The Rule 5, the MVP and the Miz: How the Brewers became the hottest team in baseball

New York Times

2 days ago

Two months ago, the Milwaukee Brewers were going nowhere. They lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates on May 24, dropping them into fourth place in the National League Central, three games below .500.
Veteran Christian Yelich and young shortstop Joey Ortiz were below replacement level, third base was an offensive black hole, and Rhys Hoskins was the only Brewers regular with a wRC+ in the top 80 leaguewide. Rotation mainstay Freddy Peralta was pitching like an ace, but the Brewers already had used 10 other starting pitchers to fill out the rotation, and their staff ERA was in the bottom third of the major leagues. Their bullpen ERA was worse than that of the Colorado Rockies and Chicago White Sox.
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The Brewers were bad.
And then they became the best team in baseball.
The Brewers' 36-13 record since May 25 is better even than the similarly red-hot Toronto Blue Jays. In the past month, the Brewers have produced an 11-game winning streak — six of those wins came against the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers — and moved into a neck-and-neck battle with the Chicago Cubs for first place in the NL Central. Two months ago, the Brewers had only a 10.1 percent chance of making the playoffs. As of Thursday's off day, FanGraphs considered them a postseason shoo-in with a 94.7 percent chance of making it.
This, of course, is nothing new for the Brewers. They seem to do it every year. The Brewers have been to the playoffs in six of the past seven seasons, and only the Dodgers and Atlanta Braves have more wins in the National League since 2018.
So, how did the Brewers do it this time? How did they once again sneak into the conversation as one of the best teams in baseball? Per usual, they did it quietly, with a lot of pitching, successful player development and small moments — and small transactions — that just kept adding up. This is how it happened.
It was a Sunday afternoon in Pittsburgh, and the Brewers had blown an early lead to trail 5-3 heading into the eighth inning. They were on the verge of being swept by a last-place team until rookie third baseman Chad Durbin delivered a two-out, tying double. He later scored the winning run, and the Brewers bullpen took it from there.
The Brewers have the best record in baseball ever since, and Durbin has since been the game's eighth-best third baseman by fWAR. Acquired from the New York Yankees in the offseason trade of closer Devin Williams, Durbin had taken over the position in mid-April but was hitting below .200 before getting hot in late May. He now has a 135 wRC+ and has been a solid fielder.
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Forget the trade deadline. One of the most consequential trades of the year happened April 7 when the Brewers — unusually desperate for pitching early in the season — traded well-regarded 19-year-old outfielder Yophery Rodriguez to the Boston Red Sox for Triple-A starter Quinn Priester, a 24-year-old with fewer than 100 innings of major-league experience. Priester moved immediately into the rotation, and he's been unbeatable since late May.
The Brewers have won every game Priester has pitched since May 30. In those 10 outings, Priester has pitched 57 innings with 11 walks and a 2.53 ERA. In the first game after the All-Star break, Priester struck out 10 Dodgers. Wednesday night against the Seattle Mariners, he allowed two runs in seven innings.
In a one-run win against the San Diego Padres, it was left fielder Isaac Collins who reached base four times and drove in a two-out, eighth-inning run that proved crucial before Durbin hit a walk-off homer in the ninth.
Thanks to Collins, and a resurgence of both Sal Frelick and Jackson Chourio, the Brewers have the fourth-best outfield WAR in MLB since late May. Frelick and Chourio are the team's WAR leaders for the season, but it's Collins who leads in that category since May 25. Collins wasn't only a Rule 5 pick. He was a minor league Rule 5 pick, plucked from the Colorado Rockies in 2022. He became the Brewers' primary left fielder after Garrett Mitchell got hurt early this season, and in the past two months, he's been one of the best left fielders in baseball, pairing elite defense — only Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong has more five-star catches — with a 138 wRC+.
Through almost a decade of consistent success, the Brewers have developed a reputation for pitching. They traded for Peralta when he was a teenager, they drafted Brandon Woodruff in the 11th round, and they developed Corbin Burnes into a Cy Young winner. Since 2018, only the Dodgers, Houston Astros, Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Guardians have a better team ERA.
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In mid-June, the Brewers promoted their latest electric arm. Jacob Misiorowski, a 23-year-old second-round pick from 2022, arrived with a 6-foot-7 frame and 100-mph fastball. In his debut, The Miz pitched five hitless innings. A month later, he was named to the All-Star team. Through six starts, Misiorowski has a 2.45 ERA and more than 12 strikeouts per nine innings. He's been in the Majors less than two months, and already Misiorowski is among the most well-known players on the team, a throwback to the franchise's past and a cornerstone of its future.
