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Milwaukee Brewers: What is David Stearns' Legacy?

By Tyler Schickert |
David Stearns
David Stearns / Dylan Buell/GettyImages
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Imagine this, it's September 2015, the Milwaukee Brewers are about to finish a sub .500 season that saw Manager Ron Roenicke fired after a 4-17 start and the reigns turned to Craig Counsell, a former Milwaukee Brewers player who had been working in the front office for a few years.

Then comes an announcement that the Brewers have hired a new General Manager, David Stearns, who would be taking over for Doug Melvin. Stearns was just 30 at the time of his hiring in 2015, was a Harvard graduate and had made stops in Cleveland and Houston before taking the reigns in Milwaukee. 

The Milwaukee Brewers were 63-86 on the day Stearns was hired and had suffered through three consecutive average-at-best seasons after a trip to the NLCS in 2011. In 2012 the Brewers won 83 games, in 2013 just 74, and in 2014, 82. They were essentially treading water as a franchise, having made the playoffs just two times in the last generation and reminiscing on the 1982 Brewers for their closeness to winning a world series.

But a new legacy was about to begin with the hiring of Brewers General Manager David Stearns.

Baseball in Wisconsin was essentially just a fun way to get out of the house in the summer, do some tailgating, and enjoy some stadium food while being content with the fact that the Brewers may have less than a 50/50 shot at winning that day. 

The David Stearns hiring, though, represented a shift in mindset of the front office of the Milwaukee Brewer, to finding more minor league talent, developing it, and making timely trades when possible. While some were obviously better than others, let's take a look at what David Stearns' legacy is for the Milwaukee Brewers. 

Josh Hader
Josh Hader / John Fisher/GettyImages

David Stearns' Legacy with the Milwaukee Brewers: The bad 

For those who just remember recent events, David Stearns' written legacy with the Brewers might have a stain on the cover as if someone bit into an overfilled jelly doughnut over it just before turning in the final draft, that stain of course being the trade of Josh Hader to the San Diego Padres. Thankfully, the list of moves that didn't work out for David Stearns is actually pretty short for the six years he was in control of the team. But let's get the bad news out of the way first.

Obviously, the Josh Hader trade still has the ears of Milwaukee fans ringing everywhere, wondering if the prospects received will pan out to make this trade somewhat worthwhile. Designating the newly acquired Dinelson Lamet for assignment didn't help the case of the trade, which will definitely go down as one of Stearns' worst moves as the President of Baseball Operations. 

Also in 2022 was the acquisition of Trevor Rosenthal, a somewhat desperate attempt to aid the back end of the Brewers bullpen that was wildly inconsistent in the post-Hader trade months. Rosenthal was acquired for Tristan Peters, a prospect who had made some noise in AA, and Rosenthal never donned a Milwaukee jersey, thus the Brewers never got to find out if he could have assisted the bullpen. 

Going back to the 2020 season, Stearns signed Justin Smoak, a player who had an up and down batting average but had hit double digit home runs in seven of the previous eight seasons, to be their first baseman. The 2020 season ended up being one for the history books, not in a good way, and the pandemic shortened season was not kind to Smoak.

In 2020, Smoak batted just .186, had an on base percentage of just .262 (not the Milwaukee area code one would like to see emulated by a baseball player) and five home runs in 33 games. Smoak was eventually released by the Brewers, picked up by the San Francisco Giants, played three games and was released again. He has not played in Major League Baseball since.

The final big stain on the resume of David Stearns' legacy with the Milwaukee Brewers goes back to the magical 2018 season. 2018 was a wonderful year for the Brewers: contention in the NL Central, winning game 163 over the Chicago Cubs to win the division, and going to the playoffs for the first time since 2011.

But with all the good moves he made to bolster the team that season, Stearns also made a questionable one when he acquired Jonathon Schoop, a 2017 All-Star to the team from the Baltimore Orioles for Jonathon Villar, Luis Ortiz and Jean Carmona. 

Schoop did not work out well for the Brewers. Over the final 46 games of the season, Schoop batted .202, had an on base percentage of .246, lower than that which got Justin Smoak released in 2020, and hit just four home runs as a Brewer despite having hit 17 as a Baltimore Oriole in 2018. In eight postseason at bats for the Brewers in 2018, Schoop did not get on base one time. 

Thankfully that ends the worst of the worst moves in David Stearns' legacy and we can shift to the good and great moves David Stearns made. 

