Best Milwaukee Brewers Manager Of All Time Bracket

It’s March, which typically means bracket season is upon us. While others are making brackets about the best or worst Brewers in franchise history, we’re going to look at the Crew’s managers.

Throughout franchise history, the Brewers have had 19 managers. For the purposes of this bracket, we narrowed it down to 16 to make a simple sweet 16 tournament.

We had to exclude three Brewers managers from this bracket because of how the numbers had to work out, and those three managers were Roy McMillan, Dale Sveum, and Joe Schultz. McMillan was only manager for two games in 1972, while Sveum only managed 12 games in 2008, plus playoffs. Schultz was the manager of the Seattle Pilots in 1969.

We will hold votes on these matchups on the Reviewing the Brew Twitter account over the next several days as we work our way through this bracket.

Let’s take a look at the bracket.

Ball-in-Glove Region

(1) Harvey Kuenn vs. (4) Jerry Royster

Taking the No. 1 overall seed in this tournament is none other than Harvey Kuenn, who led the Brewers to their only World Series appearance in 1982. He managed one game in 1975, a victory, and then took over the manager’s role in the middle of the 1982 season, taking them all the way an AL pennant with a 72-43 record down the stretch.

Kuenn only managed one more season in 1983, and finished his managerial career with a 160-118 record.

Jerry Royster was the Brewers manager in 2002, finishing out the year after Davey Lopes was fired just 15 games into the season. Royster “managed” the ballclub to their first and only 100 loss season in franchise history. The Brewers lost 106 games that year, 94 of them under the guidance of Royster.

(2) Ned Yost vs. (3) Dave Bristol

Replacing the disaster that was Jerry Royster was fan favorite and former Brewers player Ned Yost. Yost played for the Brewers from 1980-83 and bringing him back excited the fanbase. The Brewers knew they had a long way to go before they were ready to contend and had a young roster that they wanted Yost to mold.

The first few years didn’t see great results in the win-loss record, but he got the Brewers up to a .500 record in 2005, which was their first since 1992. He was guiding the Brewers to a playoff spot in 2008 before a little downturn towards the end of the season cost him his job before he could take the Brewers to October. He finished his Brewers career with a 457-502 record.

Dave Bristol was the first Brewers manager in Milwaukee, managing from 1970-72, with a 144-209 record, 65 games below .500. The Brewers lost 90+ games in each of Bristol’s two full seasons, and had a 10-20 record in 1972 when he was relieved by Roy McMillan and Del Crandall. Bristol led the Brewers to a 4th place finish in 1970.

Bernie Brewer Region

(1) Phil Garner vs. (4) Ken Macha

Phil Garner managed some forgettable teams in the 1990s, led by guys like Ricky Bones and Ben McDonald. Nevertheless, he did manage for eight seasons in Milwaukee and is still the winningest manager in franchise history. Garner took over in 1992 for Tom Trebelhorn and led the Crew to a second place finish that year with 92 wins.

In 1993, the Brewers finished in last place, winning only 69 games, spurred on by the loss of Paul Molitor in free agency. That began a span of disappointing seasons for Milwaukee. The closest Garner ever got the Brewers back to success was a third place finish in the AL Central in 1996 and 1997. He managed the club through their transition to the National League  in 1998, before being let go midway through the 1999 season. His final record was 563-617.

Ken Macha inherited a talented Brewers squad that was returning practically all of their star players from their 2008 run to the postseason, and man, did he completely botch it. Despite having Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, JJ Hardy, Corey Hart, and Yovani Gallardo in their primes, Macha couldn’t even manage a .500 season out of that group that just went to the playoffs.

The Brewers went 80-82 in 2009 and then struggled to a 77-85 record in 2010 before he was finally fired. He wasted two prime years in that playoff window the Brewers had. Right after he was fired, the Brewers won the division. Is that a coincidence? You decide. I don’t think so, but you decide.

(2)  Buck Rodgers vs. (3) Del Crandall

Buck Rodgers took over for George Bamberger after Bamberger started having medical issues and had to miss time in the dugout. He started in 1980, and the team went 39-31 under him. In a shortened season in 1981, Rodgers led the team to a 62-47 record, earning the AL East title. Back again in 1982, Rodgers had the team sitting at 23-24.

He was fired at that point in favor of Harvey Kuenn. Rodgers managed parts of three seasons for the Brewers, and got them to their first postseason appearance. His final record was 124-102. His .549 winning percentage is third highest in franchise history.

Del Crandall was the Brewers manager from 1973-75 during the George Scott–Don Money–Darrell Porter years. They finished a solid 5th place in the AL East in each of Crandall’s three seasons at the helm. His 76 wins in 1974 was the high water mark for the franchise until Bamberger took over in 1978. Still, the closest the Brewers got to the postseason under Crandall was 15 games back.

Crandall was the initial manager for Hall of Famer Robin Yount, helping develop the teenager from California. It wasn’t until a few years later that Yount finally got into high gear. Crandall finished his Brewers managerial career with a 271-338 record, 67 games below .500.

Racing Sausage Region

(1) Craig Counsell vs. (4) Alex Grammas

Craig Counsell is entering his 6th year as the Brewers manager and is seeing great success. After taking over for Ron Roenicke early in 2015, Counsell oversaw the rebuilding process for that roster. Counsell is known as being open to new ways of doing things, especially with pitching. He’s valued position versatility and creative thinking as a way to handle roster problems and has managed to win more games than everyone expects with the roster he has.

Counsell has taken the Brewers to back-to-back postseason appearances, the first time in franchise history since 1981-82, but he’s the first manager to accomplish that task. Buck Rodgers got the Brewers there in ’81 but Harvey Kuenn took the Crew to the postseason in ’82. Counsell is one of the longest tenured managers in baseball and has some job security moving forward.

Alex Grammas was the manager for Milwaukee in 1976 and 1977. Grammas was the third base coach for the Big Red Machine and a good one at that. As a manager, well, he was a good third base coach. Despite having some good talent on the team in the mid-70s, Grammas could not get the team to more than 67 wins in a season, finishing in 6th place both years.

Grammas had a 133-190 record as manager and was replaced following the 1977 season by George Bamberger.

(2) Tom Trebelhorn vs. (3) Jim Lefebvre

Tom Trebelhorn managed the Crew from 1986-1991 and had some good years at the helm. He took over for Bamberger for nine games in ’86 and then had the full job from ’87 onward. As most Brewers fans will remember, the 1987 season started off with a 13 game winning streak and included a no-hitter from Juan Nieves.

The Brewers won 91 games that year but finished in third place. In 1988, the Brewers also had a solid showing and finished in third place, winning 87 games. Trebelhorn has the fifth-highest winning percentage among managers in franchise history and has the third-most total wins.

Jim Lefebvre only managed 49 games for the Crew, filling in as the interim manager in 1999 after Phil Garner was fired. In those 49 games, the Brewers went 22-27, as he bridged the gap to Davey Lopes who took over the next year. Lefebvre wasn’t horrible and didn’t really have too much to work with in that 1999 season. It’s hard to blame him for how that team finished, especially when that roster wasn’t going anywhere to begin with.

Lefebvre also has the highest ejection ratio of any Brewers manager, getting ejected three times in his 49 games, which is just over 6.1% of the time.

Voting on these matchups will happen on our Reviewing the Brew Twitter account over the next several days. Be sure to vote to see who moves on in our bracket of the best managers in franchise history.