Five Stories That Defined A Frustrating Season

With the reigning Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes, two other aces in Brandon Woodruff and Freddy Peralta anchoring the starting rotation and Devin Williams and Josh Hader sitting in the bullpen waiting to lock down victories, the Brewers seemed like a lock to advance to the playoffs for a franchise-record fifth consecutive season.

Instead, the Brewers watched the postseason from the comfort of their own homes after a late-season slide left Milwaukee 86-76 and one game back of the eventual NL Champion Philadelphia Phillies for the third and final NL Wild Card spot.

As 2022 comes to a close, here’s a look back at the stories that shaped a frustrating season and a reason for optimism and the calendar flips to 2023.

Deadline Disaster

The Brewers were riding high heading into Major League Baseball’s trade deadline. After dropping eight of their last 11 before the All-Star break, Milwaukee won seven of eight to start the second half but still held a three-game lead over the rest of the division following a 7-2 loss at Boston on July 31.

Everything changed the next day when All-Star closer Josh Hader was dealt to San Diego for four players, left-handed closer Taylor Rogers, minor leaguers Esteury Ruiz and Robert Gasser, as well right-handed pitcher Dinelson Lamet, who’d be designate for assignment before throwing a single pitch for Milwaukee.

The move caused immediate uproar not just among fans, but also in the clubhouse where some players openly question management’s moves — especially when nothing was done to address a struggling offense.

After the season, Stearns defended the decision to deal Hader — who is set to earn well more than $10 million in arbitration this winter — but admitted that the deal impacted the team more than he expected.

“It had a more pronounced impact than I thought it would at the time, and the surrounding moves didn’t adequately fortify the team in Josh’s absence,” Stearns said during his annual end-of-season press conference.

Stearns Steps Down

Most players were probably still unpacking when Stearns announced he was stepping down as the Brewers’ President of Baseball Operations and into an advisory role while his longtime lieutenant, general manager Matt Arnold, would take over Milwaukee’s front office.

Stearns oversaw a rebuilding process that turned the Brewers from a 94-loss team in 2015 to one that made the playoffs in four consecutive seasons, a stretch that included two NL Central Division titles and saw the team get within a game of its first World Series since 1982.

Despite persistent rumors that tied him to the New York Mets, Stearns plans to spend the final year of his contract in Milwaukee where he will serve in an advisory role to Arnold, CEO Rick Schlesigner, COO Marty Wronski and owner Mark Attanasio.

Roster Shakeup

The Brewers weren’t expected to be major players for the top-name free agents this winter and as of New Year’s Eve, have yet to sign a single Major League free agent but Arnold has been busy since taking over for Stearns as he tries to shape the 2023 roster.

Three major trades have highlighted Milwaukee’s offseason so far: first, Arnold shipped outfielder Hunter Renfroe — the Brewers’ top offensive performer last season — to the Angels for three pitchers, a move that ostensibly clears the way for some of the Brewers’ highly-touted outfield prospects to get some big-league playing time.

Then, Arnold shipped second baseman Kolten Wong, whose $10 million team option for 2023 was picked up just a few weeks earlier, to Seattle for slugging outfielder/designated hitter Jesse Winker and infielder Abraham Toro.

Arnold’s biggest move, however, came in mid-December. After coming home from baseball’s Winter Meetings with little more than a Rule 5 Draft Pick to show for it, Arnold addressed Milwaukee’s biggest position of need by acquiring All-Star catcher William Contreras, a 25-year-old with multiple seasons of team control remaining, plus two relief pitchers in a three-team trade with the Athletics and Braves that only cost Milwaukee it’s eighth-ranked minor league prospect, the aforementioned Ruiz.

Promising Prospects

The news wasn’t all bad for the Brewers in 2022, especially at the minor-league level where a handful of talented young players had breakout seasons and will be in the mix for spots on the big-league roster when Spring Training gets underway in February.

Garrett Mitchell was the first to earn a call-up and the 2020 first-round pick lived up to his billing as an exciting, athletic player by slashing .312/.373/.459 with two home runs, eight stolen bases and an .832 OPS in 28 games.

Sal Frelick and Joey Wiemer, who shared the outfield with Mitchell at Triple-A Nashville also produced impressive seasons in 2022 but few players in all of baseball had a year like Jackson Chourio who at just 18 years old and in his first full season of professional baseball slashed .288/.342/.538 with 20 home runs, 75 RBIs and an .897 OPS in 99 games for Milwaukee’s Low A, High A and Double-A affiliates.

Chourio is currently the Brewers’ top prospect according to MLBPipeline.com, which also ranks him as the 10th overall prospect in all of baseball heading into 2020 and while he’s still very young — he doesn’t turn 19 until March — Brewers manager Craig Counsell isn’t ruling out the possibility that Chourio could get called up at some point next season.

“I don’t know why [not],” Counsell said during the Winter Meetings. “I think he did so much that why would you say you’re not open to it?”