Brewers named Baseball America's Organization of the Year

MILWAUKEEBaseball America has named the Milwaukee Brewers as its 2018 Organization of the Year. The announcement was made today by Executive Editor of Baseball America J.J. Cooper.

“We honored the Brewers as our Organization of the Year not just because they had a very successful big league season,” said Cooper. “We try to ensure that our flagship award digs deeper than that. The Brewers’ run to the National League Championship Series was built by successful player development, scouting and analytics departments. We've been impressed with Milwaukee's ability to develop and graduate prospects to the Major Leagues, as well as the Brewers’ ability to use their farm system to improve the Major League club, most notably with last year's Christian Yelich trade.”

The award is selected by the staff of Baseball America. The honor recognizes not only the success at the Major League level, but also the organization’s amateur, professional and international scouting, farm system and player development efforts.

“This award recognizes the efforts that every single person associated with the Brewers puts forth on a daily basis to create a championship-caliber organization,” said General Manager David Stearns. “We are proud of what we have here in Milwaukee and look forward to building on the 2018 season.”

This marks the fourth time that the Brewers have taken home the award and the first since they won it three times in a row from 1985-87.

The Brewers finished the 2018 regular season with a National League-best 96 wins, leading to a Central Division title. The team qualified for the postseason for the fifth time in franchise history and went on to sweep the Colorado Rockies in the National League Division Series before falling to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series in seven games.

Including the postseason, the Brewers recorded 102 wins, a franchise record for a single year, breaking the previous mark of 101 wins accomplished in 1982 and 2011.

The team featured a franchise-best five All-Stars, including Jesús Aguilar, Lorenzo Cain, Josh Hader, Jeremy Jeffress and Christian Yelich. Most notably, Yelich took home the MVP award, marking the fifth time a Brewer has done so (Rollie Fingers in 1981; Robin Yount in 1982 and 1989; and Ryan Braun in 2011). The outfielder hit 36 home runs, with 110 RBI and led the National League in batting average (.326), slugging percentage (.598) and OPS (1.000).

Several key prospects played prominent roles on the Major League roster, including pitchers Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff. In addition, the organization saw success in the Minor Leagues with the emergence of 2017 first-round selection, second baseman Keston Hiura. He represented the Brewers in the Sirius XM All-Star Futures Game and was named the Arizona Fall League MVP. Outfielder Corey Ray and right-handed pitcher Zack Brown took home the organization’s Player of the Year awards as they continued their rise in the system.

The Brewers faithful did their part as well as 2,850,875 fans packed Miller Park this year. This averaged to 35,195 per game, which ranked 10th in all of baseball.




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