Misiorowski's promotion was good news for every Brewer except veteran starter Aaron Civale, who lost his rotation job. Unhappy with the change — and with free agency approaching — Civale requested a trade and got one in a matter of days. The Brewers shipped him to the Chicago White Sox for big league flop Andrew Vaughn, the third-overall draft pick in 2019 who'd been an increasing disappointment through five seasons in Chicago.
The Brewers initially sent Vaughn to Triple A — that's where he'd been with the White Sox — but when slumping Hoskins went on the IL on July 7, Vaughn was summoned as his replacement. In his first 10 games with the Brewers, Vaughn has a .943 OPS with more walks than strikeouts, and he's been among the league leaders in RBI since his promotion.
There was the three-run double in the seventh inning, another three-run double in the eighth, and an RBI single in the ninth. That's how Christian Yelich managed to turn a competitive game into a 17-6 Brewers blowout. His eight RBI came in the midst of a seven-game stretch in which Yelich had 16 hits and drove in 14 runs.
The former MVP was hitting just .184 with a .600 OPS in the middle of May, but since May 22, Yelich has hit .333 with 12 home runs and a .960 OPS. His 169 wRC+ in that span is eighth-best in the Majors, and his 19 home runs are the most he's hit in a season since 2019. Yelich now leads the Brewers in several offensive categories, giving them an offensive anchor after Hoskins cooled down and then got hurt after his strong start to the season.
Video from this date shows a stolen base attempt, an off-target throw to second base, and Brewers shortstop Joey Ortiz flying through the air to catch the ball and apply a tag he couldn't possibly have practiced. The runner was out, and the Brewers won. Ortiz hasn't been nearly as good overall as he was while playing third base last year, but his six outs above average are seventh-most among shortstops.
Premier defense has been another Brewers organizational calling card. Only the Astros, Arizona Diamondbacks and St. Louis Cardinals have produced more outs above average since 2018, and the Brewers have the second-most outs above average in the Majors this year (and that's with second baseman Brice Turang being credited with a negative OAA despite winning a Platinum Glove last year and being worth 6 defensive runs saved).
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This date was the start of an 11-game winning streak, and it came in Woodruff's first start in a year and a half. He struck out eight. For years, Woodruff made himself into another homegrown horse for the Brewers rotation. From late-round pick in 2014 to Top 100 prospect in 2017 to Major League All-Star in 2019 to top five Cy Young candidate in 2021, Woodruff was emerging as a top-of-the-rotation force until he had shoulder surgery in 2023 and missed all of 2024.
Now 32 years old with only 67 innings pitched the past two seasons, Woodruff was something of a wild card coming into this season, but through his first three starts, he has a 1.65 ERA as the final piece of a dominant rotation that still has Peralta putting up career-best numbers, Misiorowski making a case for Rookie of the Year, Priester winning almost every start, and veteran Jose Quintana maintaining a 3.49 ERA at 36 years old. Since May 25, the Brewers have the best rotation ERA in baseball by a sizeable margin.
First game after the All-Star break, the Brewers were clinging to a 2-0 lead against the Dodgers, and Priester was pulled after just 77 pitches. It was time to let the bullpen loose. First up was Abner Uribe, throwing 99-mph fastballs to get through the middle of the lineup. Next was lefty Jared Koenig throwing sinkers to retire the side in order. In the ninth, closer Trevor Megill threw nothing but fastballs and curveballs, needing just seven pitches in all to retire Tommy Edman, Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts.
In the past two months, each of the Brewers' top eight relievers has an ERA below 4.00 and five have an ERA below 3.00. Former starters DL Hall and Aaron Ashby have been terrific in multi-inning relief roles, relatively minor trade additions Grant Anderson, Nick Mears and Rob Zastryzny have pitched well, and Megill has been one of the Major League leaders in win probability added.
Friday marks exactly two months since the Brewers began to turn their season around. The team will be at home against the Marlins, and it remains to be seen what will happen, but we know this much: it's Peralta's turn to pitch.
In his eighth season with the Brewers, Peralta is putting up the best numbers of his career. Before the team's resurgence, Peralta seemed to be an obvious trade candidate before reaching free agency this offseason, but his steady hand — and the improvement of the team around him — mean he's surely going to stick around through the end of the season. Whether they will add offensive pieces to back him and the rest of the rotation remains to be seen. Peralta has pitched in five playoff series for the Brewers, but he's never won one.
The Brewers consistently work their magic in the summer. Is this the year it finally works in October?
(Top photo of Misiorowski: John Fisher / Getty Images)