LOS ANGELES – Two-time All-Star shortstop J.J. Hardy will be watching with his kids on Wednesday night when the Brewers face the Dodgers in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series.
He had no idea about his part in procuring Milwaukee’s pitcher-catcher battery. Ascendant left-hander Robert Gasser is getting the start and All-Star catcher William Contreras will be behind the plate. If not for Hardy, they might not have come to Milwaukee in the first place.
“Wait a minute,” Hardy said during a phone call. “How does that work?”
Here’s how.
It’s a story about how players and organizations can remain connected long after they part.
June 5, 2001: Brewers draft J.J. Hardy
The Brewers knew they were getting an elite athlete when they drafted Hardy in the second round out of Sabino High School in northeast Tucson. His mother was once the nation’s second-ranked amateur golfer behind World Golf Hall of Famer Nancy Lopez. His father played tennis for two years on the ATP Tour and reached as high as No. 270 in the world.
Hardy applied that competitive spirit to baseball and, after grinding through a tough start to his rookie season with the Brewers in 2005 and an injury-shortened '06, broke through as an NL All-Star in '07, his first of back-to-back seasons with at least 24 home runs. In ’08 he was even better, posting a career-high .821 OPS and helping the Brewers win the NL Wild Card for their first postseason appearance in 26 years.
But when he slumped in 2009, Hardy was demoted to the Minors in a move that temporarily strained the relationship. With top prospect Alcides Escobar on the cusp of the big leagues, it was time for a change.
Nov. 6, 2009: Brewers trade Hardy to the Twins for Carlos Gómez
They called Gómez "El Potro" -- The Colt -- and watching him glide around the basepaths and in center field, it was easy to see why. Few players in Brewers history were more electrifying and more maddening, often on the same night, and sometimes within the same at-bat.
But Gómez, traded by both the Mets and the Twins before landing in Milwaukee, blossomed after then-manager Ron Roenicke let him start swinging away midway through the 2012 season. Gómez turned into an All-Star in 2013 and ’14, and he typified the more sophisticated manner in which teams were valuing players beyond counting stats. Wins above replacement offered a new window into the value of players with his varied skill set.
But at his core, he was a showman.
“If I’m a fan, if I paid to watch a baseball game, I like to see myself play a game,” said Gómez. “That’s the reason I play that way. Everybody has their stats, but in the end, baseball is a game. It’s a show.”
He’s still a fan favorite in Milwaukee, where he threw a ceremonial first pitch prior to Game 1 of the NLDS against the Padres. But in 2015 as Milwaukee was changing managers and then general managers amid a mini-rebuild, he was a valuable trade chip.
July 30, 2015: Brewers trade Gómez, Mike Fiers and cash to the Astros for Josh Hader, Adrian Houser, Brett Phillips and Domingo Santana
The trade that almost wasn’t. Two days before the 2015 Trade Deadline, with the Brewers embarking on a mini-rebuild, general manager Doug Melvin had verbally agreed to deal Gómez to the Mets for Zack Wheeler (then a young pitcher in the early stages of recovery from Tommy John surgery) and infielder Wilmer Flores. With the deal done, Brewers scouts went to dinner in a private room at the Milwaukee steakhouse Carnevor, where TVs showed the Padres-Mets game at Citi Field. Everyone was bewildered to see Flores' eyes filling with tears as he manned shortstop in the seventh inning.
“Then, probably an hour into the dinner,” said Zack Minasian, then one of the Brewers’ top scouts and now the GM of the Giants, “Doug is in the corner on the phone.”
The deal had fallen apart. The Mets blamed Gómez’s medicals, which was simultaneously curious -- the Brewers believed the reports were fine -- and damaging to whatever was to come next. The Brewers resolved to start over the next day and quickly rekindled talks with the Astros on a blockbuster that landed a future Opening Day right fielder (Santana), a dynamic and entertaining center fielder (Phillips), a back-end starter (Houser) and a left-hander who would become arguably the best relief pitcher in franchise history, and maybe one of the best of all time in Hader, who owns the second-highest career strikeout rate, behind Mason Miller.
