10 Milwaukee Brewers Records That Will Likely Never Be Broken Again

Brewers record that will likely never be broken #2

Stolen Bases – single season

Record: 1969 – Tommy Harper – 73 stolen bases

Talk about a record that has already withstood the test of time. Tommy Harper set the single season franchise record for stolen bases in the first year of the franchise, which was actually when they were still the Seattle Pilots. Yet, the record counts and stands as a Brewers franchise record.

There were some close calls over the years. Scott Podsednik came closest to breaking the record in 2004 with 70 stolen bases, but he came up just short. It speaks to how incredible Harper was back in the day.

Again, the way the game of baseball has been trending in recent years has led to a downturn in the number of stolen bases. Teams have prioritized catcher defense and throwing out would-be base-stealers while running less often themselves, relying on base hits to move the runners over.

In 2021, the Brewers only had three players with double digit stolen bases. 35 year old Lorenzo Cain led the way with 13. Not even close to Harper.

The Brewers don’t have any real burners on the base paths on their roster and haven’t been super aggressive in stealing bases much recently. Christian Yelich, when he’s right, can be a threat to steal 30 bases in a season, but he’s never going to be sent often enough to steal 74 bases in a season and break the record.

Milwaukee also doesn’t really have any true big stolen base threats in the minors anymore. David Hamilton was probably the best candidate to break the franchise stolen base record, but he was traded to the Boston Red Sox for Hunter Renfroe just before the lockout began.

The demand for speedsters who can steal 70 bases in a season just isn’t there anymore, and because the demand isn’t there, the supply isn’t there. If there’s no supply of players who have the ability to break this record, it’s likely to remain unbroken for a very, very long time.

Tommy Harper set the bar high in 1969, and no one has been able to top him since, and maybe no one ever will.

Brewers record that will likely never be broken #s 3, 4, and 5

Hits – Career

Doubles – Career

Games Played – Career

Record Holder: Robin Yount – 3,142 hits, 583 doubles, 2,856 games played

The career hitting records for the Milwaukee Brewers is littered with Robin Yount’s name. He played here for 20 seasons and is a Hall of Famer, it only makes sense. So I combined some of these records onto one page to discuss.

Robin Yount was durable, playing in at least 122 games in every season except 1974 (his rookie year) and 1981 (only 109 games on the schedule due to a work stoppage). He was also really, really freaking good. So he owns the franchise records for hits, doubles, and games played, along with many others.

But these three records might be the most untouchable. First, 3,142 hits is a lot and if another player is going to reach that level of success in a Brewers uniform they are going to need to be a Hall of Fame caliber player, which isn’t all that common, and they’re going to need to stay here for their entire career, also not that common. Ryan Braun was here 14 years and played at an extremely high level, and he didn’t even get to 2,000 hits, let alone 3,000. Molitor is the only other player to reach 2,000 hits in a Milwaukee uniform.

If anyone is going to break that hits record, it’s going to be a very, very long time from now. The same goes for Yount’s career doubles record of 583. The next closest is Braun, who retired this past year with 408 two-baggers. That’s 175 doubles short. Yount averaged over 29 doubles per season for 20 years. Few players even have 20 year careers anymore, let alone that level of success until the end. Yount even had 40 doubles in his penultimate season in 1992 as a 36 year old!

Lastly, it’s doubtful anyone is going to top Yount’s record of 2,856 games played in a Brewers uniform. Yount averaged 142 games played per season for 20 seasons. You don’t see that anymore. First of all, you rarely see anyone have a 20 year career anymore and make their MLB debut at 18 years old. Secondly, to have that kind of health and durability is not seen in the modern baseball player.

With teams being so cautious and willing to put players on the 10 day IL for minor aches and bruises, it would take a player more like 21 or 22 seasons to break Yount’s games played record, and really that could go for any of the other records he owns. It’s tough to surpass his counting stats when playing in so many fewer games than him. But the idea of a modern-day player having a 20+ year career, all with one team, the Brewers, just doesn’t happen anymore.

Even if Yelich gets back on track offensively, he’ll never reach these records because he didn’t arrive here until he was 26 years old. The stats he accrued with the Marlins won’t count here.

Yount owns several Milwaukee Brewers career offensive records that will likely never be broken, these are just three of them.

Brewers record that will likely never be broken #6

Innings Pitched – Single season

Record: 1973 – Jim Colborn – 314.1 IP

Yeah, the days of pitchers throwing 300 innings in a single season are long gone and they aren’t coming back. Colborn is actually the only pitcher in Brewers history to eclipse the 300 inning mark in one season, and that club is going to get more and more lonely as the years go on.

