The Brewers Won It All. What’s the Pirates’ Excuse Now?

If for whatever reason the Brewers weren't allowed to be in the postseason this year, they got Thanos snapped away or they were ruled ineligible or whatever reason, I think the three teams that would have had the best chance of winning it all would have been the Rays,

the Dodgers, the Dodgers, and the Padres. The Rays were the top team in the American League. The Dodgers were the number two team in the National League. The Padres were the hottest team going into the postseason. That was the Brewers' path to a championship, even after 103 wins. I don't know if they could have had a harder path. And they made quick work of all three teams.

That included clinching their first World Series Wednesday, beating the Rays 4-1 in Tampa. Baseball's smallest market. That team has been competitive every year for a decade.

And whenever we are going to get ready for an offseason of competitive balance talk, just remember, if they could do it, your team always could have done it.

Good morning and welcome to OffBeat here on North Shore Nine presented by FanDuel. My name is Alex Stumpf and this is a daily look at your Pittsburgh Pirates.

And today, the world champion, Milwaukee Brewers.

What a dominant postseason. What a dominant team.

Like, I, sorry, I just got to give some flowers. I've got to gush for a little bit.

What was the weakness of that club?

They hit whenever they needed to.

They beat up starting pitchers and they got to the bullpen.

That's what happened in game five.

They knew. Let's just get to that pen.

It was a 12-inning game yesterday.

You know what? We'll finish them off today.

And that's exactly what happened.

They break through against Kelly.

Against the bullpen.

Jacob Misiorowski was a banana away from turning in a quality start.

The bullpen did its job.

As it had this entire postseason.

And now the Brewers have clinched it.

I would say I'd be surprised if I wasn't calling it from the beginning.

This is a team that from May or June looked like a serious championship contender.

And as the year went on and they kept playing better and better baseball as the season progressed, it became clear this was the team to beat.

And they had a really rigorous path to the playoffs.

I would argue they had to beat the top three teams.

If you want to be the best, you got to beat the best.

And they did.

They didn't get to face a mid-80 win Guardians team in the ALCS.

No, they had to earn every step of their path.

It was a dominant performance.

They hit whenever they needed to.

They fielded well.

Wilson Contreras was stealing strikes all over the place.

The bullpen was as dominant as we have seen a bullpen in recent memory.

And now all that's left is the debate of, does this Brewers team belong in inner circle discussions?

Is this one of the greatest teams of our lifetimes?

And I think you can make a legitimate claim here.

I'm just going to go back the last 50 Major League Baseball seasons.

So after the big red machine of 1976, of like, what are the greatest teams that have won championships?

So respect to like the 2001 Mariners, you're out of contention.

And I think just off the dome, the ones that immediately come to mind are the 98 Yankees, the 2018 Red Sox.

I think you can make a case for like the 24 Dodgers, I think were probably superior than the 25.

Before them, maybe you could think like 89 Athletics, but I think you're really stretching it at that point.

The Bless You Boys Tigers.

Like, I think the Brewers are in that discussion.

They're in that tier of like top five team of the last 50 years.

Which would put them, what?

We'll just make a conservative top 20 all time?

Top 20 champion?

And they did it.

Look, there's no right way to win a ball game.

There is a right way to win a championship.

And they did it the right way.

They developed.

They developed.

They coached.

They scouted.

They beat people in trades.

They built this incredible culture.

Of unbelievable buy-in.

I remember last year talking to Quinn Priester.

And he talked about, being a top prospect in Pittsburgh and the pressure that he put on himself.

And he fully acknowledged.

He wasn't angrily pointing fingers.

He wasn't pointing fingers.

This was a self-reflection thing on him, but he didn't handle that pressure that well.

And whenever he got to Milwaukee, they helped him process it better.

And I know he wasn't a main character in 2026, but it was emblematic of everything Milwaukee does right.

It was a guy who was traded twice in less than a year.

