Milwaukee Brewers 2025 preview
The biggest division winner in Major League Baseball for the 2024 season was not the Dodgers. It was not the Yankees. It was not the Guardians, Phillies, or Astros. It was the Milwaukee Brewers, who were 10 games better than any other team in the NL Central. Threading the needle with a somewhat limited payroll in one of baseball’s smallest markets, the Brewers have won three of the last four NL Central titles and have made the playoffs in six of the last seven seasons.
Last year’s run came under the guidance of baseball lifer Pat Murphy, who took over when Craig Counsell bolted for Wrigleyville. And there was nothing fluky about it. The Brewers scored 777 runs, the most that they had scored since scoring 785 in 2009. Only the Dodgers (+156) and Yankees (+147) had a better run differential (+136).
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It’s been a really impressive run for the Brewers, who have averaged 91 wins per season over the last seven non-COVID years. They still made a playoff appearance last season, even with the trade of Corbin Burnes to Baltimore. Now they begin life without closer Devin Williams, but this remains a team with a good lineup, intriguing rotation, and a knack for developing bullpen arms.
The Brewers have mastered the small-market approach. They’ve spent strategically, both in free agency and trade, but also with internal infrastructure, analytics, and scouting. While teams like the Rays and Guardians dominate headlines in that arena, the Brewers are a criminally underrated organization in those discussions. And I don’t think their window is closed by any means.
2025 Milwaukee Brewers Odds
(odds from DraftKings as of Feb. 20)
World Series: +5000
NL Pennant: +2200
NL Central: +260
Win Total: 83.5 (+100/-120)
Make Playoffs: Yes +125 / No -150
Milwaukee Brewers Preview: Offense
The leap that the Brewers made on offense last season was thoroughly impressive. They finished 10th in wOBA at .319 and posted their best OPS since the Juiced Ball season of 2019. While the Brewers only finished 13th in SLG, they were fourth in OBP and had the second-highest BB% at 9.7%. They were also second in stolen bases with 217, trailing the Nationals with 223, as one of three teams to swipe at least 179 bags.
I am a bit concerned about some regression, as the Brewers had a .305 BABIP with no discernible change to their contact authority numbers. Maybe the additional speed and athleticism had something to do with it, but they posted their first BABIP of .300+ since 2018. Typically teams that strike out a lot and draw a lot of walks end up with lower BABIPs because the batters are often hitting in deep counts and have to protect with two strikes. The last five seasons, the Brewers have had BABIPs of .305, .292, .279, .283, .278 with a lot of strikeouts and walks.
The loss of Willy Adames is significant, as he had 32 HR and 21 SB, so he filled up both categories for the Brewers, who only had four guys with at least 20 homers. Adames is also a plus defender and he was second on the team in fWAR to William Contreras. However, the team only got 224 PA from Garrett Mitchell, who posted 1.8 fWAR with a 126 wRC+ and also hopefully more than half of a season from Christian Yelich.
They also have another year of Jackson Chourio, who might be baseball’s next big superstar. Chourio slashed .275/.327/.464 with a .339 wOBA and a 117 wRC+, finishing with 3.9 fWAR as a rookie. And by rookie, I mean he turned 20 during Spring Training. The Brewers gave him an eight-year, $82M contract before he even played an MLB game. Based on FanGraphs’ valuations, Chourio was worth $31.3M in his rookie year. Suffice it to say that the Brewers made a spectacular gamble.
Chourio was +12 Defensive Runs Saved playing in the outfield corners and +6 in Outs Above Average. I think he’s a legitimate stud and the kind of player a small-market team dreams of building around. What Chourio’s full-season numbers don’t tell you is that he only batted .243/.294/.384 in the first half with an 88 wRC+. He batted .310/.363/.552 in the second half with a 150 wRC+. He also cut his K% by more than 4.5%. If the Brewers can make a few swing tweaks to get him to elevate the ball more, he may win an MVP within the next few years.
So, yeah, the loss of Adames is noteworthy, but the Brewers have a bunch of really good ballplayers. This was the third-best defensive team by Outs Above Average. Brice Turang stole 50 bases and only had a .316 OBP. Rhys Hoskins had his worst season as a pro coming off of a torn ACL and still hit 26 homers as a league-average bat. Joey Ortiz was the centerpiece of the Burnes deal and he’s hit at every level on his way to The Show.
This is a balanced and skilled offense that will still walk a lot and create a ton of surplus value on the bases and in the field. I think this group has the chance to be very good again, even with the loss of some power production.
