The Milwaukee Brewers clinched the NL Central on Tuesday night, their fourth consecutive division title. They sit at 95-57, the best record in the National League, 10.5 games clear of the Cubs.
They will enter the postseason as the No. 1 seed with a first-round bye. They are +550 to win the World Series, second only to the Dodgers at +200.
And almost nobody is picking them.
Four In A Row Is Not An Accident
Milwaukee has one of the smallest payrolls among contenders and has now won the division four straight years while repeatedly trading away stars other teams could not afford to keep.
That is not variance. That is a front office and a player development system producing at a level that should embarrass franchises spending three times as much. The Mets spent north of $350 million this season and finished 69-83. The Brewers are 95-57.
The October Question
Here is the honest counterpoint, and Milwaukee fans have heard it every fall: the Brewers have not converted regular-season dominance into deep playoff runs.
Playoff baseball rewards top-end starting pitching and it rewards home run power. Milwaukee’s formula is depth, defense, baserunning and bullpen management, and those edges compress in a five- or seven-game series against a team that can run out three aces.
The bye helps significantly. Skipping the wild-card round means the rotation lines up properly and the bullpen gets rest, which removes the single biggest structural disadvantage Milwaukee has faced in past Octobers.
The Bracket Sets Up Reasonably
As currently constructed, Milwaukee and the Dodgers take the National League byes. The wild-card round would send the Braves against the Padres and the Cubs against the Phillies.
Every one of those teams is dangerous. The Padres just ran off an eight-game winning streak. Atlanta has held its NL East lead over Philadelphia all year. The Cubs won 85 games in a division Milwaukee dominated.
Milwaukee gets to watch two of them beat each other up before it plays a game.
The Case For Picking Them
The best record in the league, the bye, and a roster that has played meaningful games in September four years running. Experience in high-leverage baseball is worth something even if it is impossible to quantify.
The Dodgers are the better team on paper and should be favored. But a Brewers club that gets to set its rotation and enters rested is a substantially different opponent than the one that has been bounced early in past years.
Doubt them again if you want. They have made a habit of making that look foolish for four straight seasons.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.