David Stearns and Craig Counsell
David Stearns and Craig Counsell / Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

David Stearns' legacy with the Milwaukee Brewers: the good and the great 

Despite a sour 2022 trade deadline, when checking the receipts of the transactions conducted by Stearns as the head of the Brewers, he has made some of the best moves in the history of the Milwaukee franchise, and the list of good and great moves far, far outpaces the bad ones. 

Beginning with the starting rotation, sticking with Corbin Burnes despite a very rough 2019 season has to be at the top of the list of "thank your lucky stars that Stearns didn't trade this guy" moves that were never made. Burnes obviously bounced back and has now won a Cy Young award and is one of the best pitchers in all of baseball. 

Freddy Peralta is another player Brewers fans have Stearns to thank for. Peralta was acquired as part of a package from the Seattle Mariners for first baseman Adam Lind. Imagine how good this year's Mariners team would be with Peralta still on it instead of the ghost of Adam Lind. To make matters better, Stearns also happened to lock up Peralta through the 2025 season on a very team friendly deal. 

Another sneaky aspect of David Stearns' wizardry was getting out some of the last bits of performance from some aging pitchers, something his predecessor attempted with players like Kyle Lohse, Jeff Suppan and Matt Garza but was unsuccessful. Stearns had far more success with players like Brett Anderson, Jhoulys Chacin, Wade Miley and Gio Gonzalez. 

Stearns is responsible for the Zach Davies and Trent Grisham for Luis Urias and Eric Lauer trade, a move that has not only benefitted the starting rotation but also the defense on the infield with the glove of Urias who is developing into a useful utility player for the Brewers with his ability to play three infield positions. 

Speaking of position players, the 2018 trade for Mike Moustakas trade worked out rather well for the Brewers. Moustakas quickly became a fan favorite and it takes just a second to remember hearing, "MOOOOOOOSE," booming from the inside of then Miller Park every time he came up to bat. 

An underrated signing of Stearns' legacy was the one year deal to Yasmani Grandal in 2019. Grandal gave the Brewers some catcher stability they needed after cycling through some long tenured veterans like Stephen Vogt and Erik Kratz previously. "Yaz" hit 28 home runs as a Brewer, his career high still to this day, and was an All-Star. 

Arguably one of the greatest moves David Stearns' has made is turning Drew Rasmussen and JP Feyereisen into Willy Adames and Trevor Richards, then flipping Richards to the Blue Jays for Rowdy Tellez, a much better first baseman acquisition from the Blue Jays than the one on the previous slide.

Tellez and Adames battled back and forth for the team lead in home runs in 2022 with Willy eventually winning and setting the franchise record for home runs as a shortstop, breaking the record previously held by the legendary Robin Yount. That's even more impressive when you consider that an injury kept Willy Adames out for almost a month of the season! 

Another wizard like move by Stearns was getting out of a disastrous Jackie Bradley Jr. contract by attaching a couple prospects and getting Hunter Renfroe in return. Renfroe was one of, if not the best, Brewer outfielders last season. 

Speaking of great Brewers outfielders, the David Stearns' legacy would not be complete without the move that turned this franchise into a contender, the day in 2018 when Lorenzo Cain signed with the Brewers and Christian Yelich was acquired from the Marlins. That day could be stamped as the one that turned baseball in Milwaukee from a summer activity to a sport that could bring the city a championship. 

Top all of that off with the stable of prospects coming up in the near future, players like Garrett Mitchell, who we got to see for a bit in 2022, Sal Frelick, Joey Wiemer, Jackson Chourio and many more. 

David Stearns' legacy with the Milwaukee Brewers: final thoughts. 

David Stearns' legacy, while tarnished by the Hader trade, has to be one of the brightest spots in the 52-year history of the Milwaukee Brewers. We are in an age of Brewers baseball where we expect the Brewers to be in the playoffs, not celebrate just getting in because it hasn't happened in years.

Four consecutive playoff appearances is something Brewers fans of this day and age would not have imagined possible when Stearns took over in 2015. He has truly ushered in a new era of baseball in Milwaukee while even on a significantly smaller payroll than teams like the Mets, Yankees, Dodgers and Phillies. 

David Stearns' legacy in Milwaukee has taken us from happy to make the playoffs, to expecting to be in them, make a deep run and now contend for a World Series. 

For that, we thank you David Stearns. 

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