Milwaukee Brewers: Ranking the Scheduled 2020 Opponents

3. Chicago Cubs

Key Additions: 2B Jason Kipnis, IF/OF Hernan Perez, OF Steven Souza Jr., P Jeremy Jeffress

The Cubs are a tough one to peg. On one hand, they made few moves of any significant impact over the offseason and largely return the same team that finished third in the NL Central in 2019 and missed the playoffs. On the other hand, it can’t be denied how much talent Chicago has on its roster as well as the fact that they were in contention all year last year before their September swoon.

The Cubs started to get banged up toward the end of 2019, which partly explains their late-season slump. If everyone stays healthy, will they look more like the team from the first five months of the season? Odds point to yes and there should be little doubt that they will be back in the mix of teams at the top of the NL Central. New manager David Ross could play a big part in the Cubs turnaround as well.

2. St. Louis Cardinals

Key Additions: P Kwang-Hyun Kim, IF Brad Miller, OF Austin Dean

The Cardinals are another team who didn’t make many high-profile moves in the offseason. But when you’re coming off a 90-win season and a division championship, there usually isn’t a ton that needs to be improved from the previous season.

St. Louis returns all the most effective pitchers from a staff that was fifth in the majors in ERA in 2019. Add Brewers killers like Paul Goldschmidt and Yadier Molina to the other solid bats on the team’s offense and there’s no reason to think that the NL Central shouldn’t be the Cardinals’ to lose.

1. Minnesota Twins

Key Additions: 3B Josh Donaldson, P Kenta Maeda, P Homer Bailey, P Rich Hill, P Tyler Clippard

The “Bomba Squad” was the only team on this list to crack the 100-win mark in 2019 and if 2020 were a full season, they’d probably do it again this year too. They return almost all of their big bats from a team that set a new MLB single-season team record in home runs, so of course they added the bat of Donaldson this offseason just for good measure.

While Minnesota’s pitching wasn’t terrible in 2019 (9th in MLB with a 4.18 ERA), it wasn’t on the same impressive level as their offense, which explains why most of their offseason adds were in the rotation and bullpen. With those pieces now in place, the Twins should be challenging for one of the best records in the league by season’s end.

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The 2020 Brewers schedule should be released sometime this week. That’s just one more step closer to finally seeing regular season Brewers baseball again, even if it’s only against these nine teams.