Did the Milwaukee Brewers Pull Off Baseball's Perfect Retool?

The Brew Crew got younger, replaced nearly their whole roster, and built what might be MLB's best team — all without a down year.

Brice Turang and Jackson Chourio of the Milwaukee Brewers celebrate a home run in the third inning against the Baltimore Orioles on May 20, 2025. (John Fisher/Getty Images)

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Although their sudden placement at No. 1 in my MLB Elo rankings took me by surprise the other day, the Milwaukee Brewers have long been a fixture at least near the top of the league. After qualifying for the postseason just twice in the 35 seasons between 1982 — when they lost the World Series to the Cardinals — and 2017, Milwaukee has made the playoffs six times in the seven completed seasons since, with a near-certain chance to make it seven-for-eight this season.

So it’s not exactly strange to see Bernie Brewer’s squad doing well, even if rising to No. 1 is rare for the franchise. (Before this and a brief stint at the top last August and September, Milwaukee hadn’t been No. 1 in the regular season since Oct. 2, 1992.) Teams rise and fall through the rankings all the time. But what’s legitimately incredible is how the Brewers have become arguably the best team in baseball in 2025. It didn’t happen by riding the same veteran core that helped build their recent success, but instead by completely turning over the roster with new, younger players in near-record fashion.

When I think about the Brewers’ recent era, some part of me still envisions the original 2018 version that started it all — with Christian Yelich winning MVP and Lorenzo Cain leading basically a remade version of the 2014-15 smallball Royals back into the postseason. Or maybe I think of the 2021 team with Corbin Burnes lifting Milwaukee’s rotation into elite status — bolstered later by an injection of offense from midseason pickup Willy Adames. Perhaps I just think of the job done by the brain trust of manager Craig Counsell and president/GM David Stearns in bringing this franchise back to life, and iterating upon their initial successes.

But the remarkable thing is that, save for Yelich, none of those names are still associated with the team anymore. And in fact, almost all of the value being produced by the 2025 Brewers comes from sources that were not on the team just three years ago, when Milwaukee was already five seasons into its recent renaissance.

Here’s a list of every MLB team with at least a .500 record both this season and cumulatively over the past five seasons (including 2025), sorted by the percentage of current team-wide Win Shares¹ generated by players who were acquired since the end of the 2022 season: