Photo credit: Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club
The old baseball adage says you can't win the division in April. With an 8-2 start, however, the Brewers have made a bold statement that may already have postseason ramifications. There are several ways to attempt to measure the significance of their hot start to the season, some of which present a rosier picture than others. To start, their own franchise history shows just how easily a hot start can go wrong.
2019 is just the third time in 51 years the Brewers have won at least eight of their first ten times. Most fans will remember the first one: The 1987 team, often remembered as "Team Streak." That team opened 13-0 en route to an 18-3 April but quickly fell back to Earth in May, going 6-18 to fall from first to fifth in the American League East. They finished hot to get to 91-71 but were at least five games back of the postseason chase from mid-June through the end of the season.
The 2014 team is not a more optimistic example. That team started 8-2, opening up a division lead that lasted for over 150 days. They opened the month of July with a 6 1/2 game lead on their NL Central rivals but went just 31-47 the rest of the way, falling out of the postseason chase late and needing a win on the season's final weekend just to finish above .500 at 82-80.
For the most part, however, the only thing this Brewers team has in common with their 1987 and 2014 counterparts is uniform colors: Ryan Braun, Jimmy Nelson and Jeremy Jeffress are the only players from the 2014 team that are still in the organization.
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Alternatively, it's worth comparing this Brewers team to their recent peers in the 8-2 club. Since baseball added the second Wild Card in 2012 19 teams have won at least eight of their first ten games. The jury is still out on the 2019 Brewers and Mariners (who won again on Sunday to improve to 9-2), but here's what we can take away from the other 17:
- Nine of them (53%) reached the postseason.
- Seven of them (41%) won their division.
- Three of them (18%) won over 100 games.
- Three of them (18%) won the World Series, taking home the trophy in 2015 (Kansas City), 2016 (Chicago) and 2018 (Boston).
- Three of them (18% again) went the other way and finished under .500.
The projection systems offer a third set of data to consider. After the Brewers took two of three games from the Cubs over the weekend FanGraphs' projections began listing Milwaukee as the favorites to win the Central for the first time this season. By their math, the Brewers headed out on this week's West Coast trip with a 36% chance to win their division and a 48% chance to reach the postseason. The latter number has nearly doubled since Opening Day. For comparison purposes, the Brewers playoff odds didn't crack 50% for the first time until May 28 in 2018.
FanGraphs' projections take a couple of significant factors into account. The first is the Brewers' schedule: Their early wins are doubly important because they've beaten up on NL Central rivals, including three of four against the Cardinals and two of three against the Cubs. The other is the other likely contenders' early struggles: After ten games the Brewers were already 3 1/2 games ahead of the Cardinals and 5 1/2 games up on the Cubs. Neither of those leads is insurmountable, but a cushion is already in place.
Clearly, the NL Central race is far from over. The Brewers have made a statement with a hot start against their rivals, however, and at the end of the season these wins will count just as much as the ones in September.
