Brewers: Plenty of Team Alumni Remain In 2020 MLB Division Series

San Diego Padres

So the Marlins are fun, but a lot of the former Brewers on the team were actually former prospects. If you’re looking for a team with some former Brewers who played in Milwaukee more recently, then look no further than the Padres.

Like Miami, San Diego also had the pleasure of knocking out one of Milwaukee’s divisional opponents. The Padres matched up as the No. 4 seed against the No. 5 St. Louis Cardinals, winning the series two games to one.

Much of the offseason for Brewers general manager David Stearns involved picking up a handful of free agents and signing them to one-year contracts with or without a second year option. But there were a couple trades that went down as well.

The most noteworthy of which happened right before Thanksgiving of 2019. In that trade, the Brewers sent veteran pitcher Zach Davies and outfielder Trent Grisham to the Padres for infielder Luis Urias and pitcher Eric Lauer, two players still in their early 20s.

Since making his MLB debut with Milwaukee in 2015, Davies was a stable of Brewer starting rotations the last four seasons. His 580 1/3 innings pitched where the most combined innings pitched over those four years and he left with the team with a 4.22 ERA in a Brewer uniform.

2020 led to a career year for Davies, as he went 7-4 for San Diego with a 2.73 ERA and 1.067 WHIP in twelve starts. His postseason start for the Padres wasn’t as stellar as he gave up four earned runs over just two innings in their second Wild Card game against the Cardinals.

Grisham, who exploded on to the scene with Milwaukee last year, also had a fine year after his change of scenery. He played in 59 of 60 games for San Diego and had a .808 OPS with 10 homers as the team’s primary starting center fielder.

Joining those two this year was fellow 2019 Brewers contributor Drew Pomeranz who signed with the Padres as a free agent. Like last year, Pomeranz was dominant out of the bullpen, nearly going the entire season without giving up a single earned run before the streak was broken when he gave up three in his final outing, finishing his season with a 1.45 ERA in 18 2/3 innings.

Rooting for the Padres would be hard for plenty of Milwaukee fans, though. Despite a roster with three former Brewers, it also has Manny Machado, whose antics in the 2018 postseason as a member of the Dodgers drew the ire of some Brewers players as well as many of their fans. That might be too much for some to overcome.