3 times the Brewers should have gone "all-in" at the trade deadline and didn't

Just one week ago today, the Milwaukee Brewers had won ten straight. They were rolling both offensively and defensively, and there was little that anyone could say to criticize the team. However, a lackluster series at home against the red-hot Miami Marlins exposed the holes that exist on the team's current roster. Dating back to their 6-5 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 20, the Brewers have hit just two home runs as a team in their last seven games. That lack of power is concerning for a team with World Series aspirations.

To remedy this deficiency of pop, the Brewers have been rumored to be exploring the trade market for an impact bat who can change a game with one swing at any point. If you've been following along with the Brewers' trade deadline rumors over the past few weeks, it's likely that you are already familiar with the name Eugenio Suárez — the National League's RBI leader who has already slugged 36 homers this season and plays for the selling Arizona Diamondbacks.

Suárez would qualify as a "big deadline acquisition." In fact, he's likely to be the best player traded between now and Thursday. However, the Brewers aren't generally the ones to swing big at the deadline, despite several instances when they should have. Here are three recent years in which the Brewers should have swung big on a deadline acquisition and chose not to.

Brewers might have missed out on potential ace at 2011 deadline

Let's start with 2011. Entering play on July 31, the date of the 2011 MLB Trade Deadline, the Brewers were riding a five-game winning streak and sat 2.5 games above the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Central. It was clear that they had something special.

Then-GM Doug Melvin had already swung a trade earlier in the month to acquire All-Star closer Francisco "K-Rod" Rodriguez from the New York Mets, who the team converted into one of the best set-up men in the game once he arrived in Milwaukee. In that sense, to say that the Brewers didn't "swing big" at the 2011 deadline may be unfair to Melvin and company. Even still, the team missed out on a great shot at a World Series by not tossing all of their chips in at the trade deadline.

See, when the deadline came around, the Brewers made two pretty minor trades, acquiring veteran infielder Jerry Hairston Jr. and re-acquiring another veteran infielder in Felipe López, who the team also traded for at the 2009 deadline. López was practically a non-factor for the Crew in 2011 — he appeared in 16 games and posted a slash line of .182/.245/.182. Hairston, on the other hand, did play an important role for the Brewers down the stretch and admittedly had an incredible postseason in 2011, but trading for a 35-year-old infielder with a career OPS+ of 85 hardly counts as a major acquisition.

Despite the Brewers making the NLCS in 2011, their first championship series since 1982, after a recent article published on ESPN revealed that the Brewers nearly acquired Felix Hernandez, Brewers fans should be left wondering "what could've happened?" in 2011 had that trade come to fruition. In the article, written by Jesse Rogers, it technically doesn't say which year the Brewers almost acquired King Felix, but Brewers fans have deduced that it was more than likely 2011, which is even more heartbreaking considering how the Brewers faltered in the playoffs that year.

In particular, starting pitching let the Brewers down against the Cardinals in the 2011 NLCS. Zack Grienke allowed 8 ER in two starts, Shaun Marcum allowed 9 ER in two starts, Yovani Gallardo gave up 4 ER in his lone NLCS start, and Chris Narveson, a starter pitching in long relief, allowed 6 ER in five innings. Imagine, just imagine, what the Brewers could have done with King Felix in their rotation.

Milwaukee adds at surprise position ahead of the 2014 deadline

2014 is a season that every Brewers fan would love to forget. At the midseason trade deadline, the Crew was 11 games above .500, 2.0 games ahead of the Cardinals for first-place in the NL Central, and looking like a shoo-in to return to the postseason for the first time in three seasons. Then came the second-half slide.

The Crew finished the season with a record of 82-80 and missed the playoffs by 6.0 games. Much (not all) of their performance in the second half can be traced back to what the team did, or more accurately didn't do, at the trade deadline. With holes at first base, in the rotation, and in the bullpen, the Brewers front office went out and traded for outfield depth. They sent then-prospects Mitch Haniger and Anthony Banda to the Diamondbacks in exchange for glove-first outfielder Gerrado Parra.

Parra posted -0.2 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) during the second half of the 2014 season. He did have a really strong first half of 2015 before the Crew traded him at the 2015 deadline, but even still, Parra was not at all what the Brewers needed during the 2014 campaign. What they really needed was a starting pitcher.

Several big-name starting pitchers were moved at the 2014 trade deadline, including David Price, John Lackey, and Jake Peavy. However, who Milwaukee should have traded for, and this is going to hurt Brewers fans, was Jon Lester. Lester was on an expiring contract, posted a 2.82 ERA during the second half after Boston traded him to the Oakland Athletics, and would have added a lefty to a Brewers' rotation that had none.

After Matt Garza went down with an injury on August 5 and rookie Jimmy Nelson struggled to replace him, the Brewers needed another arm in the rotation. Then, both Kyle Lohse and Wily Peralta struggled down the stretch as the Crew dropped out of playoff contention while their perfect trade candidate continued to shine in Oakland.

Lester in a Brewers uniform is hard to imagine, but this is before he joined the North Siders in 2015. Who knows, maybe if the Brewers had traded for him at the 2014 deadline, he never would have ended up in a Chicago Cubs uniform.

Brewers lose out to Dodgers in Manny Machado sweepstakes at 2018 trade deadline

This is another one that is difficult to stomach after the fact, because Manny Machado has turned into an arch-nemesis of the Brewers. However, for a couple of weeks back in 2018, it looked more than likely that Machado would be playing shortstop for the Brew Crew down the stretch.

The Brewers were tied for first place in the NL Central with the Cubs when the 2018 trade deadline rolled around. Despite trading for Mike Moustakas on July 27, giving up Brett Phillips and Jorge Lopez in the deal, they still had a hole at shortstop, where Orlando Arcia held a brutal .482 OPS. Meanwhile, earlier in the month, the Brewers and Dodgers had gotten into a bidding war for the Baltimore Orioles' prized shortstop, Machado. On July 18, the Dodgers won out and added Machado to their roster.

The Brewers weren't willing to part with the prospect capital that the Dodgers were, which, to be fair, was a considerable haul of talent. As a sort of consolation prize, Milwaukee ended up with Baltimore's second baseman, Jonathan Schoop, who they envisioned would play shortstop — but that didn't work out.

This isn't to say that Moustakas wasn't a major addition to the 2018 Brewers; he was. The former World Series champion hit 8 HR, posted a 104 OPS+, and walked-off the Brewers’ first game of the 2018 postseason. That said, the team still didn't swing as big as they could have, and Machado was a tier above.

Machado posted 2.6 WAR for the Dodgers in the 66 games that he played for them in 2018, while slugging 13 HR and 14 doubles. Not only that, but he played an integral role in the Dodgers’ NLCS win over the Brewers, posting an .811 OPS with a HR and 3 RBI.

Hindsight is 20/20, and it's very easy to criticize the Brewers’ moves at these three deadlines after the fact, especially when you ignore the prospect capital that it would've taken for the team to land any of the three big names listed above. However, if these seasons are any indication, sometimes one big move can make the difference, as it likely would have in both 2011 and 2018. And if the Brewers want to avoid the unbearable fate that they suffered back in 2014, they may need to think big over the next four days.