Over the last three seasons (and four of the last five), one team has sat atop the National League Central, so it’s become almost customary for those who are paying attention to pick this club to be somewhere in and around the leaders. The postseason has not been as kind to them as their fanbase may have liked it to be, but they’ve been contending every season through a mix of strong offseason upgrades and development from within.
This upcoming season however, despite moving forward with some familiar faces, the Milwaukee Brewers are projected to take a step back from a remarkable 2025 that saw them of all teams finish with the best record in baseball.
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2025 record: 97-65 (1st, NL Central)
2026 FanGraphs projection: 81-81 (3rd, NL Central)
By pure wins, the 2025 campaign was the best in Brewers history, as their 97 wins even beat out their 1982 pennant winners and the 2018 squad that took the mighty Dodgers to the brink and lost in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series. In terms of how close these Brewers came to that elusive title though? Well, it’s a different story.
Since that memorable 2018, Milwaukee has struggled to find playoff success though, and it was a breakthrough for now-two-time NL Manager of the Year Pat Murphy that his team won its first playoff series since then last October, topping the division rival Cubs in a five-game NLDS. But they then got thoroughly throttled by the Dodgers in the Championship Series, falling in a sweep. Since then, there have been some changes, and as a result, their projection is far below the results they achieved last year.
The starting rotation has been Milwaukee’s bread and butter for a while now, and over the offseason, they lost arguably the biggest piece of it after trading Freddy Peralta, as he was entering the final year of his contract. He was moved to the Mets along with another pitcher, Tobias Myers. In return, the Brewers received two prospects: right-hander Brandon Sproat infielder Jett Williams. Last season, Peralta finished with a 2.70 ERA, 3.85 xFIP, 204 strikeouts, and 3.6 fWAR in 176.2 innings pitched. He was the rock for a Milwaukee team that had the 10th-best starting pitcher fWAR through 2025. Williams will begin 2026 on the doorstep at Triple-A, but the talented Sproat has made Milwaukee’s rotation, so eyes will be on him from the jump in Peralta’s absence.
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The Brewers also traded away infielder Caleb Durbin—yes, the same former Baby Bomber who was sent to Milwaukee for Devin Williams in December 2024—to the Boston Red Sox in a six-player deal. He finished third in National League Rookie of the Year voting, and it was a somewhat confusing move, as Durbin is set to make the Opening Day roster for Boston. Of course, that’s not a huge factor in why the projections look so low for the Brewers, but it’s certainly an important piece of the offseason puzzle for the team — as was their decision to move on from another player who received Rookie of the Year votes, Isaac Collins, though they at least received a strong reliever for him from Kansas City in Angel Zerpa.
Anyway, why are the projections so low on Milwaukee? Well, it’s more that the projections are nuanced, as some of the value that could be made up in the projected win column will have to be made up by those who haven’t proven themselves fully yet, or those who could be on track to improve in 2026.
The first and most essential player for the Brewers, of course, is in the rotation, and that’s the kid known as The Miz: Jacob Misiorowski.
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The 23-year-old throws hard. He throws a lot, and his arm talent alone is supremely impressive. Last season, the 6-foot-7, 201-pound right-hander was up-and-down with his numbers and performances, though. In 15 games and 66 innings pitched, Misiorowski finished with a 4.36 ERA and 3.66 xFIP with 87 strikeouts and a 1.5 fWAR, signaling that he might need to figure out a few tweaks to hone his craft fully and dominate like his 99.10mph average velocity fastball might indicate.
Another player to watch in the rotation is 33-year-old Brandon Woodruff. In his last two seasons, he has pitched fewer than 70 innings, and since he will again begin the year on the IL, there are questions about what could be next for him. That being said, Milwaukee felt comfortable enough in him to extend a qualifying offer, and since they knew there was a very real chance that he would accept it (which he did), they understood that this was a rare $22M+ commitment for them. If nothing else, it’s a signal of their optimism in him.
Looking at the roster, a few names stand out for Milwaukee as key to reclaiming their NL Central title. Catcher William Contreras is about as solid a backstop as you can find in today’s MLB. In three seasons with the Brewers, he has a 122 OPS+, and his 111 OPS+ last season was easily the lowest of his three years in Milwaukee. However, over the offseason, Contreras had surgery to repair a fractured left middle finger, which he played through almost all of the season with. So, expecting a bounce back from him is certainly not an unreasonable opinion. We’d also be remiss to mention that old friend Gary Sánchez is Contreras’ backup, and it’s always nice to see Gary in the bigs.
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Of course, there’s second baseman Brice Turang, who made his name known last season and played well enough to crack the starting roster for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, where he showed off his bat and excellent defensive skills. And there are other names like 22-year-old Jackson Chourio, who seems to be better at something every time he takes the field, and 25-year-old Sal Frelick, who took another big step in 2025 and tied Contreras for second-highest on the Brewers in fWAR, in the outfield.
And who can forget about Christian Yelich? A player who has not been as lethal as he once was, entering his mid-30s, but someone who can undoubtedly provide juice, presence, and poise to a mostly-young Brewers roster, while still being an above-average player at the plate.
The NL Central will be a fun division to watch, just as it is every year, and even though the projections are down on them, it would hardly be a surprise to see the Brewers back in the mix of things at the top by season’s end. Murphy and Craig Counsell before him made a tradition of helping Milwaukee exceed expectations, and they can certainly do so again.
More Pinstripe Alley MLB team season previews can be found here.