Entering the 2026 MLB season, not many were counting on the Milwaukee Brewers to be one of the major threats to win the World Series, or even to make the playoffs. Fangraphs gave Milwaukee just a 4.2% chance to win it all, good for only 11^th in MLB and not even tops in their own division. The Vegas oddsmakers agreed, largely giving them middle of the pack odds in the spring. Despite the Brewers leading the National League in wins in 2025, the consensus was that the Los Angeles Dodgers, with their gargantuan payroll and bevy of future hall of famers, was going to steamroll the sport on route to a third consecutive championship. Milwaukee and Los Angeles finished at the top of the NL again in 2026, but when these teams met in the NLCS it was Milwaukee that overwhelmed the defending champs, sweeping all four games by an aggregate score of 21-11. The Brewers then dispatched of the Tampa Bay Rays to finish the postseason with an 11-2 record to follow up a 103-59 regular season. They lost five games in total after Labor Day. How did the sport’s 19^thhighest payroll go wire to wire as the best team in baseball?

While hindsight is always 20/20, it is fair to say that the Brewers probably did deserve more respect going into the season than they got from the handicappers. Milwaukee won over 90 games three consecutive years leading into 2026 and had made the playoffs in seven of eight years dating back to 2018. Additionally, they had brought back nearly the entire 2025 roster, save for starter Freddy Peralta who had departed for the Mets. Most of the pessimism surrounding the team centered around how those prior playoff runs had ended. In the 2025 NLCS, the Brewers scored a total of four runs against the Dodgers’ billion-dollar pitching staff. Octobers of the prior decade had likewise been marked by meek exits.

The Dodgers lineup and pitching staff is filled with household names. Players like Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts and Kyle Tucker have been some of the most familiar faces in baseball for years, and it is impossible to watch any baseball game these days without encountering a Shohei Ohtani ad. However, not all stars are household names, and the Brewers have players who fit this description in spades. While former MVP Christian Yelich is still a productive member of the lineup, the Brewers have built a core around players such as Brice Turang, Jackson Chourio, and William Contreras who go under the radar playing in a “small market” like Milwaukee but are all among the best players at their position in the league. Milwaukee’s biggest star, rightfully so, is young pitcher Jacob Misiorowski, who is going to win the Cy Young award in the National League and opened the World Series throwing 103 miles per hour.

Beyond this core of all-star caliber talents, the key to the Brewers’ sustained success has been a remarkable ability to find diamonds in the rough. This is the only option for a team with limited financial resources. For a perfect example of this, look no further than first baseman Jake Bauers. Since his debut in 2018, Bauers bounced around between four different organizations, not always in the Major Leagues. In 2024 Bauers’ trade from the Yankees to Milwaukee did not register as newsworthy nationally, but he exploded offensively this season to the tune of 26 home runs, becoming a key cog in the Brewer lineup. On the pitching side, reliever Aaron Ashby further exemplifies the hot streak the Brewers have been on when it comes to finding hidden talent. An unsung prospect since arriving in the Milwaukee system in 2018, Ashby found his stride in 2026 and ultimately became the Brewers’ pivotal weapon out of the bullpen, pitching 18 total innings in October without allowing a single run. Between Ashby and closer Trevor Megill, Milwaukee was essentially able to shorten the game. If they had the lead in the sixth inning or later, the game was probably over.

On top of assembling a team that is more talented than the average team in their financial strata, a key to Milwaukee’s success was their style of play. The 2020s in Major League Baseball from a strategic perspective have been marked by power. In other words, the more home runs the better. Recent World Series teams like the Dodgers, Yankees and Blue Jays have found success with this model. The Milwaukee Brewers’ success cuts against the grain in this area completely. The team only hit 154 home runs in the regular season, tied for the 2^nd fewest in baseball. In contrast, the Houston Astros hit 226. The Brewers led baseball in total hits, ranked 2^nd in walks, and 2^nd in total runs scored. The lineup was filled with players like outfielder Sal Frelick, who is a good bet to work the count and put the ball in play, even in at bats that do not result with him reaching base. The result of this ball-in-play strategy is a defense that is almost always facing some degree of stress. The Rays’ defense collapsed under this weight in the World Series.

The final piece to the Brewers’ success in 2026 was the piece that is impossible to quantify, the intangible piece. It seemed all October that no matter which Brewer was up in a big spot, he was going to deliver. In addition to the aforementioned Bauers and Ashby, they received lifts from players such as Garrett Mitchell, whose turned multiple games in the NLCS on their heads with home runs at Dodger Stadium, and 22 year old Cooper Pratt who registered six consecutive hits in the final two games of the Fall Classic. A great deal of the credit for the Brewers’ intangible success is given to manager Pat Murphy, whose own career mirrors that of his team. Coming from the ranks of college baseball, Murphy did not get his first managerial job in MLB until the Brewers hired him in 2024 at the age of 65. Perhaps this is one of the reasons he has been such a seamless fit with the roster he has been given.

As the baseball world embarks on a winter of uncertainty with some length of lockout all but guaranteed, the Brewers gave America one of the feel-good sports stories of the year. After two years of Dodger domination with the best roster money can buy, it felt like almost all neutral baseball fans were riding the Brewers bandwagon, if only for some sort of relief from the feeling of inevitability that had crept into a lot of fans’ minds regarding who can win and who can’t. It was also refreshing to see celebrations in a long-suffering market like Milwaukee, who really care about their sports teams and had been waiting close to 60 years for a winner. But make no mistake: this is no little engine that could. The Brewers have earned the right to be called the best team in baseball, and they have a great chance to stay there among the elites of the sport for the foreseeable future.