Milwaukee Brewers: 5 Keys To Success For The Crew In 2019

The Milwaukee Brewers have their sights set on not just the postseason in 2019, but they’re looking for a World Series title.

There are keys to success for every single team heading into the regular season. Some teams just have a better chance of finding those keys and achieving that success. The Milwaukee Brewers are one of those teams.

For the regular season, success will be defined as defending the NL Central title and making it back-to-back years on top of the division. The division did not get any easier to win over the offseason. Here are five things that need to happen for the Brewers to repeat as division champions this season.

5. Getting The Bullpen At Full Strength

Last year, the Milwaukee Brewers rode a three headed monster of Jeremy Jeffress, Josh Hader, and Corey Knebel in their bullpen to that division title. Now Jeffress is out for the first few weeks and Knebel is out indefinitely with a UCL issue. That three headed monster is down to one healthy head in Josh Hader. Although he’s the most dominant of the group, it’s not as scary as having all three heads.

In the meantime, this team will make do with Hader and the likes of Matt Albers, Alex Claudio, Junior Guerra, Alex Wilson, Jacob Barnes, and others.

Doesn’t sound as scary, does it?

Those are quality pitchers, don’t get me wrong, but with Hader generally needing 1-3 days of rest between outings and rarely pitching on back-to-back days, the bullpen will be a little vulnerable.

The sooner this group can get back to full health, the better.

Jeffress is supposed to return in mid-April and that will help with the later innings. Knebel is a wild card right now. He’s out indefinitely and might end up missing only a few weeks, a few months, or he could miss the whole season. It’s completely up in the air at this point.

Many fans will push for the Milwaukee Brewers to sign free agent closer Craig Kimbrel in order to solidify this group. When all healthy, that would be a dominant, shutdown bullpen. And if Knebel does miss a long period of time, Kimbrel would replace him. But it’s not that easy as just signing Kimbrel.

For one thing, Kimbrel has only lasted this long because of his astronomical asking price for his contract, and it’s unknown what he’d be willing to settle for. Also, Kimbrel would cost a draft pick to sign. The Brewers have already surrendered their Comp A pick for Alex Claudio and their third highest pick for signing Yasmani Grandal this offseason. Would the Brewers really want to give up three early selections in one draft?

Understandably, those draft picks likely won’t contribute during this championship window, so there’s some logic in just giving up the draft pick to help win now. But at the same time, GM David Stearns wants to keep the team competitive year-after-year, not just in spurts of competing and rebuilding.

The Brewers don’t need Kimbrel. They just need to be healthy.

4. Jhoulys Chacin Needs To Repeat A Career Year

At age 30, Jhoulys Chacin put up his best numbers over a whole season since his rookie year in 2010 in Colorado. His 3.50 ERA was solid and he was the only Brewers starter to not miss a scheduled start over the entire season, making all 35 of them.

Now he’s gotta do it again.

Last year, Chase Anderson and Zach Davies, who were supposedly the Crew’s two best healthy pitchers going into last year struggled mightily and Chacin was left to pick up the slack. Now Anderson is in the bullpen and Davies is the No. 5 starter.

With Jimmy Nelson beginning the season on a Triple-A rehab assignment, Chacin is the Crew’s only established, quality big league starter. When Nelson returns, who knows what kind of pitcher he’ll be. All signs look positive for now, but the regular season is a whole lot different than simulated games and Cactus League play. The Brewers need Chacin to do it again.

Heading into the second year of a two-year deal, Chacin will be a free agent at the end of the season. He’s provided immense value so far, and with his $6.75 million salary, he’s making the most money on this entire pitching staff. They’ll need him to pitch like it.

While he posted a 3.50 ERA last year, his 4.07 FIP and 4.47 xFIP point to regression this year. He’s going to need to outperform his peripheral stats and indicators for another season if the Brewers are going to continue their success. The rotation overperformed at times last year, and Chacin is going to need to beat out the predictive metrics this year once again.

3. The Rest Of The Lineup Protects Christian Yelich

For pretty much the entire second half of the 2018 season, Christian Yelich carried the Milwaukee Brewers on his back. That hot streak at the plate also carried him to a runaway NL MVP award as well as the team to a division title.

Depending on Yelich to post Herculean numbers over a three month stretch again is a little much. Hopefully he doesn’t have to carry the team like he did last year for as long as he did, but he’s the centerpiece of this Brewers offense, and him posting something similar to his .326/.402/.598 slash line from last year would go a long ways towards winning this division again.

Yelich has launched himself into superstardom and he’s now the unquestioned Face of the Franchise for the Brewers. He’s the leader of this offense, and he’s going to have to continue his upward trajectory. Luckily, Yelich is just 27 years old and the odds of him continuing to succeed are pretty good.

Will we ever see a stretch run as great as what Yelich had in August and September last year? Perhaps not, but we can appreciate his greatness every day of the season, especially now knowing what he’s capable of doing.

Opposing pitchers also know what he’s capable of doing now. They’ll look to pitch around him more often than before and will nibble around the edges of the strike zone. The offense around Yelich needs to be productive and intimidating enough to force pitchers to pitch to Yelich. If Jesus Aguilar plays more like he did in the first half of 2018 than the second half, the Brewers will have one heck of a three-hole hitter.

Travis Shaw is likely to have a better 2019 season after he bounces back from a terrible BABIP year in 2018. With the addition of Yasmani Grandal and the return of Mike Moustakas, as well as a healthy Ryan Braun, this lineup should provide plenty of protection for Yelich.

They can’t depend on Yelich to provide all the production on offense this year. That’s what happened in the postseason, and the lack of offense once Yelich went in a slump is what ended the Crew’s chance of making the World Series. With Yelich continuing his high levels of production, and solid protection around him, this offense can outslug anybody.

1. The Young Starting Pitchers Step Up To The Challenge

The biggest key to success for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2019 is the heart of their starting rotation: 22 year old Freddy Peralta, 24 year old Corbin Burnes, and 26 year old Brandon Woodruff. The Brewers are trusting that these three pitchers will react well to being rotation regulars and can continue their upward trajectory after spending most of last season either in the minors or in the bullpen.

There aren’t many teams that consider themselves World Series contenders that are also starting three pitchers that will be in their first full season in the big league rotation.

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These three were all highly touted prospects, and come with great pedigrees. But prospect scouting reports and hype can sometimes just go out the window once a player makes it to the big leagues.

If all three of them falter in their first season, the rotation’s weaknesses will be glaring, and there aren’t enough in-house replacements to make up for it. The Nelson return would be even more crucial and the need for another starting pitcher at the July deadline would grow bigger. Critics would go after GM David Stearns for not adding someone in free agency or a trade during the winter.

The likelihood of all three failing this season though, luckily is quite small. If healthy, these three have all shown the ability to succeed at the big league level.

Peralta, Burnes, and Woodruff will make up the core of the Brewers starting rotation moving into the future, and sometimes you just have to let the kids play and see what they can do. If they all step up, meet the challenge, and succeed, this rotation is going to be scary come October. They all gained valuable experience last year, and are now locked and loaded for 2019.

The rotation is going to have to pick up some of the slack they left behind last year and perform better. The bulk of that load is falling on these youngsters. If they succeed, this team will be unstoppable.

The Milwaukee Brewers have a lot of faith in these pitchers and the rest of this team to perform like they did last year. If their faith is rewarded with success, I think the fans will be rewarded with a parade at the end of this season.