Major league baseball’s biggest problem can be seen most prominently and surprisingly in one of their more successful franchises, the Milwaukee Brewers. The good news is that the Brewers have made the postseason for past three years and qualified for the playoffs seven times in the last eight years. Unfortunately, they are also a small market team, which means that they do not have the resources to maintain a high payroll as compared to the larger markets. Instead of keeping their best players, Milwaukee has jettisoned them when the market price to keep such talent is about to become too costly. A couple of blatant examples of these cost cutting moves in recent years have been trading:
- All-star reliever Josh Hader in 2022 to the San Diego Padres and who eventually signed with the Houston Astros. Hader has made two all-star teams (one in 2025), since leaving the Brewers and has averaged 32 saves a year over the past three years.
- All-star starting pitcher Corbin Burnes to the Baltimore Orioles prior to the 2024 season. Burnes was a Cy Young award winner, a finalist for the award three other times, a finalist for most valuable player once and a three time all-star. He had another all-star season for the Orioles in 2024 and ended up as a finalist for the Cy Young award that year as well. He then signed a massive contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2025 and despite starting off the season well it ended on June 1st with an injury that then required elbow surgery.
If those trades were not telling enough, the Brewers ended up trading Freddy Peralta their best starting pitcher and arguably their best player this year to the New York Mets for prospects. Peralta was one of the best pitchers in baseball in 2025 and led the league in wins (17) and was a runner-up for the Cy Young award.
Brewers’ management should be lauded for their success in finding talent and regularly reaching the playoffs these past eight years, despite their limited player payroll. On the other hand, the Brewers have only reached the NL Championship series twice during these past eight years while losing both times, and have not reached a World Series since 1982 (which they lost). That failure is not on the Brewers management though, but rather the overall MLB system which does not allow such clubs to keep their best prospects. If there truly was an even financial playing field in baseball, perhaps we would be talking about the Brewer dynasty at this point, if not having to sell off their best players. Instead the current system treats small markets such as Milwaukee as a de facto minor league system for the benefit of the larger market teams.
The Brewers were one of the best teams in baseball in 2025 and have been extremely competitive in recent years, so any big market team in this same position would be gathering the final pieces to put them over the hump and into contention to win it all. Instead, the Brewers, despite being on the cusp of a championship team, must take a step back at this point by selling off their best players before they become too expensive. This must be extremely disheartening and frustrating for the Milwaukee fan base and would be unheard of in a major market like New York or Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the media fails to cover this point and instead focus on how well the Brewers made out in this trade with the prospects they obtained from the Mets. This argument rings as hollow as a corked bat and covers up the true and disturbing trend in baseball for small markets.
That reality is that small market teams only have a limited window to enjoy the benefits of the talent that they identify and develop before it becomes too expensive. The large market teams do not have to contend with that same window, and can either keep the talent that they develop or eventually purchase it from the small market teams. The key takeaway is that the payroll disparities has created a baseball world of haves and have nots, which we have covered here extensively at BP in prior posts, such as It’s Mostly About the Money, Baseball’s Luxury Tax, and Rich vs Poor to name a few.
It is on MLB and the players association to create a better system for the good of the game. The Brewer fans and the rest of the small market teams absolutely deserve better.
Baseball Purist 
Leave a comment