The Brewers didn’t just win a championship. They put together one of the cleanest postseason runs baseball has ever seen.
Milwaukee’s title path ended with an 11-2 postseason record, a mark that lands among the most dominant World Series runs in MLB history. For a club with a middling payroll and a roster built with an unbelievable amount of creativity, that kind of finish only adds to the feel-good angle. But the numbers show this was much more than a charming upset story.
Only two teams in the three-round postseason era finished with a better record: the 2005 White Sox and the 1999 Yankees, each going 11-1 on the way to the championship. The Brewers sit right behind them, tied with the 2022 Astros and the 1998 Yankees at 11-2.
That’s a rare class to join, especially in the modern playoff format. Once the division series was added, a perfect postseason became impossible to sustain through three rounds.
No club has managed to win every game since then, and Milwaukee came painfully close to joining that truly exclusive group. If not for the 12-inning loss in Game 4 against the Rays, the Brewers would have been sitting in an even smaller club.
Their two defeats were both one-run losses, and everything else was ruthlessly efficient. The first came in the NLDS, a 4-3 Padres win in Game 3.
The other was the 12-inning, 4-3 loss to the Rays in Game 4 of the World Series. Outside of those games, Milwaukee was spotless, and the Fall Classic alone featured a 25-12 run differential.
The postseason road was short on blemishes and long on control. After sweeping the NLCS and then taking the World Series in five games, the Brewers finished the job with a 103-win season and a championship run that will live near the top of baseball history’s most dominant lists.
In Other News...
Rays Face One Big Offseason Question After Their World Series Run
A deep postseason run has a way of sharpening the Rays winter priorities, and this one points straight at the kind of move Tampa Bay usually likes to make. The front office has been linked to trade possibilities that could strengthen both the lineup and the rotation, with the appeal centered on players who come with multiple years of team control rather than short-term fixes.
The challenge, of course, is fitting the right piece into a roster that already has its own financial and positional puzzles. Any meaningful upgrade would likely require Tampa Bay to give up real value in return, and the Rays will have to decide how aggressively they want to chase help while balancing the cost, the control, and the long view that has defined so many of their biggest decisions. [Read more 🡒]
Rays Face An Offseason Rotation Decision They May Not Avoid
The Rays are heading into the offseason with a familiar kind of pitching puzzle, only this one may be harder to solve than usual. After a season that again leaned heavily on run prevention, Tampa Bay has to sort through a rotation picture that already includes some arms under contract while two more starters are moving toward free agency, forcing the front office to weigh whether the current group can be held together or needs a broader reset.
What makes the decision more pressing is the state of the pipeline behind them. The minor league depth does not look especially robust right now, which leaves the Rays with fewer easy internal answers if they want to stay flexible and competitive. That could push them toward the trade market or the free-agent pool as they try to shore up the rotation, and it also leaves open the possibility that some of the names already in the organization become part of the conversation in ways that are not always comfortable this time of year. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Lose Another Piece Of Their Depth As Roster Churn Continues
The churn at the back end of a roster never really stops this time of year, and the Rays have seen another familiar name move on. Oliver Dunn, who got a brief look in the majors before being outrighted off Tampa Bays 40-man roster in September, has elected minor league free agency, a procedural but meaningful step for a player trying to reset his path after a short stay on the big-league roster.
Thomas Pannone is in the same boat after his limited run with Milwaukee this season, parting ways with the Brewers organization by choosing free agency as well. For teams like the Rays, these moves are part of the constant roster churn that comes with trying to keep depth intact, and for the players involved it opens the door to a new landing spot while leaving their next step unresolved. [Read more 🡒]