PHOENIX – One popular model gives the Brewers a 20.4% chance of winning a fourth straight National League Central title and projects them going 82-80. Another widely cited projection is even more pessimistic at just a 12.6% chance to win the division and an 81-81 projected record.
Christian Yelich has seen this sort of thing before.
“We just don’t care,” Yelich said of those projections. “It’s the same story every year.”
Playing the underdog role seems to suit these Brewers, who have traded away an ace pitcher for prospects in each of the past three offseasons, and yet, ride on the longest stretch of regular-season success in franchise history, including a club-record and MLB-leading 97 wins last year.
If they are to four-peat as Central champions they’ll have to stay atop the Cubs, who added free agent third baseman Alex Bregman during an active winter, and the Pirates, who may have the division’s best young rotation on paper, led by reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes. Both FanGraphs and PECOTA project the Brewers to finish third behind those rivals, followed by the Reds and the rebuilding Cardinals.
Milwaukee’s young starting pitching is a significant wild card, but the position-player group is returning almost entirely intact after ranking third in MLB in runs scored (806) and second in on-base percentage (.332) last season. The only notable addition is third baseman Luis Rengifo, whose free-agent contract was finalized on Monday.
“Just because they say you’re going to be bad, or just because they say you’re going to be good, you still have to play the six-month season and everything that goes with that,” Yelich said. “When all that settles, then you find out what kind of team you were.
“So we kind of block it out. It’s business as usual every single season, kind of the same story. So go out and play, and we’ll see where we’re at.”
At 34, Yelich is heading into his 14th season in the big leagues. Unlike last year, when he was coming off back surgery, he’s beginning Spring Training after a normal offseason spent preparing his body for the rigors of the 162-plus game marathon while resting his mind.
He’s likely to be the Brewers’ primary designated hitter again in 2026 after filling that role for 128 of his 146 starts last year. Thanks to good health along the way, he slashed .264/.343/.452 with 29 home runs and 103 RBIs -- his most home runs since 2019 and his first 100-RBI season since 2018, when Yelich won the NL MVP Award in his first season following a trade from Miami to Milwaukee.
“He’s really in tune with the game, he understands it. And he understands his role with the Milwaukee Brewers,” said manager Pat Murphy. “Yeli knows how to get into a meeting or a team session and impart something simple, and yet, profound. When he speaks, people listen. And when he speaks from his heart and he’s serious about something, everyone listens and it’s impactful. I go to him all the time.”
Yelich still has three more seasons, plus a 2029 mutual option on the club-record-setting contract he signed in 2020. He heads into this year 26 home runs shy of becoming the seventh player to hit 200 home runs in a Brewers uniform, 36 runs shy of becoming the sixth player to score 700 runs for the Brewers and 42 RBIs short of becoming the ninth Brewers player to drive in 600.
“I think that especially with a back surgery, you want to make sure you can still do it, and I think I proved to myself [last season] that I can still do it,” Yelich said. “I got off to a slow start last year. It felt like I was playing catch-up in Spring Training and at the beginning of the season with just trying to get your feet under you after missing time and not having a real offseason.
“But it’s part of sports, right? Our team picked it up in the middle of the year and we kind of rode that out. Obviously, the postseason didn’t go how I wanted it to go and how we wanted it to go.”
This is a new year, and another chance to buck the projections.
“The one thing I will say about last year is I thought it was cool to see people and see the fan base rally around that team,” Yelich said. “That’s the cool thing about baseball and what special teams can do. It brings people together. You can watch people create memories with their friends, their families, and it was cool energy in the city.
“You wish you could have taken it the whole way because of how special it was. But guys who were around last year can try to create the same kind of magic this year.”