Milwaukee Brewers: building a champion

The Milwaukee Brewers have received more value out of their trade acquisitions and free agent signings than any of the other postseason teams.

Major league baseball teams, more than anything else, need players. Without them, they couldn’t play any games. They would have to forfeit every game and that wouldn’t be any fun at all for the fans. Players are an absolute must, even more important than beer, brats, and nachos.

While every team needs players to play the games, where each MLB team gets their players is a matter of preference. It’s a variable they control, unlike the umpire’s strike zone or the weather or the philosophical unpredictability of the yet to be. There are four main pipelines for major league talent, plus a couple of lesser-used means of acquisition.

Teams can draft and develop their own players. They can sign young, foreign players as amateur free agents. They can sign established major league players as free agents. They can make trades to acquire new players. If all else fails, they can go the lesser-used route and acquire players through waivers or outright purchasing said players.

With four teams still vying for the 2018 World Series trophy, I thought it would be interesting to look at how each of these four teams acquired the players on their 25-man League Championship Series roster and how much value those players have contributed this season. First up are the Milwaukee Brewers.

You may think a small-market team like the Brewers would use the tried-and-true, draft-and-develop method to build a roster, but that is decidedly not the case. Just three players on the Brewers’ LCS roster were drafted by the team and they accounted for just five percent of the total WAR among these 25 players during the regular season.

More than any other team in this postseason, the Brewers’ current roster is the product of successful trades. One of the keys to their successful run to the NL Central title and their continued success in the postseason has been their bullpen. The key players in said bullpen are largely the result of trades. This includes Josh Hader, Jeremy Jeffress, Corey Knebel, Joakim Soria, Freddy Peralta and Xavier Cedeno.

In fact, 60 percent of the Brewers’ 25-man NLCS roster came to the organization by way of the trade and those players have contributed 57 percent of the Wins Above Replacement (WAR, per Baseball-Reference) that these 25 players accrued in their time with the Brewers during the regular season. This is tops among the four remaining playoff teams. The next-closest teams are the Dodgers and Red Sox, with 37 percent of their team WAR coming through trades.

Along with their lockdown bullpen, outfielder and NL MVP candidate Christian Yelich was a trade acquisition, as were Mike Moustakas, Travis Shaw and folk hero Erik Kratz. Four of the five most valuable players on the Brewers this season came to the team in trades and seven of the 25 players on their NLCS roster were acquired during the 2018 season, most of them in July or August.

Here’s the Brewers’ breakdown for the number of players acquired through the different pathways:

• Acquired through trade: 15 players (60%)
• Signed as free agents: 4 players (16%)
• Drafted and developed: 3 players (12%)
• Acquired through waivers: 2 players (8%)
• Signed as an international free agent: 1 player (4%)

Here’s the Brewers’ breakdown for value accrued by these players:

• Acquired through trade: 57% of total WAR
• Signed as free agents: 30% of total WAR
• Drafted and developed: 5% of total WAR
• Acquired through waivers: 8% of total WAR
• Signed as an international free agent: 0% of total WAR

Let’s look at those different categories in more detail.