The Milwaukee Brewers had their dream season end in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series Oct. 20. 

Los Angeles advanced to their second-straight World Series with the third highest payroll in all of baseball. They currently (as of this writing) trail Boston 2-0 in the series. The Red Sox have the highest payroll in all of baseball. Money talks. Well, at least to get to the postseason.

Milwaukee, while over the $100 million mark, was in the bottom half of the league in dollars spent. While that goes a long way in the “they spent less and won more” argument, they are back at home.

But the season was not a failure — not in the slightest.

After the magical 2011 season reached the NLCS, Milwaukee floundered away opportunities to get back to the postseason in each of the next three years. Then they decided to trade away any pieces they could for minor league prospects in 2015 and entered a full-fledged re-building process.

The Cubs had done things similarily in 2012 — they dumped as much as they could and built up their minor league system, only to spend money in 2015 and 2016 as the top prospects were reaching the big leagues and showing that the process works. In 2016 it all came to fruition and the Cubs won their first World Series title in over 100 years.

The Astros followed a similar path and last year won the World Series.

Milwaukee wasn’t expecting to contend until 2019 or later. But last year the Brewers finished one game away from the postseason thanks to some surprising performances by waiver claims and prospects. General Manager David Stearns, who is my age, entered his second offseason with a bang and picked up former Brewer outfielder Lorenzo Cain and traded for all-star OF Christian Yelich on the same day. Back when it happened I called Yelich an MVP candidate, and with a hot second-half of the season, he’s likely sealed up that title this year.

Milwaukee’s problem this year was supposed to be pitching. Ace Jimmy Nelson had a shoulder injury from 2017 and ended up being unavailable all season. Instead, Stearns picked up veterans Jhoulis Chacin and Wade Miley. Even with No. 2 starter Zach Davies missing much of the year with his own injuries, the Brewers were able to lean on their relievers to pick up major wins — especially down the stretch.

Teams throughout history have understand that good bullpens are a dime and dozen and don’t last long — just look at Cleveland, which was the top bullpen in 2016 and one of the worst in 2018.

But here’s where Milwaukee stands now: While fans pined for Stearns to get a hot free agent arm like Jake Arrieta or Yu Darvish, he held off and now looks like a genius. Next year, the starting staff is looking like it will be the strongest position on the team.

Nelson returns, though it will be interesting to see how his shoulder holds up. Chacin is under contract, and Miley could be locked up again. Davies, Chase Anderson and Junior Guerra are all under contract. And then there are three prospects with lightning bolts for arms that thrived in the bullpen down the stretch: Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff and Freddy Peralta. All had their innings watched this season, hence the need for use out of the bullpen, but all could easily be MLB starters right now.

That’s a whole bunch of arms available. If I were managing, I would use Woodruff as my right-handed Josh Hader, a fire-balling arm to come in for multiple innings of relief every couple of days to lock down games. Manager Craig Counsell could also designate platoon tandems, like having Davies start a game for five innings and bringing in Guerra for another three or four. 

This is not baseball as you know it, but the Brewers have become the team to ditch traditional positions and pitching rotations. And it worked this year, and it may only be improved next year.

This team was one win from the World Series and has fewer holes now than at any time in the last 30 years. David Stearns has built this team for the future.

Now I just have to wait 109 days until pitchers and catchers report to spring training Feb. 13.

— Adam Krebs is a reporter for the Monroe Times. He can be reached at akrebs@themonroetimes.com for any comments or if you want to learn how to throw a 50 mph sidearm knuckleball.