Here's a fun fact about the Milwaukee Brewers, looking to defend their momentous NL Central championship from last year: only one person who's played in a game for the team so far is over 30. Christian Yelich. Obviously there are a couple others on the pitching staff who haven't appeared yet, Jared Koenig and Trevor Megill and Brandon Woodruff, but this is a very young team. The Cardinals are similarly young, but there's not a single all-star to be found on that team, whereas the Brewers have Contreras and Yelich and Sanchez and the Miz. And that's the thing: this may be a young team, but there's still infrastructure. I genuinely believe that they've built enough to get them far.
Now, again, after the trades this team made to get the payroll down, that may seem ambitious. Not only is Freddy Peralta, the staff ace, gone, but so are Caleb Durbin and Isaac Collins, two guys that could have been young stars going forward. But the idea I'm getting is that they have so many young pieces that they want to build properly and not trap guys that could be MLB options under perennial stars, or the Jasson Dominguez tract as it's known in the biz. Therefore, Collins gets dealt so Frelick, Mitchell and Lockridge can play, Durbin gets dealt so there's eventually room for Jett Williams and Jesus Made, and Peralta's dealt so Henderson, Miz and even Carlos Rodriguez can see starting time. So even without those pieces, the Brewers can still stand a chance, as they have so far.
The Miz start on Thursday was the stuff legends are made of. He gives up a home run early, fine, but he locks in, K's 11 and cements his place at the top of the rotation. There was some hesitation putting Miz out there Game 1, as the Brewers have Brandon Woodruff, and could have leaned on veteran presence rather than putting the kids out there immediately. But Misiorowski does have the stuff, and the controlled innings last year gave him enough juice to power through a full year this year. The optimal idea would be for Henderson, Chad Patrick and potentially Robert Gasser and Quinn Priester to line up behind Miz for a formidable rotation going forward. It's really just a matter of if all these guys are durable.
I also look at somebody like Joey Ortiz, who's very much a placeholder til Williams and Made are here. Ortiz put in the work to improve at the plate during the spring, and he's already got 3 hits and 2 RBI as I write this to begin the season. Even if he knows he's cannon fodder once the prospects are ready, he's performing better than he has to date, and he wants to make this team great. Same with David Hamilton, he's clearly filling third for the time being, but he's got even more perks than he did in Boston, and has the needed contact prowess to fit in with this team. I put Lockridge into that category as well- like last year, he's filling in for Jackson Chourio, but he's excellent in the outfield and he gets on base. He's gotta be valuable while he can.
The big indication that the rebuild will happen as the team's competing was the news today that Jeferson Quero's joining the team, filling in for Andrew Vaughn. What this allows for, I'm guessing is for Gary Sanchez to DH more often, Jake Bauers to cover 1st more often, and Quero to become the go-to backup catcher. Quero was this team's big prospect before Made came along, and I'd love to see Quero cash in the second he gets the chance and give this team even more stability at a position that previously seemed a non-issue.
So yeah, even if some of the exclamation point has dissipated, this is still a very strong Brewers team, and I still see them accomplishing great things this year, despite the competition.
Coming Tomorrow- Fresh off surprising a lot of people in the WBC, he settles in as a reliable depth option for another reigning champ.
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