surely started to finalize their big league roster. Several players were optioned to Triple-A Nashville while others were reassigned to minor league camp. Around this time, Pat Murphy also decided on the Opening Day starter and a big decision was made regarding where Jackson Chourio would begin his year.

There was still some uncertainty about which infielders would get the lion’s share of starts for the Brewers at certain positions and many of the players that were sent down to the minors ultimately ended up as major contributors to the major league squad but it was a good preview of what was to come in 2024.

#2: Brewers Clearing House: Colin Rea Put On Waivers, Owen Miller Traded, Wade Miley & Gary Sanchez Options Declined
Jason Wang
November 2

Goodbyes are never easy, especially when so many of them happen at once. After the conclusion of the World Series, Milwaukee quickly got to work cleaning out their closet, cutting ties with some of the lower performers to clear roster space for future talent. Given the importance of these moves, it made sense that Brewer Fanatic’s brightest, tallest, and most eloquent writer of all time was given the responsibility of covering this topic. 

On the bright side, there’s a chance that some goodbyes may actually end up being more akin to “see you laters.” Wade Miley has expressed interest in signing a minor league deal with the Brewers in lieu of retirement and I still hold out hope that Colin Rea will be back in some capacity. He has been an effective arm at the back of the rotation over the past two years and although he may not have been worth the $5.5 million club option he originally had, who’s to say he won’t be able to agree on a new deal with the organization? It may be a pipe dream but life without dreaming is a life without meaning.

#1: Projecting the Brewers' 2024 Opening Day Roster, v 2.0
Matthew Trueblood
February 9th

In December 2023, Matt Trueblood decided to try and predict what the Opening Day roster would look like three months in advance. Conveniently, Milwaukee went on to make three major trades after this original set of forecasts, sending Corbin Burnes, Tyrone Taylor, and Adrian Houser to new homes. This threw enough of a wrench in things for Matt to write a whole new article rather than sneakily edit the original piece while no one was looking. 

Little did he know just how many freak injuries the team would have to deal with, completely altering the state of the starting rotation and even shaking up the bullpen following Devin Williams being placed on the IL before the start of the major league season. Still, if you want to learn a little more about setting a lineup so you can finally beat your friend Dave in next year’s Fantasy Baseball league, give the piece a read.