The most recent pitcher to even make the Top 10 for innings pitched in a season in franchise history was Cal Eldred back in 1993 with 258 innings.

Fans may be critical of manager Craig Counsell not allowing his pitchers to go deep into games, quickly going to the bullpen when managers never used to way back in the day. But this isn’t even just about Counsell and how he manages. This is a trend across the game of baseball and it won’t matter who the manager is going forward, 300 IP seasons won’t happen again.

Teams invest a lot in pitching and given the sharp increase in pitching injuries in recent years, teams have been cautious with deploying their pitchers and shutting them down even with minor injuries. Pitching through a minor injury now may lead to a major injury later and could completely derail a player’s career. Players don’t want that and teams don’t want that.

Even finding pitchers to throw 200 innings in a season nowadays is tough to do. Corbin Burnes put up one of the most dominant pitching seasons of all time in 2021, and he only had 167 innings under his belt. If he was dominating like that in 1973, he likely would’ve gotten close to 300 innings. But this isn’t 1973.

With the expansion of bullpens, the cautiousness of teams, and the uptick in arm injuries, Colborn’s 314.1 IP isn’t going to be broken, likely ever again. No matter how good, how dominant a pitcher may be, they aren’t going to break this record.

Brewers record likely never to be broken #7

Games started – Single season

Record: 1973, 1976 – Jim Slaton – 38 games started

Remarkably, Jim Slaton and Jim Colborn were in the same starting rotation for the Brewers in 1973 and Colborn set the record for innings pitched while making just 36 starts that season when Slaton made a record 38 starts. He also made 38 starts again in 1976.

Slaton, though, had “just” 276.1 IP in 1973 with two more starts under his belt, well behind Colborn.

Still, the records for either of these men will never be topped again.

Teams just simply don’t run starting pitchers out there for 38 starts a season anymore, unless you count being an “opener” but even then that trend hasn’t led to a pitcher starting that many games in a season.

The way the game is moving is to give starting pitchers more rest. Even before, if a starter never misses his turn in the rotation all season, he’s only making around 34 or 35 starts. Where are you going to get the extra three turns through the rotation to break this record? He would have to be pitching on three days rest for a couple weeks to make up those extra turns and that just doesn’t happen anymore, unless it’s the playoffs and even then, those starts don’t count for this record.

CC Sabathia pitched on three days rest for a number of starts to close out the 2008 season and he still only ended up with 35 starts on the year between Milwaukee and Cleveland.

We saw in 2021 that the Brewers operated with a six man rotation for a while, opting to give their starters extra days of rest throughout the season. Brandon Woodruff made every turn in the rotation and yet he only started 30 games. Plus, with the success the Brewers had giving their starters extra rest last year, it would only make sense that they continue to do so.

Granted, the Brewers won’t be coming off a shortened season the year before and the focus is no longer on a massive jump in innings from one year to the next, but the underlying concerns about keeping pitchers healthy is going to prevent anyone from starting 38 games in a season ever again. The Crew’s success with extra rest may lead to that trend starting across baseball as well.

Brewers record that will likely never be broken #8

Pitcher Wins – Single season

Record: 1978 – Mike Caldwell – 22 wins

Pitcher wins is a dying stat that no one really cares about anymore. It’s archaic, it doesn’t accurately represent a pitcher’s contributions, and doesn’t really have a place in the modern and future eras.

The way things used to be, winning 20 games in a season for a pitcher was like a batter hitting .310 on the season. Now, 20 win seasons more like a unicorn, because they don’t really exist anymore. Almost no one reaches 20 wins, and even if they do there’s generally a feeling of illegitimacy to them, as if the pitcher doesn’t actually deserve credit for 20 team wins. That’s because, odds are, they didn’t.

Brent Suter was the Brewers team leader in wins last year with 12 and he was primarily a long reliever. He was fortunate in the situations he was brought into and “vultured” most of those wins.

For a starting pitcher to be eligible for a win they have to pitch five complete innings and have the lead when they’re the pitcher of record. In the 1970s and other decades of a bygone era, starting pitchers going just five innings was considered a poor outing. Pitchers routinely went seven, eight, nine innings. Bullpens only had a few arms and managers simply rode their starting pitchers. That doesn’t happen anymore.

Nowadays, pitchers going five full innings is seen as a solid outing. Plenty have left the game with a lead despite not completing five innings and being ineligible for the win. At early signs of trouble, managers bring out the hook and pull their starters. They can afford to with seven or eight pitchers in the bullpen.

No one really cares about win totals anymore, and thus the chase for that stat isn’t really happening and pitchers don’t care about getting the “win” on their personal record as much as they do the team winning. There’s so much variance with what can happen in the final few innings that the bullpen has to handle that starting pitchers don’t get “decisions” like they used to. As soon as your lead is gone, as soon as there’s a tie, boom, you are no longer in line for the victory.

