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Postseason 2026: One Great Call
October 29, 2026
Bob Uecker called it. It took a while, but he called it.
On October 20, 2018, Christian Yelich homered off Walker Buehler in the first inning of Game Seven of the NLCS. The Brewers, in that moment, were as close as they’d been to the World Series since losing to the Cardinals in the Fall Classic in 1982. Trading for Yelich was the first in a series of aggressive moves GM David Stearns made, with the backing of owner Mark Attanasio, to push the Brewers past the Cubs in the NL Central, to make this a championship team.
It didn’t work out in ’18. The Brewers pitching staff was on fumes, the Dodgers offense too good, and the dream died in a 5-1 loss.
Afterwards Uecker, fresh off calling a heartbreaking game, talked to reporters:
“What I saw, up and down, and coming from the minor leagues here, and then what took place in spring training, the players that we saw in spring training, I don’t think there’s anything that can go wrong here, I really don’t.”
It took seven more trips to the tournament, changes in the front office and dugout, and more NLCS heartbreak at the hands of the Dodgers, but he was right. Last night the Brewers, capping a nine-year stretch of excellent baseball, won the World Series, beating the Rays 4-1. They made eight trips to the playoffs, losing in the wild-card round, losing in the Division Series, losing in the NLCS. Almost two years ago, they lost Uecker to lung cancer at the age of 90. The future Uecker saw, however, lives on.
Last summer, when the Brewers were laying waste to the National League, winning 14 in a row as part of a 53-16 stretch, I did a long piece on the team, introducing each player to the audience. Among the player capsules, I scattered breaks:
I’ve shown you the five best players on the 2025 Brewers, and they include one first-round pick, three guys added in trades by two different GMs, and a minor-league Rule 5 pick. One of them makes $24 million, another $8 million, and two of them make just over the minimum.
The last five guys: A first-round pick; two international signings, one anonymous; two trade additions who were lightly to moderately regarded. They’re being paid a total of $7.2 million this year.
The Brewers don’t have many great players, but man, they have assembled, developed, and created an army of good ones.
The only thing that’s changed is the last part. Jackson Chourio is a great player. William Contreras is a great player. Brice Turang is a great player. Jacob Misiorowski is a great player. After being swept by the Dodgers in last year’s NLCS, scoring four runs in four games, Matt Arnold kept almost everyone. Of the ten players who batted at least five times against the Dodgers in 2025, eight played in this World Series. The pitching staff had a bit more turnover, but you’d recognize many of the names: Misiorowski, Ashby, Uribe, Megill, Gasser. Arnold knew what he had.
The trades Arnold, and David Stearns before him, made to build this team weren’t fire sales, but rather consistent with how the Brewers operate: Trade one year of a valuable player for 12 to 18 years of potential. That’s how Robert Gasser got here. That’s how DL Hall got here. Those two threw 8 2/3 shutout innings in the Series. Josh Hader begat World Series MVP William Contreras. Devin Williams begat David Hamilton, who tied for the Series lead in home runs. Arnold was in place when Stearns wanted to leave for New York. Pat Murphy was in place when Craig Counsell went to Chicago.
The Brewers evaluate and develop talent better than anyone. Jake Bauers was in his 12th pro season and seventh organization when he washed up on Milwaukee’s shores in 2024. The team was so impressed they released him that offseason before re-signing him as camp depth two months later. Bauers was the second-best hitter in the NL in 2026, and the NLCS MVP. Similarly, Trevor Megill was a tenth-year pro who the Twins needed to get off their 40-man roster back in the spring of 2023. The Brewers acquired him for a pitcher who still hasn’t gotten out of Double-A. Megill just closed out the World Series.
The Brewers, despite all the reasons to do so, never, ever tanked. Since Attanasio took over in 2005, the Brewers have never slipped under .500 for more than two seasons in a row. They’ve been at or over .500 in 15 of 21 full seasons, including the last nine. I’ve criticized the Brewers for carrying low payrolls, for not spending to get better, for jettisoning players just to manage payroll. Their track record, though, cannot be debated. Their method works. Since Uecker foretold their future that sad October evening, the Brewers have the fourth-best record in baseball. Post-2020, they have the second-best record in baseball. Now, to go with all that success, they have a title.
This championship validates an uncomfortable truth about the modern game. It’s about getting as many chances to win the tournament as you can, then playing as best as you can once you’re in it. There are few rewards for winning 110 games, fewer still for winning 80. It’s about the tournament, and to borrow a phrase, you have to be in it to win it. The Brewers played in eight postseasons, reaching the final eight four times, and as much frustration as there was along the way, they finally won it all. It’s a numbers game, and this year, their number came up. It’s a hard road. The Brewers are just the eighth team in the wild-card era to have the best record in baseball and win the World Series.
The Brewers never went all in, never signed Aaron Judge or traded for Tarik Skubal (though they tried). They committed to Christian Yelich for nine years and $215 million, and then mostly put the pocketbook away. They made a couple of ill-considered investments in an injured Brandon Woodruff. They’ve signed their own players, like Chourio and Ashby, and they’ve even set new standards in signing prospects, committing to Cooper Pratt and Luis Lara for eight and seven years, respectively, before either reached the majors. They never took their eye off the long term.
In 2026, building on last year’s franchise record, they improved their win total for a third straight year, setting a new mark with 103. They were the best team in baseball during the regular season, and easily the best team in the playoffs. They beat the teams with the second- and third-best records in baseball, and the team that, by consensus, was the best of the eight that played in the first round, the Padres. The Brewers faced as difficult a route as you could take through this year’s brackets, and they went 11-2. They were a couple of throwing errors from going 11-0.
They never faced elimination. They never trailed in a series. They never allowed five runs in a game. They allowed just 33 runs along the way. That’s the second-fewest of any World Series-winning team since the playoffs expanded in 1995 (the 1999 Yankees somehow allowed just 31 in the teeth of the double-expansion era). Their pitching, and admittedly this was a low-offense year, posted the second-lowest ERA of any playoff team since 1995 (min. 50 IP).
They beat the Rays with singles and doubles, beat the Dodgers with walks and homers, beat the Padres with a little bit of both. They beat everybody with a bullpen that, good from April to September, went up a level in October. Of all postseason teams since 1995 (min. 40 IP), the Brewers’ pen had the third-lowest ERA (1.38). Ashby joined ten other pitchers in posting an postseason ERA of 0.00 in at least 15 innings, and his 18 innings are tied for sixth-most in that group.
Yelich, who drove in the Brewers’ only run in that game eight years ago, hit a run-scoring triple in the first inning of this, his first World Series, giving the Brewers a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. In that same game at Miller Park in 2018, a sophomore right-hander mopped up the last six outs of a 5-1 loss. Brandon Woodruff joins Yelich as the bridge to that team, throwing what will likely be the last inning of his career in Monday’s blowout win. They are the only two Brewers left who were there in ’18, the only ones left who Uecker watched that day.
Bob Uecker saw where they were headed. Last night, they got there.
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