MILWAUKEE — The defending NL Central champion Milwaukee Brewers say their unfamiliar status as preseason division favorites shouldn’t impact their approach.
“My mindset is that that doesn’t help us in any way,” manager Craig Counsell said Wednesday. “If you could tell me how it did, I would use it, but that doesn’t help you in any way.”
As a few of their division rivals lost notable players, the Brewers kept the nucleus of a team that won 95 games a year ago. They believe they have a roster capable of making franchise history by winning a second straight divisional title and competing for their first World Series appearance since 1982.
“We know how good we can be,” second baseman Kolten Wong said. “We know the talent we have in that lineup and really haven’t seen it all together. There’s definitely some excitement about that collectively throughout the team. We’re just ready to go.”
The Hilo native played in a World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals in his first year in the majors, 2013, but he hasn’t been back since, advancing to NL Championship Series in 2014 and ‘19 with the Cardinals.
In his debut season with the Brewers in 2021, Wong hit .272 (.335 on-base percentage/.782 OPS), with 14 home runs and 50 RBIs and 48 extra-base hits. In the NL Division Series, the Braves, the eventual World Series champions, ended Milwaukee’s season 3-1 in a best-of-five series.
“Not the finish we wanted,” Wong told KHON. “This team has a chip on its shoulder.”
For Wong – who, according to KHON, is 32 games away from becoming the fourth player with Hawaii ties to play in 1,000 big league career games (Mike Lum, Kurt Suzuki and Shane Victorino) – only a world championship will take the chip off his shoulder.
“It’s the only goal at this point,” he said. “I’ve kind of done my time in Major League Baseball. Now I just want to get back to that point. If I can get back, that would be the icing on the cake for me.
“That would be cool to bring a World Series trophy back to Hawaii.”
Heading into Milwaukee’s season opener Thursday with the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, the Brewers’ division looks quite a bit different than it did this time a year ago.
The Cubs traded Javy Baez, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo at the trade deadline last year. The Cincinnati Reds traded Jesse Winker, Eugenio Suarez and Sonny Gray and lost Nick Castellanos to free agency. The Pittsburgh Pirates are coming off a 101-loss season.
That leaves the St. Louis Cardinals as the Brewers’ most imposing division rival heading into the season. The Cardinals fired manager Mike Shildt and replaced him with Oliver Marmol after going 90-72 and losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a wild-card game last season.
The closest the Brewers have come to winning back-to-back division championships was in 1981-82. The 1981 team won the AL East second-half title and had the division’s best overall record when a strike that year resulted in a split-season format, but they lost to the first-half champion New York Yankees in the playoffs.
“I feel like the mentality of this year is just being in the present, forget about the future and just be the best version of yourself every day,” shortstop Willy Adames said.
Milwaukee has reached the playoffs each of the last four years. Before this streak, the Brewers had made a total of just four postseason appearances in the history of a franchise that launched in 1969 as the Seattle Pilots.
There’s plenty of reason to think this team can make it five straight.
Reigning Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes and fellow All-Stars Brandon Woodruff and Freddy Peralta head a rotation that ranks among baseball’s best. The Brewers also have one of the game’s top closers in three-time All-Star Josh Hader. The Brewers are confident the additions of 2013 NL MVP Andrew McCutchen and Hunter Renfroe can boost a lineup that struggled with consistency last year, though a bounce-back season from 2018 NL MVP Christian Yelich also would help.
“Our pitching staff, it’s one of the tops in baseball,” Wong said. “Then you look at the guys round the diamond, it’s pretty impressive.”
McCutchen said the Brewers’ recent success played a major role in his decision to come to Milwaukee. While speaking at a news conference Wednesday, McCutchen noted that his legs were shaking as he sat at a table because he was so excited about the upcoming season.
“With the amount of talent we have up and down the order, if guys go out and they can be themselves, I think the sky’s the limit for our team,” McCutchen said.
