The Brewers win it all and, now, the whole journey makes sense
· Yahoo Sports
ST. PETERSBURG, FL - David Stearns was right when he said the Milwaukee Brewers needed as many "bites of the apple" as possible.
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The oft-derided explanation by the former Brewers president of baseball operations for the Josh Hader trade in 2022 yielded a minor-leaguer named Robert Gasser, who allowed one earned run in 15 postseason innings.
The trade also set the table to acquire catcher William Contreras, one of the team's postseason MVPs when the Brewers defeated the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2026 World Series.
Matt Arnold was right when he traded Corbin Burnes for DL Hall and Joey Ortiz before the 2024 season.
The former Cy Young winner was amazing both in Milwaukee and his one year in Baltimore, but the trade brought the Brewers a pitcher (DL Hall) and third baseman (Joey Ortiz) who played big roles in 2026.
Arnold was right to trade Freddy Peralta, too, even if the return remains untapped potential. Because the Brewers just beat Freddy Peralta in the World Series. He was right not to trade for Tarik Skubal, because the Brewers beat him in the NLCS.
Mark Attanasio was right to ponder whether his job meant bringing Milwaukee "a summer of entertainment and passion" or winning a World Series.
Some took that as questionable priorities. But with the title secured, how can anyone deny the summer of 2026 – in which the Brewers won a franchise-record 103 games and then the World Series – was anything less than entertainment and passion?
The moments of heartbreak – Pete Alonso in 2024, Juan Soto in 2019, the Dodgers on multiple occasions – were just moments of bitterness that made the 2026 title taste even sweeter.
The frustration that came when Cubs fans flooded American Family Field became a table turned as Brewers fans flocked to Florida to overrun Tropicana Field and bear witness to history.
Winning the whole thing turns every stumble into a half-step toward the mountaintop. The past for the Milwaukee Brewers has become awash in revisionist history, concrete turned into marble when the baseball landed in Jake Bauers' glove at first base for the final out Oct. 28, 2026.
And what comes next? The Brewers notably didn't part with their top prospects to acquire Skubal, so Jesús Made, Luis Peña and more are just waiting in the wings for their turn.
You probably haven't noticed that Made, 19, is having a great showing in the Dominican league this fall, which is understandable since you've had bigger fish to fry. Andrew Fischer, who hit 50 home runs in the minor leagues this year, will get a chance someday soon, too. Josh Adamczewski and Braylon Payne are next.
One of baseball's top farm systems wasn't just built as a fallback plan for future years if the World Series never happened. It was meant to give the Brewers a chance to win multiple World Series.
This is the best organization in baseball. The journey here wasn't linear, but right now, it feels like it.
A dark cloud of irony is closing in on Major League Baseball, a work stoppage in which the major contention point is that baseball must change because small-market teams can't hang with the big spenders.
It's an assertion Brewers fans may have eagerly agreed with last year when the Dodgers swept Milwaukee out of the NLCS. But that past has changed, too.
Now, the small-market Brewers are on top of the world, and that afterglow won't fade even if the stoppage lingers into the 2027 regular season. While 29 other fan bases must gird themselves for a cold winter and possibly colder spring, Wisconsin will experience an emotional El Niño.
What we don't know about how the future changes is within the walls of Milwaukee's front office:
Will they do what it takes to retain postseason heroes like Contreras and Bauers long-term? Or will they exclusively hunt for a new apple, with the proof of concept that this stuff really does work in the postseason.
The frustration and heartbreak Brewers fans endured was real. It spanned generations of drought.
Twenty-six years without a playoff berth. Twenty-nine without a division title. Forty-four without a World Series appearance. Sixty-nine years without a championship, and the franchise that won the last one is long gone.
Many of the neighbors, friends and family who loved and lost aren't here to see it end with their own eyes. They passed the watch down to us.
For the first time in franchise history, the Milwaukee Brewers are World Series champions.
In retrospect, everything worked. There's no reason to believe it'll only work once.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: The Brewers win it all and, now, the whole journey makes sense