Three-year rebuild has defied odds
When David Stearns was introduced as the Milwaukee Brewers’ new general manager at the end of the 2015 season, he was asked how long it would take for the rebuilding club to be good again.
“I think we can make the playoffs in 2018,” Stearns said.
OK, that didn’t actually happen. Can you imagine if he did say that? People would have said he was unbalanced or delusional, or both.
Baseball observers watched the Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros each go through five years of massive losses to be competitive for the playoffs again. In fairness to those clubs, they made it all the way back, with the Cubs winning the World Series in 2016 and the Astros in 2017.
The Brewers haven’t made it to that big stage yet but did punch their playoff ticket for the first time since winning the National League Central title in 2011. Considering every established player other than Ryan Braun was traded – and Stearns and Co. came close to moving him to the Dodgers a couple of years ago – getting to the playoffs in three years would have seemed quite optimistic.
Craig Counsell, named to replace fired manager Ron Roenicke a month into the 2015 season, remembers the first sit-down with his new, and much younger, baseball boss.
“I said, ‘We’ve just got to stack good decisions on top of each other,’ ” Counsell said. " ‘Keep stacking good decisions on top of each other. And it’ll happen faster than we think.’ That’s what we tried to do.”
Former general manager Doug Melvin got the ball rolling during the ’15 season by starting the roster strip-down. He acquired starting pitcher Zach Davies from Baltimore for outfielder Gerardo Parra, who was going to leave via free agency. But his biggest move was the Carlos Gomez/Mike Fiers trade with Houston, where Stearns was assistant general manager at the time.
In that deal, Melvin acquired lefthander Josh Hader, right-hander Adrian Houser, and outfielders Domingo Santana and Brett Phillips. Hader has developed into the most feared reliever in the NL, breaking a long-standing strikeout record; Santana hit 30 homers last season and fell off this year but still has value; Phillips was part of the deal with Kansas City in late July for Mike Moustakas; and Houser still projects to be at the least a productive major-league reliever.
That June, Melvin also made a waiver claim for Detroit’s Hernán Pérez, who became a versatile utility player on the roster. Then, it was up to Stearns, who made transactions as if he had a monthly quota. He turned over 20 spots on the 40-man roster during his first off-season, a stunning change in personnel.
During those initial months, Stearns said he never thought it possible to pass “Go” and collect $200 (that’s a Monopoly reference for all you Fortnite players), skipping the many dark years suffered by the Cubs and Astros. Basically, he didn’t worry about a timeline for returning to respectability, period.
“I’ve never even thought about it,” Stearns said. “When I got here, we just became so focused on acquiring, developing and retaining as much young talent as we possibly could.
“That was our focus on every decision. And we judged every decision as to whether that forwarded that goal. So, the timing of this never entered into our discussions.”
Stearns used every means possible to add that young, controllable talent – waiver claims, free-agent signings, trades. Everything shy of swap meets and garage sales. The Brewers looked under every rock, explored every possible opportunity and most importantly, kept an open mind with a willingness to think out of the box.
Starting pitcher Junior Guerra was claimed off waivers from the White Sox. Second baseman Jonathan Villar was acquired in a trade with Houston, outfielder Keon Broxton from Pittsburgh. First baseman Chris Carter signed as a free agent. Shortstop Jean Segura was sent to Arizona for pitcher Chase Anderson, infielder Aaron Hill and prospect Isan Diaz. Reliever Carlos Torres was grabbed after Atlanta dumped him.
And so it went. The Brewers battled to a 73-89 record in 2016, a bit better than expected under the circumstances. And the rebuilding continued. On Aug. 1 of that season, catcher Jonathan Lucroy and reliever Jeremy Jeffress were traded to Texas for three prospects, most notably outfielder Lewis Brinson, who would be flipped in a major deal later.
