The Milwaukee Brewers are a model organization across Major League Baseball.
Despite continually running one of the sport’s lowest payrolls, steadfastly refusing to spend money, and trading away most of the star players they develop, the Brewers are relentlessly successful. Just in the past few years, Milwaukee has traded away star closer Josh Hader, top-end starter Corbin Burnes, another star closer in Devin Williams, and some of the core of their 2025 team like Caleb Durbin and Isaac Collins. Oh, and one of the game’s best pitchers in Freddy Peralta.
In 2019, the Brewers payroll, per FanGraphs, was $132 million. Adjusted for inflation, that’s roughly $163-167 million in 2026 dollars. This season, their payroll is…$131 million. Owner Mark Attanasio’s commitment to reduce spending is impressive, to say the least.
But despite those limitations and their market size, the Brewers are consistently competitive for playoff spots. They’ve made the postseason in seven of the last eight years, with their only miss coming in 2022 when they still had a winning record at 86-76. They’ve reached the NLCS twice in that timeframe, coming up just short of a trip to the World Series both times.
Despite having a much smaller market than the rival Chicago Cubs, they’ve won the NL Central three straight years and five times between 2018 and 2025. This year, despite losing Peralta, they’re right back at it. They’re 8-2 in their last 10 games, sit at 27-18, on pace for a 97 win season, and have the third best run differential in the National League.
By nobody’s definition are the Brewers a team to be taken lightly. Yet that’s exactly what their manager keeps doing, and it’s getting old in a hurry. During last year’s NLCS against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Brewers manager Pat Murphy tried to act as though the Dodgers had never heard of his team’s players.
“I’m sure that most Dodger players can’t name eight guys on our roster,” Murphy told reporters. “No offense to them, they shouldn’t have to know the names, but these are some guys that hopefully they know their names by the time it’s over. You never know.”
Presumably this was some sort of motivational tactic, telling his players that they’re so unexceptional that nobody knows who they are, even the team they are playing in the National League Championship Series. It didn’t work, as the Dodgers won a series of close games, before Shohei Ohtani finished it off with one of the greatest individual games in baseball history.
Somehow, Murphy has decided that this same tactic and performance should be repeated in 2026 as well.
Milwaukee is at Wrigley Field this week for a big series against the Cubs, and took the first game 9-3 behind big games from Christian Yelich and Jake Bauers. Asked about it by reporters after the game, Murphy once again trotted out his “nobody knows who we are” routine.
“We know how these series go, you know, you erase it and just keep going,” Murphy said. “It’s not necessarily a game where they’re ever going to be intimidated by guys, they don’t even know most of our guys’ names, so they’re never going to be intimidated by us, but we’re not looking for that.”
“We’re looking to turn around and play good again,” he continued. “And for us, it’s a long season, we’re 45 or 46 games in, it’s a long season so we’re just looking to continue to improve any way we can.
PAT MURPHY REALLY LEANS INTO ‘UNDERDOG’ ACT AS BREWERS FACE RICHER DODGERS
“I’m proud of our guys, I’ve said all year, I trust these guys, but we gotta get better, there’s no question. And we’ve got a very young pitching staff, so we’ve gotta have games where we have five ABs. When the lineup turns over five times, then you know good things are happening.”
Frankly, this is getting ridiculous.
Are the Brewers loaded with big name superstars? No, of course not. They don’t have Aaron Judge, or Ohtani, or Juan Soto. But they’ve consistently won their division, made the playoffs, and advanced through series. Including beating the Cubs in the NLDS last year. Acting as though the opposing team, who has gone through hours of preparation on the individual players on the Brewers roster, doesn’t know who they are is patently absurd and downright offensive.
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As just one example, the high-priced Mets have made the playoffs twice since 2018. The Brewers have made it six times. What are we doing here?
Playing the “us against the world” and “nobody believes in us” cards are old, tired sports cliches. But acting like nobody even knows who you are? Hardly anyone’s even tried that, because it’s so obviously ridiculous. Christian Yelich is a former MVP. Jackson Chourio is one of the game’s brightest young stars at just 22 years old. Brice Turang and Garrett Mitchell are former top prospects, and William Contreras is undoubtedly a top-five catcher. Kyle Harrison is another former top prospect, finally delivering on his potential in Milwaukee, like so many others.
Does Murphy think nobody’s heard of Jacob Misiorowski? “The Miz” took baseball by storm in 2025 to the extent that he was added to the All-Star team after a handful of starts. He’s striking out over 14 hitters per nine innings this year, a number that would be an all-time MLB record over a full season, should it stay there.
Again, Milwaukee is not the Mets, or the Yankees, or the Dodgers. They don’t have as much money as even the Cubs or Red Sox or Giants do. But they’ve been one of the most successful organizations in baseball for most of the past decade, and acting like they’re this ragtag bunch of minor leaguers is absurd. If anything, you’d want your manager to portray confidence that this group is capable of winning a World Series instead of acting like they’re less well known than the local little league team.