Hader piled up 125 saves to move just behind franchise leader Dan Plesac’s 133 before the Brewers -- wary of some of Hader’s peripherals by 2022 and eyeing his eventual free agency 15 months later -- decided to flip him.
Aug. 1, 2022: Brewers trade Hader to the Padres for Robert Gasser, Dinelson Lamet, Taylor Rogers and Esteury Ruiz
It’s perhaps the best example in recent years that short-term pain can lead to long-term gain. The Brewers’ second-half slide said everything about the clubhouse reaction to this trade, and it didn’t help that Lamet was designated for assignment and Rogers was a bust, pitching to a 5.48 ERA. It’s the only year out of the past nine that the Brewers missed the postseason.
But look at what has happened since. The Brewers won each of the next four National League Central titles, with a climbing regular-season win total every year -- from 92 in 2023 to 93 in ‘24, to a franchise-record 97 in ‘25, to another franchise-record 103 in ‘26 -- all while making more trades that flipped All-Stars for prospects. There was Corbin Burnes on the eve of 2024 Spring Training, Devin Williams ahead of ‘25 and Freddy Peralta ahead of ‘26. Painful in the moment, productive in the end. Gasser, whose path to this point was delayed by Tommy John surgery in 2024, will start NLCS Game 3 after surging to the finish in the regular season and then holding off the Padres in the clinching Game 4 of the NLDS.
“I think it was sort of a seminal event with the Josh Hader trade,” owner Mark Attanasio told The Athletic this month. “[Fans] bought into this program. It’s been four seasons, and it’s all worked, right? The team has won an increasing amount of games. So they’ve seen change, and they just bought into the team fully.”
And the Hader trade wasn’t done bearing fruit.
Dec. 12, 2022: Brewers trade Ruiz to the Athletics and Manny Piña to the Braves as part of a three-team trade for Joel Payamps, Justin Yeager and William Contreras
Contreras was two weeks shy of turning 25, already an All-Star, and he was so disappointed about leaving that he initially demanded his agent do something to send him back to Atlanta. But since then, he’s found a home with the Brewers, playing at least 141 games in each of his four regular seasons and making two more All-Star appearances as the NL’s starting catcher. When then-Brewers bench coach Pat Murphy called his friend Walt Weiss for a scouting report, Murphy learned that “you’ve got to peel away the onion a little bit” to get past the “strong” stuff to find something good.
As Contreras showed in a relentless performance in Game 3 of the NLCS on Monday, when he became the fourth player to connect for three tying- or go-ahead hits in a postseason game, the Brewers have found the good stuff.
“He’s tough on himself,” Murphy said in July. “He can be tough on others and tough to relate to sometimes, but he’s a fierce competitor. I’d like to see him believe in himself a little more. You guys might be surprised by that.”
Hardy can relate. As a Brewers rookie in 2005, he was hitting .187 at the All-Star break and was dealing with doubt. But manager Ned Yost was determined to live and die with the club’s young players, and Hardy responded with an .866 OPS in the second half. He went on to be a two-time All-Star and a three-time Gold Glove Award winner in 13 Major League seasons.
Speaking of belief, Hardy believes in these Brewers.
And he was tickled to hear about his connection to Milwaukee’s Game 3 battery.
“I’m connected as a fan,” said Hardy, who visited as recently as Spring Training earlier this year. “It was totally different in 2005 when Rickie [Weeks] and I came up. We knew the history of some losing seasons and not making the playoffs, and it meant a ton to us to achieve that [in 2008].
“To think it would have this long-term effect, I don’t know if anybody thought that. Whenever I go back there for a meet and greet or signing, a lot of the fans will say, ‘You were on the team that turned it around.’ I don’t know if we look at it like that, but if they keep saying it over and over, you kind of have to.”
Hardy lives in suburban Phoenix and stays busy these days coaching his young sons, aged 10 and 8. They’ve been getting decked out in Brewers gear, right down to their socks, to watch this year’s playoffs with his sons’ friends.
Is this the Brewers’ year?
“It sure feels like it, doesn’t it?” Hardy said. “With their confidence and the way they’ve been playing, you’ve got to believe.”