Budget Brewers Dominating MLB Despite No. 20 Payroll

As the Dodgers, Mets, and Yankees stumble through the summer, a powerhouse has emerged whose payroll is a fraction of the league’s highest spenders.

On Tuesday night, the Brewers dominated against Pirates star pitcher Paul Skenes, winning 14–0 to improve to an MLB-best 75–44 record. Milwaukee has won 11 consecutive games for the second time in the last two months, and it has won 26 of its last 30 games.

It has five more wins than any other team in MLB and holds a six-game lead for the top spot in the National League.

That’s despite a payroll of $141.9 million, good for 20th (out of 30) in the league, and just ahead of the Rockies, who are in jeopardy of finishing with the worst record in MLB history. Milwaukee’s payroll is about a third of what the Dodgers pay ($406.2 million).

Brewers owner Mark Attanasio is notorious for keeping the team’s payroll down. This past offseason, the most they spent on a free agent was $1 million for Tyler Alexander while trading two-time Reliever of the Year Devin Williams to the Yankees ahead of his free agency this winter.

The Athletic reported in February that Attanasio even asked the team’s front office to explore cost-cutting trades for Aaron Civale ($8 million)—who it eventually traded to the White Sox in June—and Joel Payamps ($3 million).

But with just over a month left in the season, there’s little for Brewers fans to complain about as the organization has continued to be the standard-bearer for performance on a budget. It is on pace to qualify for the playoffs for the seventh time in eight years, including four 90-win seasons—though it has not made the World Series in that span.

Opportune Time

The Brewers’ success is still more of an outlier than the norm. While the teams with the top three highest payrolls have struggled as of late, they are all still above .500. The Phillies and Blue Jays—the fourth- and fifth-highest payrolls—have the next best records in MLB to the Brewers.

High spenders also tend to walk away with the Commissioner’s Trophy. The controversial 2017 Astros team was the last to win the World Series without a payroll in the top half of MLB.

Milwaukee’s success does come as MLB’s labor tensions continue to boil. There’s a belief that the league is looking to add a salary cap—which the MLB Players Association has resisted for decades—and a work stoppage in 2027 is not out of the question.

“My contingency plan is to make an agreement with the players and play the ’27 season,” commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters, including Front Office Sports, in Chicago earlier this month. “I’m optimistic that we’ll find a way to make a deal.”