The Milwaukee Brewers just sent a loud message in the NLCS: the biggest payroll doesn’t guarantee the biggest finish.
Milwaukee, one of the lower-spending clubs in Major League Baseball, knocked off the Los Angeles Dodgers in a dominant series win, wrapping things up with a Game 4 victory after jumping out to a 3-0 lead. That closed the door on the two-time defending World Series champions and sent the Brewers on to the World Series.
On paper, this was supposed to be a mismatch. According to spotrac.com, the Dodgers sat second in MLB behind only the New York Mets with a $339,319,244 payroll this season.
The Mets were first at $346 million. Milwaukee, meanwhile, ranked 19th at $146,206,320.
That gap was obvious when the rosters were laid out. The Brewers are spending $26 million on Christian Yelich, and no other Milwaukee player is making more than that this season. In fact, no one else on the club is above $10 million in adjusted payroll this year.
Dustin May and Antonio Senzatela are listed as eight-figure salaries too, but both were acquired mid-season and don’t have their full contracts on the Brewers’ books. Milwaukee also has Brandon Woodruff at $22 million on the injured list, though the roster is still built largely around players making under $10 million a year.
The Dodgers’ price tag looks very different. Kyle Tucker, Tyler Glasnow, Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Teoscar Hernandez, Edwin Diaz, Will Smith, Tanner Scott, Max Muncy, and Tommy Edman are all making north of $10 million this season.
But the money never decided this series. Milwaukee was the better team when it counted most, and the Dodgers’ run at a three-peat ended at the hands of a club built very differently.
The Brewers’ NLCS win drives home the same point in the clearest way possible: payroll alone doesn’t win October. The players on the field do.
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