When pitchers threw complete games all the time, then they would get the decision, good or bad. It made sense. But they don’t do that anymore, and thus the win-loss record is mostly useless and the 22 wins by Caldwell in 1978 will likely stand for a long, long time. Speaking of complete games…

Brewers record that will likely never be broken #9

Complete Games – Single season

Record: 1978 – Mike Caldwell – 23 complete games

It’s almost impossible to fathom a pitcher having 23 complete games in a single season nowadays. Pitching every turn in the rotation gives you about 34 or 35 starts a year. The idea of a pitcher being so good that they are allowed to pitch all nine innings of about two-thirds of those starts is ridiculous. It doesn’t happen anymore.

With larger bullpen staffs, pitch counts, and cautious managers, no pitcher will be able to complete 23 games on their own in a single season anymore.

The Brewers just went four whole seasons without a single complete game by any one of their starting pitchers. That’s how rare complete games are nowadays, even though the Brewers set a record for longest amount of time between complete games. They’re not “one every four seasons” rare across baseball, but they’re still pretty rare.

From 2009-2021, the Brewers have just 17 complete games combined between every starting pitcher in all those seasons. They had 12 CGs as a staff in 2008, with CC Sabathia contributing seven and Ben Sheets throwing five. The seven by Sabathia was and still is a lot, and even just finding someone to throw seven CGs in a season now seems like an insurmountable task. Getting an entire staff to throw 23 complete games? Won’t happen. Getting just one single pitcher to throw 23? Not a chance.

The Brewers have an incredible starting rotation right now, and if any group has the talent to throw that many complete games, it would be this one, led by the trio of Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, and Freddy Peralta. But even these guys aren’t going to break Caldwell’s record of 23 complete games in a season. Maybe over the course of their careers they can throw that many CGs, but never all in one season. Craig Counsell, or really anyone you could put in to manage the Brewers, would simply not allow it.

The way the game of baseball has moved, probably every team’s franchise record for complete games in a season will never be broken again, the same goes for innings pitched in a single season.

There’s one more Brewers record that will likely and hopefully never be broken.

Brewers record that will likely never be broken #10

Home Runs Allowed – Single season

Record: 2009 – Braden Looper – 39 home runs allowed

For the sake of the Milwaukee Brewers and all of us fans, let’s hope this record never gets broken.

For some inexplicable reason, the Brewers had Braden Looper start 34 games for them in 2009. He posted a 5.22 ERA and allowed a whopping 39 home runs. I’m surprised he didn’t miss time with a neck strain from all that whiplash of turning around and watching baseballs fly out of the ballpark.

Looper pitched 194.2 innings, had just 100 strikeouts, allowed over 10 hits per nine innings, and gave up 39 homers, and yet he had a 14-7 win-loss record. Keep in mind, Yovani Gallardo had a 3.73 ERA that year, made 30 starts, struck out 204, and yet had a 13-12 win-loss record. If that doesn’t prove to you that a pitcher’s win-loss record is meaningless and stupid, I don’t know what will, but I digress.

The next closest to Looper’s record is Wayne Franklin, who served up 36 long balls in 2003.

Hopefully, no Brewers pitcher will ever approach this record ever again. I don’t think any will, and not just because this current group is so good, but if a pitcher is struggling that bad with home run balls, teams will simply pull them. They won’t be afraid to either demote them or release them or put them in the bullpen or just simply take them off the field for a bit.

The Brewers should’ve simply taken Looper off the field at some point in 2009 but Ken Macha was too busy scratching his butt thinking that’s where his head was to figure it out. But my disdain for Macha is not the point, so again I digress.

Any pitcher that struggles as badly as Looper did with the long ball simply will not be around long enough and will not be allowed to pitch enough to reach Looper’s record.

One example is Corbin Burnes in 2019, He had 17 home runs allowed through 49 IP. Had the Brewers kept him in the rotation for 34 starts and let him throw 194 innings like they did with Looper, it’s quite likely Burnes would’ve surpassed Looper’s record. But, instead, the Brewers did the smart thing and demoted him before simply taking him off the field and fixing what was wrong.

Look at Burnes now, the reigning Cy Young winner. Clearly taking him off the field for a bit helped him fix those home run woes. Looper, meanwhile, was out of baseball after that 2009 season.

Hopefully his record never gets broken and it will stand forever as a reminder of how horrible he and Macha were and that no pitcher should be left out there long enough to allow 39 homers in a single season ever again.

Do you think any of these Brewers franchise records will be broken? Or are there other records that won’t ever be broken?