MILWAUKEE \u2014 The Milwaukee Brewers are the Cincinnati Reds\u2019 worst nightmare.<\/p>\n
Cincinnati is 13.5 games behind Milwaukee in the NL Central standings. The Reds have lost all five games against the Brewers this year, and 32 of their last 44 games against Milwaukee. While the Reds haven\u2019t won the division since 2012, the Brewers won the division in 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025 and are working on another NL Central title in 2026 <\/p>\n
The Brewers, a fellow small-market team, are much better than Reds in several areas. <\/p>\n
Uncomfortable trades, and incredible follow-ups<\/p>\n
When people go on a skydiving for the first time, they\u2019re typically pretty nervous. But when you\u2019ve done it before, know what to expect and understand that it will all work out in the end, it\u2019s easier to jumpstep out of that plane.<\/p>\n
The Brewers have been making uncomfortable trades for years. During this run of success over the last five years, they\u2019ve traded five former All-Stars (Peralta, Burnes, Devin Williams and Josh Hader). <\/p>\n
Initially, the Brewers were panned for those trades. But now, the Brewers have earned the trust that these trades should work out for them in the end. <\/p>\n
While Joey Ortiz and DL Hall haven\u2019t become standout players yet, the Brewers did land a starting third baseman and a setup reliever for Burnes. Brandon Sproat, who allowed two runs in 5 \u2153 innings against the Reds on Tuesday and through six shutout innings against Cincinnati last week, still isn\u2019t an established big leaguer. But he\u2019s a promising back of the rotation starter who the Brewers acquired for one year of Peralta (he has a 4.53 ERA this year in New York). <\/p>\n
These types of trades have kept the Brewers young and kept the Brewers deep. <\/p>\n
The follow-ups have been even more impressive. The Brewers acquired prospect Estreuy Ruiz in the Hader deal and later flipped Ruiz to acquire star catcher William Contreras. They acquired Caleb Durbin in the Williams trade, and then flipped him for three contributors including a potential All-Star starting pitcher in Kyle Harrison. <\/p>\n
Another fun trade the Brewers executed was dealing a competitive balance pick and a couple of middle-tier prospects to the Red Sox last year for starting pitcher Quinn Priester, who was terrific in 2025 (he\u2019s out for this entire season due to an injury). <\/p>\n
In comparison to the Brewers, the Reds\u2019 trades have been pretty boring. Spencer Steer, Noelvi Marte and Edwin Arroyo were acquired in the 2022 rebuild. Sam Moll was a minor deadline addition who filled a role after a 2023 trade. Ke\u2019Bryan Hayes was supposed to fill a role after the Reds tried to fill a need at third base in 2025, and that trade hasn\u2019t worked out. <\/p>\n
The one \u201cfun\u201d trade that the Reds have made recently was the Jonathan India for Brady Singer swap, which has turned out to be a win for the Reds. The Reds need to take more chances on less traditional deals where they swap players of value, which is an approach that has worked so well for the Brewers. <\/p>\n
If they\u2019re not in the race, the Reds also need to be more willing to trade their best players.<\/p>\n
If the Reds don\u2019t go on a run in July and end up selling at the deadline, the No. 1 question is whether or not they\u2019d be willing to make an uncomfortable trade and trade one of their established good players who has multiple years of team control. <\/p>\n
It takes complete organizational buy-in to finalize a trade like that. Because the Brewers have done it before, it\u2019s easier to generate belief and confidence around those trades. <\/p>\n
If the Reds don\u2019t turn things around, then they probably should take a risk and make one of those types of moves. <\/p>\n
Is that something that they\u2019re willing to do?<\/p>\n
International scouting<\/p>\n
This might be the Brewers\u2019 single biggest advantage over the Reds.<\/p>\n
In 2022, Nick Krall said that in international free agency, the Reds ranked 30th in the production of their international free agents over a ten year period. The one success since then from that era of Reds international scouting was Elly De La Cruz who came out of nowhere by growing and developing unexpectedly during the pandemic. <\/p>\n
The Reds overhauled their approach in international free agency around the turn of the decade, prioritizing younger and more athletic players and turning to new leadership (senior director of international scouting Trey Hendricks) to run the team\u2019s program. <\/p>\n
They\u2019ve made changes to address this issue, and their international scouting system has improved. Alfredo Duno, Carlos Sanchez and Carlos Jorge are three of the best prospects going in their farm system right now. H\u00e9ctor Rodr\u00edguez was acquired via trade in 2022, but he was an 18-year-old at the time of the trade and the Reds tapped into their knowledge in the Dominican Republic to evaluate him. <\/p>\n
It can take a decade to really turn around your international scouting system based on how the system really works. Here\u2019s a piece of an ESPN story about this issue: \u201cEven though players aren\u2019t allowed to sign until they\u2019re 16, teams start scouting them as young as 10 and 11 and come to early deals.\u201d <\/p>\n
If you\u2019re scouting young teenagers, then you\u2019re really not getting any payoff at the big league level for another 10 years. <\/p>\n
The Reds need an outfielder like Jackson Chourio, a 22-year-old from Venezuela who\u2019s one of the best all-around talents in the game and is a Brewers\u2019 cornerstone. Abner Uribe is an international free agent who\u2019s now a lock down setup reliever in an elite bullpen in Milwaukee. <\/p>\n
