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It might be safe to say that few people will doubt the Milwaukee Brewers in the future given what they've done this season. The Brewers lost a key front office member, their winningest and longest-tenured manager, and their ace starting pitcher in the same offseason. Surely they were going to decline from their 92-win season a year ago.
Yet here we are in the first week of September, and Milwaukee owns the biggest divisional lead and has the best run differential in MLB. At 81-58, the Brewers are on pace to win 94 games and are right in the thick of the race for a top-two seed and thus a bye in the National League playoffs. They're three games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers for the best record in baseball.
How the Brewers have pulled this off is remarkable. They were without elite closer Devin Williams until the last week of July and lost arguably their best bat in Christian Yelich for the season in mid-August. They have a manager Pat Murphy who managed only 94 MLB games on an interim status before taking the Milwaukee job last November.
Milwaukee is a well-oiled machine that has stuck to its philosophies and continues to be a dynamic winner in a sport that can be so unpredictable. Like every MLB team though, the Brewers are not without their flaws, albeit minimal ones. Still, they could end up being the downfall, leading to another disappointing October exit for Milwaukee.
Teams who take advantage of the smallest errors from their opponents and have a little bit of luck are the ones who thrive in the postseason. Minimizing risks and your own mistakes is massive too. The Brewers have a month to work out the kinks of their flaws, including a big one among the starting rotation.
Brewers need more from starting pitchers
It feels a bit silly to write about a flaw regarding Milwaukee's pitching staff, a group that's been among MLB's best for the better part of the past 10 seasons. That continues this year as the Brewers rank third with a 3.61 ERA and ninth with a 1.23 WHIP. Digging deeper into the numbers shows that Milwaukee's starters aren’t giving enough value on the mound.
Brewers starting pitchers rank 25th in fWAR and 26th in innings pitched. Milwaukee hasn’t finished outside the top 15 in both categories in the same season since 2019. Only the Miami Marlins – a team on pace to lose 100 games this season – has fewer quality starts than the Brewers' 37. That's also their lowest mark since 2019.
There's a two-way street when it comes to those statistics as it impacts the bullpen as well. While Brewers relievers have been dominant this season to the tune of a 3.22 ERA, they've also thrown the fourth-most innings in the league. That has to play a factor at some point.
Outside of the 2020 season, the last team to reach the World Series after ranking in the top 10 in bullpen innings was the 2015 Kansas City Royals. That's nearly a decade-long trend of teams relying heavily on their relievers to eat a ton of innings without postseason success.
The Brewers are already acting on trying to save their bullpen arms for the playoffs. Rookie Bryan Hudson was demoted to the minors Tuesday despite carrying a 1.73 ERA and a 0.722 WHIP in 43 games. He's tossed 65 1/3 innings this year, the most since he was a starter in 2018.
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Milwaukee will limit his innings in September, but what if he gets shelled in Triple-A over the next few weeks? Could that damage his confidence before his first MLB postseason? The Brewers don’t anticipate that happening, but it's a risk they have to weigh.
It's become somewhat of a rarity for starters to pitch deep into playoff games, but it's a luxury that teams can thrive on if they can get six innings from their starter. Using starting pitchers in relief is also commonplace in MLB's postseason. There's no denying teams need all hands on deck, especially one like the Brewers who have a heavy load already on the bullpen.
Milwaukee's 2024 playoff outlook
There's still a little under four weeks of baseball to be played before the MLB postseason begins but it's never too early to look at potential matchups. If the season ended today, the Brewers would be the third seed in the National League, giving them a Wild Card series at home against the San Diego Padres.
Milwaukee was dealt the same hand last year and lost consecutive games at home to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Just like that, the Brewers season was over.
Who's to say they would’ve faired better if they secured a bye to the Division Series? Only one of the four World Series teams had a bye in the two years since the new MLB playoff format was instituted. Additionally, the other three teams were Wild Card teams rather than the third divisional winner in each league.
Even with the NL Central all but locked up, the Brewers shouldn’t hit cruise control and settle for the third seed. It'd be wise to stay competitive in September, especially with the opponents they face the rest of the way.
Four of Milwaukee's final five series are against the Philadelphia Phillies, Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Mets. The Brewers are directly behind the Phillies in the National League standings, while there's a chance the D-backs or Mets will be the sixth seed heading to the home of the three seed for the Wild Card round.
MLB playoffs are right around the corner but there's so much that can still happen before the first pitch of the 2024 postseason is delivered on Oct. 1. There's plenty of reason to believe the Brewers have a shot at capturing their first World Series title this fall. There are a few reasons why they won’t, with the burden of their bullpen being the biggest flaw they need to overcome in October.
