The Brewers were never quite the darlings of the National League during the playoffs -- that space was reserved for the Giants and Dodgers. Still, they were a 95-win team going up against the weakest of their three potential opponents, so one could be excused for thinking there was hope for a deep postseason run.
That didn't happen, as the team fell in the NLDS to the Braves. Bradford Doolittle takes a look at where the Brewers stand and answers three key questions for the club moving forward to 2022 and beyond.
Milwaukee Brewers
Notable free agents: Avisail Garcia (club option with $2 million buyout), Eduardo Escobar, Brett Anderson, Manny Pina, Brad Boxberger, Hunter Strickland
Trade candidates: Josh Hader, Jackie Bradley Jr., Christian Yelich, Keston Hiura
Extension candidates: Josh Hader, Kolten Wong, Brandon Woodruff, Corbin Burnes, Willy Adames, Adrian Houser
1. Is the old Christian Yelich coming back?
If 2018 and 2019 prove to be the peak seasons of Christian Yelich's career, that would be understandable. After all, during those two seasons, he hit 80 homers, drove in 207 runs, scored 218 times, won back-to-back batting titles, OPS'd over 1.000, won the 2018 NL MVP award and finished second in the 2019 balloting. That's pretty special and a really hard level to maintain. The 2019 season was Yelich's age-27 season, often the best of a hitter's career.
Still, even if a drop-off from those lofty heights is understandable, how do you explain Yelich's complete freefall over the past two seasons? Over the 2020 and 2021 seasons, Yelich has hit .234/.360/.392 with 19 homers and 68 RBIs per 162 games played. That level of decline is stunning.
What exactly is going on? Well, that's hard to say.
Yelich missed time early in the 2021 season with a lower back strain. He didn't miss much time, but from his return on May 18 through July 26, he hit .214 with six homers in 57 games. Then, on July 27, he went back on the injured list after testing positive for COVID-19. He returned to the lineup on Aug. 7 and hit .264 in 50 games the rest of the way, but homered just three times and slugged under .400.
Through it all, the Brewers' standard line was that Yelich was fine. But clearly, he was not. Even if he indeed had made a full recovery from his physical maladies, too many times late in the season and in the LDS series against Atlanta, he looked like a player swinging a 10-pound bat. Something wasn't right and if it wasn't physical, it was either mental or something going terribly awry with his technique.
Without knowing the real reasons for Yelich's massive struggles, it's impossible to say to what extent he can be expected to bounce back in 2022 and beyond. In a Milwaukee lineup built for defense, his lack of production was a glaring problem against the high-caliber pitching of the Braves during the playoffs. And then there is this: Starting next season, Yelich's salary jumps to $26 million per season, and it will remain at that level through 2028.
If the answer to this question is negative, the Brewers have a heck of a problem with which to deal.
2. Should the Brewers lock down their young rotation? Can they?
Ah, an elite, homegrown starting rotation. Such a rare thing these days. Much like the American League's Tampa Bay Rays, the Brewers have forged a deserved reputation for innovation, efficiency and leveraging every spot on the roster to navigate the long season. And it has worked awfully well, as Milwaukee's four-year run of making the postseason is not just the longest such streak in franchise history. It matches the number of times the Brewers made the playoffs from their founding as the Seattle Pilots in 1969 through 2017.
But for all the cutting-edginess of the David Stearns/Craig Counsell Brewers, the 2021 club had a very traditional foundation. That is, it rolled out of baseball's best starting rotations, including perhaps the best top three in the majors, and built a 95-win club around that core.
Corbin Burnes and Freddy Peralta rose through the system together, eventually meeting up with Brandon Woodruff in the high minors. They developed together, competed with each other and eventually advanced step by step from prospects to big leaguers to rotation standouts. When they were established, Adrian Houser had followed them by taking many of the same footsteps, and he was taken into the fold. For him, the best may be yet to come. Eric Lauer was acquired from the Padres and fit right in.
Now, it looks like there's another potential member of the foundation club in rookie Aaron Ashby. Whether he can become part of that starting pitching core remains to be seen, but he's in a perfect environment to make it happen, with the young veteran starters on hand to help him out, as well as breakout pitching coach Chris Hook.
The question that is surely circulating in the Milwaukee front office as they sketch out the seasons to come is how long this foundational group can be kept together. Woodruff, Burnes, Lauer and Houser all have three seasons of arbitration eligibility remaining. Peralta has three more seasons remaining on a very team-friendly early extension.
The onset of the arbitration phase of a player's service-time clock is a good time to talk extension, but of course the looming labor showdown adds a significant layer of uncertainty to the calculation. However, are the Brewers going to try to keep this starting pitching group, so accomplished and with so much synergy, intact? Can they if they want to?
Once the ink dries on the new CBA (we're being optimistic here), this winter is a good time to start answering those questions.
3. How can the offense become more October worthy?
Let's assume that the infield trio of Kolten Wong, Willy Adames and Luis Urias will remain in place. And let's assume that centerfield remains some combination of Lorenzo Cain and Jackie Bradley Jr., while the corners are mostly manned by Yelich, Avisail Garcia and Tyrone Taylor.
That leaves first base and, perhaps, designated hitter, if the universal DH is adopted, to upgrade the offense. Rowdy Tellez will probably fit into that mix, based on his performance in 2021 after coming over from Toronto. And as bad as Hiura was, the Brewers haven't given up on him either.
However ... the Brewers' lineup is screaming for a huge bat, or even two, who can upgrade the offense-first positions without harming the elite Milwaukee defense that supports the aforementioned elite rotation so well.
Over the past four seasons, there are nine clubs that have played at least 10 playoff games, including Milwaukee, which has played 16. The Brewers' 2.75 runs per game is nearly a run worse than each of those other eight persistently successful clubs. They've hit .222/.293/.358 as a group during the high-stakes games.
For the Brewers to get where they want to go, something has to change. And for that to happen, it might mean owner Mark Attanasio agreeing to expand the payroll more than they've done. Milwaukee isn't going to run a $200 million payroll. We know that. But is there room for the kind of star-level hitter that might help the Brewers finally get over the October hump?