According to ESPN, the Brewers have the best farm system in all of baseball. That farm system is led by top prospects from the international market, including Jesus Made, Luis Lara and Luis Pena. According to MLB Pipeline, Made is the best prospect in baseball, Pena ranks 19th and Lara is in the top-70. <\/p>\n
The franchise pillar<\/p>\n
Last year, Brewers manager Pat Murphy said about Christian Yelich, \u201cIf the fans knew how much responsibility he feels and the way he handles it, if they knew how special this guy is, he\u2019d get a standing ovation every time out. He\u2019s the right dude. He\u2019s just perfect for those guys in there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Reds have a good clubhouse with good leadership. But since Joey Votto retired, the Reds haven\u2019t had a veteran superstar right in the middle of the clubhouse who\u2019s setting a perfect example and backing it up with All-Star caliber play. The way the Reds are built, their best players are young, and their veteran leaders are role players. <\/p>\n
The Brewers have Yelich, and they also have 10-year veteran Brandon Woodruff. Those guys are the heart and soul of the Brewers. <\/p>\n
Bullpen stars out of the blue<\/p>\n
Between 2023 and 2025, the Brewers\u2019 bullpen wasn\u2019t that much better than the Reds\u2019 bullpen. The Brewers\u2019 bullpen ranked fourth in WAR, and the Reds\u2019 bullpen ranked eighth. <\/p>\n
The Reds saw Alexis D\u00edaz come out of nowhere and develop into an All-Star closer, and Tony Santillan went from being DFAd to pitching at an All-Star level in 2025. <\/p>\n
But in 2026, that well ran dry for the Reds while the Brewers maintained one of the best bullpens in baseball. <\/p>\n
Star closer Trevor Megill was acquired for a player to be named later, setup reliever Jared Koenig spent time in Indy ball before making it in the big leagues and setup reliever Aaron Ashby was a fourth-round pick. The Brewers\u2019 pipeline has continued to produce elite relief pitching while the Reds had a class of rookie relievers this year that flopped in the big leagues. <\/p>\n
Inefficient spending <\/p>\n
While it works against the Brewers that they don\u2019t take many swings in free agency (their backup catcher is the only big league free agent signing on their roster right now), the Reds are paying Jeimer Candelario ($15 million, not on the team anymore), Ke\u2019Bryan Hayes ($7 million, -.2 WAR), Jose Trevino ($5.25 million, 0.0 WAR) and Eugenio Su\u00e1rez ($15 million, -.7 WAR). <\/p>\n
The Brewers have been investing a lot more of their cash into long-term extensions with young players. They haven\u2019t even reaped the benefits yet of the extra years of team control that they\u2019ll get out of guys like Chourio. <\/p>\n
What the Brewers are learning \u2014 and taking \u2014 from the Reds<\/p>\n
The Reds do some important things better than the Brewers. <\/p>\n
The Reds are getting much more value out of the first round of the draft with standout players like Hunter Greene, Chase Burns and Sal Stewart and contributors like Nick Lodolo, Rhett Lowder and Matt McLain. <\/p>\n
2018 first-round pick Brice Turang is a star for the Brewers, but Milwaukee is only getting contributions from two other first-round picks this year (Garrett Mitchell is role player and has a 1.1 WAR, and Sal Frelick has struggled this year and has a -.3 WAR). <\/p>\n
The Reds\u2019 biggest advantage over the Brewers is their ability to develop premium pitching talent (Misiorowski has become one of the best pitchers in the game, but like De La Cruz, Misiorowski was a supernova who came out of nowhere).<\/p>\n
The Brewers are changing their approach and philosophy toward pitching development. To lead the charge, they hired Bryan Conger away from the Cincinnati Reds to be Milwaukee\u2019s director of player development. <\/p>\n
Previously, Conger was a very highly regarded minor league pitching coordinator with the Reds. He was effectively the right-hand man for Derek Johnson and implemented Johnson\u2019s philosophy and vision in the farm system as Johnson coached the big league team (Johnson is currently on a leave of absence). <\/p>\n
Now, Conger is executing that plan in Milwaukee\u2019s farm system. He has a great blend of experience with his familiarity with new-school technology and a long resume of traditional coaching. <\/p>\n
The way the Brewers play the game<\/p>\n
While the Reds end up trying things like Noelvi Marte in right field (in 2025), Sal Stewart at first base (in 2025), Edwin Arroyo at second base (this year), Matt McLain in center field (on Tuesday), the Brewers seem to always have great and sure-handed defenders at every spot on the field. <\/p>\n
The Reds have never meshed the aggressiveness that they had in 2023 and 2024 with the situational awareness that Terry Francona preaches. The Brewers do both well. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re probably more successful stealing than just about any team in the league, they\u2019re also extremely good at preventing the stolen base, they catch the ball, they\u2019re very athletic,\u201d Francona said. \u201cThey present a number of challenges. They\u2019ve put together a really good team. They continue to do it. They know what they want. They know who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WXIX. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILWAUKEE \u2014 The Milwaukee Brewers are the Cincinnati Reds\u2019 worst nightmare. Cincinnati is 13.5 games behind Milwaukee in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,535,2471,4,536],"class_list":["post-739993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-cincinnati","tag-logo","tag-mlb","tag-reds"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116842691507072677","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}