Article: Behind Enemy Lines: Previewing the 2024 Milwaukee Brewers

[Jake Russell]

With their 2024 season kicking off today, it’s time to preview one of the Cubs' biggest rivals and toughest opponents in the NL Central–the Milwaukee Brewers. They had a very interesting offseason, trading their ace but signing a top prospect to a record deal. Do they have an outside shot at the division, or will this be just the second time over the past seven years they miss the playoffs?

Image courtesy of © Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

For a defending division champion, the Brewers have seen quite a bit of turnover since last season, and they weren't a star-studded roster in the first place. Thus, let's break them down one unit at a time.

Starting Rotation
The Brewers return just two players in their fixed starting rotation who spent time on their 2023 MLB roster: Freddy Peralta and Colin Rea. Nominal No. 2 starter DL Hall was one of the prizes the team acquired for Corbin Burnes, while Joe Ross and Jakob Junis were free-agent dice throws. Losing Brandon Woodruff to injury hurts a lot, and he will not return to MLB action until at least early 2025. Peralta is the clear ace of this group, and he could probably be argued as a top-20 pitcher in baseball. The biggest concern with him has always been health, though last season, he started 30 games and threw 165 innings. He was fourth in strikeout rate among qualified starters, and posted 3 fWAR. After that, though, the rotation gets pretty rough.

Hall has good upside, but is still pretty raw and has thrown just 33 innings in the majors. His stuff is electric, but the command in a starting role seems to be spotty, at best: he had a 14.1 BB% at Triple-A last year as a starter. If he can refine that command, watch out, but for now he is still a question mark.

As for Rea, Junis, and Ross, they form a rather poor 3-4-5. Junis started just four games last year for the Giants (though he had success from the bullpen, in multiple-inning roles), while Ross hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2021. Rea has never had an ERA- better than 100. Junis has the highest upside in this group, in my opinion, but all of them hitting their ceiling seems unlikely, good as the Brewers' pitching lab may be. I think their starting group might be slightly better than the Cardinals', but that isn’t saying much.

Bullpen
This is the one constant, major strength for the Brewers–even though they lost All-Star closer Devin Williams. Trevor Megill, Joel Payamps, and Abner Uribe seem to be the best candidates to fill in for him over the first few months of the season. Uribe averaged 101 MPH last year and had a minuscule 1.76 ERA, while former Cub Megill broke out in his third year in the majors, pitching to an 83 ERA- (where 100 is average, and every point below 100 is 1% better than league average). Payamps also had a breakout in 2023, pitching to a 2.55 ERA, with a 20.9 K-BB%. Though it’s not the same group without Williams, the 2023 Brewers bullpen led the majors in Win Probability Added and ERA-. It should be a strength of their team once again, and if they make the playoffs, their bullpen will be a big reason why.

Lineup
Joey Ortiz was the other immediate impact piece in the Burnes trade; he had a 121 wRC+ in Triple-A last season. The whole lineup is pretty young: Six of their projected starters, per Roster Resource, are on their rookie contracts, while they added free-agent slugger Rhys Hoskins, who missed all of 2023 with a torn ACL. The Brewers also have a plethora of young talent in their farm system, from Jackson Chourio (who is set to debut Friday) to Tyler Black, who has had rousing success in the minors, to some younger guys like Brock Wilken and Jeferson Quero. They also return Christian Yelich, who finally bounced back after a string of three years wherein he posted just 4.5 fWAR in 329 games.

Willy Adames is looking for that kind of rebound after a rough 2023, though he had a career-high xwOBA last season and could be due for some regression to the mean. The Brewers need a lot to go right for their lineup to produce at a high enough level to make the playoffs this year, and it’ll rely on a lot of young guys carrying their weight in the lineup. It’s no easy task for a rookie to play well, especially when one of them (Chourio) is only 20 years old.

Really, the Brewers are going through a rebuilding/retooling phase, but without the hassle and bother of fielding a losing team. They have a lot of talent on the cusp of the majors, and a bunch of interesting young players already there. I find it hard to see them being competitive this year, but with a strong farm like theirs, they could be back to being competitive soon, as much as it pains me to say it. I think they will end up finishing fourth in the division, just ahead of the Pirates, and just behind the St. Louis Cardinals.

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