Brewers: 3 Early Reasons to Be Excited for the 2022 Season

2. The Brewers should return one of the top starting pitcher trios in the entire league.

Milwaukee has had their fair share of pitching studs over recent seasons, which is quite the relief for fans who watched the team during their down years. But for a while, that was a fact that applied to the bullpen more than it did the starting rotation.

During the team’s 2018 playoff season, much of the talk revolved around the Brewers’ three-headed bullpen monster of Corey Knebel, Jeremy Jeffress, and Josh Hader. If the game got to those three with their team in the lead, good luck.

Hader would keep looking dominant over the next couple seasons, being joined by midseason acquisition Drew Pomeranz in 2019 and the Airbender-throwing Devin Williams in 2020 to continue making the Brewer bullpen a menace to opposing batters.

2020 saw something else start to emerge as well, though. A young trio would start to establish themselves as key contributors for the Brewers pitching staff.

Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes would wind up forming a fearsome one-two punch in the starting rotation by the end of the shortened 2020 season. Meanwhile, Freddy Peralta would finish the season strong as a reliever after early struggles as a starter.

All three would start the 2021 season as members of Milwaukee’s starting rotation with Woodruff and Burnes at the front end and Peralta at the back end. By the end of the season, they were being talked about as one of the very best starting trios in all of MLB.

Burnes, in particular, emerged as one of the best starting pitchers in all of baseball. With a 7.5 fWAR, 2.43 ERA, and 12.61 K/9 that led all qualified MLB starters, he has a great chance at being the Brewers’ first Cy Young award winner since Pete Vuckovich in 1982.

Woodruff wasn’t far behind him with a 4.7 fWAR, 2.56 ERA, and 10.59 K/9. Neither was Peralta and his 4.0 fWAR, 2.81 ERA, and 12.16 K/9, not to mention a miniscule .164 batting average against that would have led the league had he pitched enough innings to qualify.

Luckily for Brewers fans, none of those three should be going anywhere soon. While Peralta signed a contract extension prior to the 2020 season, Burnes and Woodruff find themselves entering their first and second years of arbitration, respectively.

Unless one of the most shocking trades in franchise history takes place over the offseason, Brewers fans should be very excited to watch this trio continue its dominance in 2022.

3. The possible addition of a universal DH could benefit the Brewers in multiple ways.

There will be plenty of points that the owners and MLBPA will argue over during this offseason’s collective bargaining agreement negotiations. But there seems to be at least one that both sides appear to be prepared to implement going forward.

The shortened 2020 season experimented with a few different rule changes, including the universal designated hitter. All indications are that there is an extremely good chance that this will be coming to MLB to stay in 2022.

Yes, that means that there would be no more chances for dramatic Brandon Woodruff playoff homers. Gone would be the days that Adrian Houser makes a certain Marlins starter question his entire existence.

Baseball traditionalists might not like it, but a universal DH could be a positive thing for fans of the Brewers offense.

As fun as the rare pitcher bomb can be, there’s a reason teams pitch around the eighth spot in the lineup to get to the pitcher. MLB pitchers hit a whopping .110 with a….gulp….44.2% strikeout percentage in 2021. Brewers pitchers were actually worse than the league average at .095 and 49.5%.

Of course, a universal DH would benefit the offenses of all National League teams. But for Brewers fans, think of all the possibilities that this now presents.

Since his two MVP-caliber seasons in 2018 and 2019, Christian Yelich hasn’t seen the same offensive success while also fighting off nagging injuries. Imagine if he could take some of the stress of playing the field away by playing DH now and then.

Keston Hiura has similarly seen an offensive decline, getting demoted down to Triple-A Nashville multiple times in 2021. Perhaps a move to DH could spark a change in the other direction for the former top prospect.

The lack of a DH would give Milwaukee a tough decision to make in whether to tender arbitration eligible sluggers Daniel Vogelbach and Rowdy Tellez. What if the Brewers not only didn’t lose either of them, but were able to give fans a lineup for a game in 2022 that featured both?!

Those are only a few of the possibilities that a universal DH would bring to the Brewers. It would be the end of a long era of pitchers hitting, but those who watch the game for the offense surely wouldn’t mind, nor would those hoping for an offensive boost for Milwaukee in 2022.

As fans of a team that is now a perennial playoff contender, it probably doesn’t take much to make Brewers fans excited for an upcoming season. Still, these three reasons should make even casual Milwaukee observers looking forward to 2022.