Former first-rounder who hadn't had any major league success.

And, oh, wow, he becomes a contributor in Milwaukee.

Why?

Because they're coached well.

They have a great culture.

They have support.

He felt supported.

And he thrived.

That's what players do in that market.

That's what they do in that environment, in that organization.

And it's in baseball's smallest market.

We're going to hear so much about payrolls and competitive balance this offseason.

But just, and I don't know if it's just, I am always aware of what's going on, like, Pirates social media.

Or at least most of the time aware of what's going on Pirates social media.

But seeing the national discourse of, like, Pirates fans should be talking about a payroll because they haven't had nuanced discussions.

Let me just say this.

If you think the payroll is the only reason why the Pirates haven't been competitive, why they haven't been able to become a champion, well, Milwaukee did it.

They did it.

Yeah, they did outspend them.

That's not exactly a flex, if you want to use that as an argument.

But it was still a small market with a below average payroll who just kicked ass because they did everything right.

And everything, not meaning like it was a perfect game, but it's like everything was in that desire of a decade straight of winning.

This is their championship year, but they have had years over the last decade where they have come close.

They have been good enough to win a pennant or seriously, earnestly compete for a World Series.

I would argue this was like the 2020 Dodgers.

Of just, you put up enough shots, eventually one is going to go through the net.

And it did.

And there's nothing cheap about it.

This was the best team in baseball, winning baseball's greatest trophy.

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The Brewers, look, having watched them for a month, every game pretty much of theirs for a month, it feels like if they had to play all 29 teams and win every series, they probably would.

And yeah, if you want to take a Pirates-centric angle, the Pirates won 7 of 13 against them this year.

But even then, it had been a hot minute since the last time they had beaten Milwaukee in a season series.

Like they didn't in 2015.

They didn't, in other years where they were competitive, or at least semi of the mix.

Even whenever both of these teams were bad, Milwaukee consistently beat the Pirates.

This is just an organization that proves top to bottom what you can do, what any team can do.

The Rays, if they can do it, why couldn't any other team?

This is the best run organization in baseball.

And they've done it in the smallest market with middling at best payrolls.

And they deserve it.

Like I said, it's been a decade.

Yeah, they haven't made the playoffs every year in a decade, but whatever they don't in like 2022, they're signing Cutch.

They're making a push.

And yeah, they might have to trade a Corbin Burns.

But they get pieces in return.

Josh Hader was traded, and Gasser takes his place, and he absolutely crushes game three, which was the nail in the coffin.

I tweeted out that picture of the guy who was dressed up as Bernie Brewer, tears in his eyes whenever he sees that rally, the fifth inning, come through, and it's 7-0 Brewers.

And you can see, like, in his eyes, like, oh my God, they're going to win the World Series.

Like, the snowball has fallen down the mountain to a point that it cannot be stopped.

It might not be a clean sweep.

It's a dirty sweep, five games after losing a 12-inning marathon.

But it's all the same.

The banner will still fly.

This is a team that proved that if they can do it, any other team could do it.

I've done a couple podcasts about the Brewers, about their commitment to the decade, and there wasn't a rebuild, there wasn't a bridge year, there wasn't a gap year or whatever.

I talked about the week that I spent covering them and how the impressions they left have really influenced how I've looked at baseball this year.

I'm not at all surprised that they are at the mountaintop right now.

And they deserve it.

I don't know if this is going to be one, and this team maybe takes a bit of a backseat.

In the, in the NL Central, where the Cubs, who stole their manager, hasn't done them a lick of good, hasn't stopped Milwaukee.

Milwaukee lost their manager, they lost their GM, and they just keep trucking because they're, it's just, that snowball.

It's why I think they're going to still be competitive in 2027.

Well, I think they're going to be competitive in perpetuity until I see them fail.

Because that's what great teams do.

And this was a great team.

Thank you so much for listening to OffBeat here on North Shore Nine, presented by FanDuel.

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