MILWAUKEE -- Using regular-season winning percentage as the barometer, here are the best full seasons in Brewers history.
1. 2025
Record: 97-65
Manager: Pat Murphy
After a disastrous opening weekend at Yankee Stadium and team meetings following ragged series in San Francisco and Cleveland, the Brewers were three games under .500 with a week to go in May. Murphy, the reigning NL Manager of the Year (and the first Brewers skipper ever to win that honor), lamented that his team had lost its edge. But then, starting with a comeback win in Pittsburgh, they found it. The Brewers rattled off winning streaks of eight, 11 and a franchise-record 14 games over the next three months to vault to the top of the standings. They finished with the best record in baseball for the first time since 1982, and broke the club record for wins in a regular season. Christian Yelich enjoyed a resurgence. Jacob Misiorowski arrived in the Majors throwing heat. And the Brewers delivered the best possible tribute to late broadcaster Bob Uecker by winning a third consecutive division title.
“They know they’re not a powerhouse that’s stacked like some of these other teams,” Murphy said of his young club. “It’s been a joy for me to be around a group of guys that has taken this uncommon mindset as serious as they have. Nothing on paper says we’re supposed to be where we are.”
2. 2011
Record: 96-66
Manager: Ron Roenicke
Long before “Beast Mode” became a thing and the 2011 Brewers won their division for the first time in a generation, they needed some pitching to go with that high-energy offense. So general manager Doug Melvin parted with five premium prospects in the span of two weeks in December 2010 to swing a pair of trades that announced to the baseball world that Milwaukee was all-in for what might be Prince Fielder’s final season in a Brewers uniform. Nine months later, the pitchers Melvin acquired, Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum, were preparing to pitch in the postseason for the first time, Fielder was coming off one of his best all-around campaigns, Ryan Braun was poised to be the team’s first league MVP in 22 years and the Brewers were division champions for the first time since 1982.
"This was the plan," said principal owner Mark Attanasio the day they clinched the National League Central. "This is everything we hoped for."
The Brewers beat the D-backs in a thrilling NL Division Series, clinching their first postseason series win since ’82 on Nyjer Morgan’s extra-inning walk-off single in Game 5, before falling to St. Louis in six games in the NL Championship Series.
3. 2018
Record: 96-67
Manager: Craig Counsell
The ’11 season was special, but there’s an argument that the Brewers' '18 season might have been even more impressive. Milwaukee began September five games back of the Cubs for first place in the NL Central, only to storm back and force a division-deciding Game 163 at Wrigley Field, which they won. Christian Yelich was the club's catalyst, putting together one of the most dominant second-half performances in history en route to winning the NL MVP Award. Milwaukee went on to sweep Colorado in the NLDS, but it fell to the Dodgers in a seven-game NLCS. Three years after Counsell became manager of his hometown team and David Stearns became baseball’s youngest GM at the time, the Brewers’ rebuild had reached its destination.
4. 1979
Record: 96-66
Manager: George Bamberger
It may break some hearts that we’re already at No. 3 and the ’82 Brewers have yet to make an appearance, but if we’re going by raw winning percentage, then the ’79 club comes out ahead. This was the second year under GM Harry Dalton and manager George Bamberger, who had led the Brewers to an incredible 26-win improvement from ’77 to ’78 before the club took another step forward in ’79, only to finish eight games back of the powerhouse Orioles in the American League East. Four of Bambi’s Bombers garnered MVP votes, led by Gorman Thomas, who led the league and set a franchise record with 45 home runs. Sixto Lezcano led the team with a .987 OPS. The Brewers weren’t shut out until their final game of the season.
T-5. 1982
Record: 95-67
Managers: Buck Rodgers and Harvey Kuenn
Whatever the regular-season winning percentages say, this was the best season in Brewers history. Harvey’s Wallbangers led the Majors in runs, home runs and slugging percentage. Paul Molitor scored 136 runs, most for an AL player in 33 years. Robin Yount posted one of the best seasons for a shortstop in history, winning the first of his two career AL MVP Awards. Yount, Molitor and Cecil Cooper all topped 200 hits. Cooper, Thomas and Ben Oglivie all topped 30 home runs. Mike Caldwell and Pete Vuckovich served as gritty leaders of the starting rotation, and Vuckovich won the AL Cy Young Award. The Brewers made it to the World Series for the only time to date, taking a 3-2 Series lead over the Cardinals before falling in seven games. And yet they didn’t look like a World Series contender two months into the season. The Brewers started the year 22-24, prompting a change at manager from Rodgers to Kuenn, the hometown hitting coach who had been with the Brewers since 1972. Once Kuenn took over, the team took off.
“When Harvey took over, everyone had a different attitude,” Jim Gantner said. “It was, ‘Here we go.’”
T-5. 2021
Record: 95-67
Manager: Craig Counsell
Perhaps it was a case of peaking too early. Led by a trio of aces (2021 NL Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff and Freddy Peralta), with Devin Williams and Josh Hader lurking at the end of games and with Willy Adames and Rowdy Tellez providing offensive pop following in-season trades, the Brewers moved into first place for good on June 19 and never looked back, building a lead as wide as 14 games over the rest of the Central division with a sweep in Cleveland from Sept. 10-12. It was in the middle game of that series that Burnes, on his way to becoming the first league ERA champion in franchise history and the third Brewers pitcher to win his league’s Cy Young Award, combined with Hader for the Brewers’ second no-hitter. American Family Field, rechristened at the start of that year thanks to a new naming rights agreement with the Wisconsin-based insurer, readied for a deep playoff run.
Alas, that didn’t happen. The Brewers opted to rest regulars down the stretch and lined things up just right for the postseason, only to fall in the NLDS to the eventual World Series champion Braves.
The rest of the best regular seasons:
1978 and 2024 (93-69)
1992 and 2023 (92-70)
1987 (91-71)
2008 (90-72)
2019 (89-73)
1988 and 1983 (87-75)