Milwaukee Brewers Preview: Pitching
This is the area of the ballclub to rightly be skeptical about. We’ll see what Brandon Woodruff looks like when he can get back after missing all of 2024, but we absolutely have a changing of the guard in this rotation with Woodruff sidelined and Burnes elsewhere. Even with those two developments, the Brewers were fifth in ERA and 22nd in FIP last season, a phenomenon I will dive into more in a minute.
Seventeen different pitchers made a start for Milwaukee last season. Freddy Peralta led the way with 32 starts over 173.2 innings and was exactly what the team needed him to be with a 3.68 ERA, 3.88 xERA, and a 4.16 FIP. Colin Rea was next with 27 starts and was a below-average arm, but the Brewers got some good work from Tobias Myers over 138 innings and Aaron Civale was a competent addition from the Rays with a 3.53 ERA in his 14 starts.
So, the ERA/FIP thing… The Brewers gave up a lot of home runs. The rotation had the fourth-highest HR/9, partially leading to a 4.09 ERA and a 4.52 FIP. The bullpen had a 3.11 ERA with a 3.78 FIP. That was more about the K/BB ratio, as the Brewers were only 15th in K%. Only the Guardians had a higher ERA-FIP discrepancy last season as a bullpen. Nobody had a higher ERA-FIP discrepancy as a starting staff.
There are two ways to look at this. The first is that regression is coming. The Brewers had the fourth-lowest BABIP against with RISP at .265 and were one of six teams to have a positive LOB% in that split. Opposing batters only hit .227 in those high-leverage plate appearances with RISP. And, as many homers as the Brewers allowed, 123 were solo shots, which was the third-most in the league. They allowed 73 with men on base, which ranked 14th-best.
The other way to look at it is that this is tangible, statistical proof of the impact that defense can have. Milwaukee allowed 3.96 runs per game. BaseRuns, a context-neutral standings metric derived from expected run differential, says that they should have allowed 4.21. Their sequencing luck – or good defense – with men on base and runners in scoring position were the biggest factors.
A trade that didn’t seem to get a lot of run was the move that sent closer Devin Williams to the Yankees for Nestor Cortes. Milwaukee loves a guy with a good cutter and that’s Cortes, who has seen big increases in Hard Hit% the last two seasons. With an elite OF defense and some usage adjustments, I think Cortes has a chance to be a really nice piece in the middle of this rotation if he can stay healthy again. He’s had two 3+ fWAR seasons in the last three years.
What I like about the Milwaukee rotation is the way that they can mix it up. Lefties separate Myers and Civale. DL Hall is a guy with a big arm who could take the bull by the horns and keep a rotation spot or keep it warm for Woodruff or a prospect like Jacob Misiorowski or Logan Henderson.
The bullpen will miss Williams, whose devastating “Airbender” changeup is a special weapon, but the Brewers prioritized Cortes and the starting rotation help. They have a lot of average or above-average arms to deploy in the pen and they picked up a good reliever in Nick Mears at the Trade Deadline last year. A full season of Aaron Ashby could be really special, too.
Milwaukee Brewers Player to Watch
IF Joey Ortiz
I put “IF” because the addition of Caleb Durbin and the loss of Adames could shift the infield around a bit, though Platinum Glove winner Brice Turang should probably stay at 2B. Ortiz has played all over the diamond, but he played 134 of his 150 games at 3B last season. In any event, Ortiz is a guy who racked up 3.1 fWAR while underperforming a bit on offense relative to his minor league numbers. He only hit 11 homers, but did have an 11% BB% to run a .329 OBP and be an above-average bat with a 104 wRC+.
Ortiz slashed .285/.357/.448 in the minors and has some untapped offensive upside. He battled a bit of a neck injury last season that may have zapped a bit of his contact authority. He did outperform his xSLG by 55 points, so the projection systems are actually looking for some regression, but the Brewers are great at getting the most out of nearly everybody and I think they have a shot to do it here with Ortiz.
Milwaukee Brewers Season Win Total Odds & Prediction
The Brewers continue to beat their division brethren off the field and then have been able to do it on the field as well. Their internal development and scouting staffs are doing a great job and even the departures of Counsell and David Stearns weren’t enough to derail the train. There are upside guys that will get better. There are high-floor guys who can still produce value in hitting slumps because of their defensive and baserunning abilities.
I think Cortes is a tremendous fit here and the Brewers have now had more time with Myers and Civale to optimize their arsenals. The bullpen could low-key be really good with Mears and a K% bump from Ashby. I like this team a lot. Their season win total is too low in my opinion and they’re a good bet to win the NL Central. I don’t know that we have to jump on +260 now, as a better price may become available during the Spring or early in the season, but I still consider them the team to beat.
Pick: Over 83.5