Not every moved worked. Players such as Ramon Flores, Franklin Morales, Sam Freeman, Alex Presley, Colin Walsh and Will Middlebrooks came and went. But Stearns and his staff kept pushing forward, adding this player, subtracting that one, always looking to build depth in the organization.
Stearns expanded his scope and signed first baseman Eric Thames after three fantasy-league-caliber years in South Korea. He made a steal of a trade with Boston, acquiring third baseman Travis Shaw and prospects for reliever Tyler Thornburg. Before the 2017 season began, Stearns claimed first baseman Jesús Aguilar off waivers from Cleveland, a move that would reap huge benefits.
Some players sent away prospered enough to create second-guessing, such as Khris Davis, Scooter Gennett and Segura. But Stearns didn’t think they were great fits for what he was doing and always had somebody else in mind he thought would work better. When you’re making moves at this volume level, you can’t fret about what traded players accomplish elsewhere, and get gunshy.
Obviously, the moves Stearns and his staff made before the 2017 season were mostly good because the Brewers went out and surprised everyone by being competitive for the playoffs. They were not eliminated from wild-card contention until the penultimate day of the season, finishing with an 86-76 record.
What the heck? A 94-loss season and an 89-loss season, and now a winning record? What’s going on here? Where were the years and years of agony, despair and woe is us?
“I said at my opening press conference that every situation is unique,” Stearns said. “I went through (years of losing) in Houston. It’s a challenge. The Houston situation was unique for a variety of factors, including some of the financial constraints on the team with the TV deal. Some of the talent available at the major-league level, the talent available at the minor-league level.
“When I got here in 2015, there were a different set of advantages and constraints than some other markets have faced. We tried to focus on the advantages and minimize the constraints.”
Management always takes its cue from on-field results as to its next moves. Buoyed by the unexpected leap forward in ’17, Stearns pulled off one of the greatest acquisition days in franchise history on Jan. 25 when he signed outfielder Lorenzo Cain to a five-year, $80 million free-agent deal and traded Brinson and others to Miami for outfielder Christian Yelich.
Combined with the earlier, underthe-radar signing of pitcher Jhoulys Chacín, those moves did exactly what was hoped, pushing the team even further forward. With Yelich driving toward an expected MVP award, the Brewers surged through late August and September, clinching their first playoff berth since 2011.
“Each year we’ve taken a step as an organization,” said Stearns, whose focus on creating depth paid off in important ways. “Last year’s step certainly informed how we went about the off-season. It informed where we thought our major-league team could be and it informed us about the depth we had at the upper levels of our organization, the players who could potentially contribute at the major-league level this year.
“When opportunities presented themselves in the off-season, that helped with our decisions to take advantage of them.”
Principal owner Mark Attanasio and Stearns kept pushing the envelope in the second half, adding veterans Moustakas, Jonathan Schoop, Joakim Soria, Curtis Granderson, Gio Gonzalez and Xavier Cedeño to make the Brewers even deeper and more potent. The combination of talent and on-field guidance by Counsell – the perfect fit as manager before Stearns even arrived – officially ended the rebuild and put the Brewers back on the postseason map.
Unlike the Cubs and Astros, the Brewers haven’t won anything yet. The first step in a rebuild is returning to contending mode. The second step is pushing through October to the World Series, and hopefully taking home the big trophy.
But merely getting this far in such a short span of time is remarkable, especially when you consider the Brewers are in the bottom third of the majors in payroll. They can’t throw money around like confetti, covering moves that don’t work, as the Cubs, Yankees and Red Sox can. The margin for error in this market is much smaller, making the Brewers’ shorter timeline to competing again more noteworthy.
“You put your head down and start working; that’s what you do,” Counsell said. “David’s been nothing short of magnificent in his three years here. I’m very fortunate to be able to work with him.”
You can bet those starting rebuilds now paid attention. As Stearns said, every situation is unique. But, in many ways, the Brewers set the bar for returning to contending mode sooner than anyone could have imagined.