Baseball has been around long enough to highlight the importance of the game and that it isn’t always about a team’s payroll in relation to team success. Team success comes from collaborating efforts on all cylinders working together to produce a winning ball club, even if the names aren’t super flashy, teams still make due of 162 game season and produce the best results they can regardless of the money spent towards the team. And that’s the mindset with the Milwaukee Brewers who like many small market teams have an unwillingness to spend big money, but for the Brewers it doesn’t seem like an issue to them.

The Brewers just like the Rays have a history of turning the subpar into highly touted offensive players that surprisingly shock the league with their cataclysmic effort of rebranding these players. Since the massive Christian Yelich extension of 215 million for 9 years after his two MVP seasons the Brewers halted from spending big money to back up their star left fielder, and instead took the trade route and small value deals that have paid off dividends.

The Brewers hardly spent any dough on the free agent marketing, only coughing up $3.6 million to a one year Wade Miley deal, that again will pay off extensively. Miley who on average combining all 5 years he has pitched at Miller Park has a 1.92 ERA! Imagine a full season out of him at Miller Park, it will truly be wild. But this isn’t the only finesse the Brewers pulled off during the offseason. The Brewers were part of a 3 team trade with the Athletics and Braves, that notably sent the Athletics star catcher ‘Sean Murphy’ to the Braves. It was an absolute steal they were involved in this 3-team trade for practically nothing to give up.

In exchange for the Braves getting Sean Murphy, the Braves handed over 25 year old catching slugger; William Contreras to the Brewers who also received two solid arm depth in Justin Yeager, and Joel Payamps. Two unknown pitchers who will eventually make their names known in the coming years.

It was a fleece but the Brewers didn’t stop there. Before this trade the Brewers made a quiet trade that had much of the league laughing in shambles without realizing much of the impact this truly is. After a horrendous 2022 season the Mariners sent the Brewers OF Jesse Winker back to the NL Central as well as INF depth Abraham Toro in exchange for one year of control of ‘defensive wizard’ Kolten Wong and cash. Laugh now but gauck later, Jesse Winker has owned his time playing as the visiting team at Miller Park during his tenure with the Reds. Over 5 seasons he has a slash line of .313/ 1.0118/.264.

This comes two years before the trade the Brewers made with the Rays, both mastermind teams that knows how to get the most out of their young talent. The Brewers sent struggling Drew Rasmussen to the Rays for shortstop Wily Adames. After Wander Franco was called up, it was hard for Adames to find adequate playing time. Hence, the reason for the trade that turned to be wonders for both sides. Rasmussen turned out to be a superstar pitcher while Adames proved to be a mainstay in the Brewers lineup.

To top the master team of cheap talent, the Brewers signed Brian Anderson to a one year deal for 5 million, which turned out to be one of the better deals they have done in years. Anderson is slashing .350/.603/.1240 in a span of 11 games. He is on fire and is not showing he is slowly down anytime soon. There are so many other successful trades made by the Brewers that we don’t have enough time to get to, just showing how successful their team has been the past 5 years.

Money isn’t everything to build a sustainable future for success, different teams have different methods of building success without massive payrolls of 400 million like the Mets. The Rays rely on young talent to fill the holes and immediately cut bait when any players do super well to help replenish their farm system. The Braves lock up their players when they’re young to small AA deals, basically having their entire team locked up till 2029. And the Brewers who like other teams have an insane statistical data metrical department who find players and turn them around for the better.

Lets see how Brewers continue their success into this season. It just shows after they traded away Josh Hader, everyone was freaking out believing it is the start of a rebuild when really it was jut a retooling. Something is really brewing in Milwaukee, lets see how long this lasts.