The Milwaukee Brewers have quietly built one of the most impressive outfield handoffs in baseball, and Jackson Chourio is the latest name to grab the baton.
That’s the thread running through a stretch that began when Ryan Braun debuted on May 25, 2007. Before Braun arrived, Milwaukee had gone 25 seasons without a playoff berth, from 1983 to 2007. Since then, the Brewers have turned into a steady October presence: 10 playoff appearances including 2008, three trips to the NLCS, and six NL Central titles, with a seventh soon to follow.
Braun helped light the fuse, but Christian Yelich became the face of the next wave. Milwaukee traded for him before the 2018 season, and he immediately helped push the Brewers back to the postseason for the first time since 2011. That year, Yelich won NL MVP while sharing the outfield with Braun, who had captured the same award seven years earlier, the last time the Brewers reached the NLCS in 2011.
Braun and Yelich played together through the shortened 2020 season, and after Braun retired following a record-breaking 14-year career, the next corner-outfield star was already on the way. Four years later, 20-year-old Jackson Chourio entered the picture. Just as Yelich and Braun had worked opposite one another in the corners during 2018-2020, Chourio lined up across from Yelich in his rookie season while Yelich opened his age-32 campaign.
Now the baton seems to be moving again. Yelich is still productive and remains under contract through the 2028 season, but Chourio is clearly becoming the Brewers’ featured outfield force. That development has drawn attention from MLB Network analyst and Team USA manager Mark DeRosa.
Chourio still hasn’t made an All-Star Game, but the résumé is already starting to pile up. At 22, he has three 20-plus homer seasons and 4.4 bWAR so far in the 2026 campaign. With that kind of production, MVP chatter doesn’t feel far-fetched at all.
What makes Milwaukee’s run even more striking is how the organization has done it in baseball’s smallest market. The Brewers can’t just go shopping for stars the way some clubs can.
They’ve had to draft them like Braun, trade for them near the edge of a breakout like Yelich, or sign and develop them from the international market like Chourio. That’s a tougher path than the one available in places like Los Angeles, where stars seem to end up without much convincing.
The result has been a sustained Golden Age for the Brewers, even if the biggest prize still hasn’t come. Braun and Yelich got Milwaukee to Game 7 of the NLCS in 2018, but they couldn’t finish the job. Now the hope is that Chourio’s rise, paired with a late-career resurgence from Yelich, can be the combination that finally pushes the Brewers all the way through.
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Brewers Suddenly Face A Lineup Problem That Could Matter In October
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Jake Bauers and Andrew Vaughn have been part of the problem at first base, and that is where the tension begins for a contender trying to stay balanced deep into the summer. Milwaukee can still win plenty of games with its current profile, but the defensive dip raises the kind of lineup question that can linger into October, when every extra out matters and the Brewers may have to decide how much offense they can afford in exchange for cleaner defense. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Are One Night Away From A Division Celebration
The Brewers are putting themselves in position for a division celebration, with one win over the Pirates and one Cubs loss to the Braves enough to lock up the National League Central. Milwaukee already has a playoff spot in hand and still owns the best record in the division and in the National League, so this is less about getting to October than about deciding how soon they can make the next step official.
Jacob Misiorowski gets the start in a game that could carry extra weight beyond the usual September stakes, especially with Milwaukee's magic number down to two. The Brewers do not need everything to break their way on one night, but the combination of their own performance and a result elsewhere has them close enough to feel the pressure building with every inning. [Read more 🡒]