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The Milwaukee Brewers and Cleveland Guardians are in the midst of a three-game clash that might cause a rift in the space-time continuum. That’s because in many ways, the two perennial contenders in their respective Central divisions are each other’s doppelgänger.
This is true not because these are two franchises that, back in the 1970s, believed it would be a good idea to host a 10-cent beer night (It was not). It’s true because they are perennial winners who enter each season criminally underrated.
By comparing opening over/under figures for wins from the betting markets to the actual results, we can get a glimpse of how teams perform against expectation. Here are the top-five overachievers from 2016 to the present, a period that coincides with Cleveland’s 2016 World Series appearance and the first full season Craig Counsell managed the Brewers, more or less kicking off an era of Milwaukee teams as we’ve come to know them:
Average games won vs. preseason over/under win total, 2016 to present:
TeamDifference1. Milwaukee BrewersPlus-7.72. Tampa Bay RaysPlus-5.83. Cleveland GuardiansPlus-5.64. Los Angeles DodgersPlus-3.65. AthleticsPlus-3.5* win totals prorated to 162 games for the shortened 2020 season and the current oneOver the past 11 years, the Brewers’ average expected win total has been 81.1; they’ve won an average of 89.2 games. For the Guardians, the expectation has been 84.5 wins; they’ve won an average of 90.1.How does this keep happening? Why do the Brewers and Guardians keep confounding their season forecasts?The teams are of little help. Their organizational practices are proprietary and for good reason — every little innovation can be used as a competitive advantage, and these teams have been among the most innovative. You can ask them for insight, but you’ll be greeted with a wry smile and evasive generalities. They’re good at that, too.Thus, we can’t fully know what the Guardians and Brewers do to stay ahead of the projections. But we can take a look at some of the different ways they stand out.Overachieving playersThe extra wins Cleveland and Milwaukee produce don’t appear out of thin air. They can largely be traced to a net overachievement in player production against expectation. Or, to put it in plain English, their players tend to do better than we think they will. There are numerous examples, but let’s cherry pick a couple of them.For Milwaukee, the Steamer projection system had Jacob Misiorowski pegged for 1.53 fWAR this season. Yeah, it seems low because of what he’s done so far in 2026, and because we saw how dazzling his pure stuff was last year. But that’s a reasonable projection for a young player with tremendous upside who had a big league track record of just 66 innings and a 96 ERA+. Now he’s on pace for 9.2 fWAR.
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Now let’s choose a little more established player for the Guardians. Brayan Rocchio was projected for 1.05 fWAR by Steamer, one season after he finished below replacement level at age 24 and was demoted to Triple-A for a few weeks. Now he’s on pace for 4.5 fWAR, and in my AXE system, ranks fourth among American League shortstops.
This is the kind of thing that happens again and again with these teams. Prospects hit the ground running, ready to produce at a first-division level faster than the projection systems can keep up with. Players acquired from other teams, even those with sizable track records, suddenly find a new level.
Perfect example of the latter: Brewers pickup Kyle Harrison, who entered the season forecast for 1.0 fWAR after being acquired from Boston. Now Harrison is on pace for 4.0 fWAR and ranks 11th among National League starting pitchers by AXE.
This doesn’t apply to everyone on both rosters. Every team has players who over or underachieves forecasts. But Milwaukee and Cleveland tend to come out ahead on the bottom lines of this balance sheet.
Here are the top 10 teams by wins above forecasted fWAR, per Steamer’s projections. The win figures are based on current results prorated to 162 games.
fWAR vs.projections, 2026:
TeamfWAR above expectation1. Milwaukee BrewersPlus-15.32. Chicago White SoxPlus-14.83. New York YankeesPlus-12.44. Los Angeles DodgersPlus-12.35. Pittsburgh PiratesPlus-9.36. St. Louis CardinalsPlus-5.67. Tampa Bay RaysPlus-5.68. Miami MarlinsPlus-4.89. Cleveland GuardiansPlus-2.810. Atlanta BravesPlus-2.3In case you’re wondering, last on this list are the New York Mets, at minus-18.3 fWAR below expectation.
The dugouts at American Family Field this week feature the winners of the past four Manager of the Year awards — two each for Milwaukee’s Pat Murphy and Cleveland’s Stephen Vogt.
You can argue that it’s a chicken-and-egg situation. Do these two keep winning awards because their teams keep overachieving? Or do their teams overachieve because their managers are so good?
It’s not a great idea to assign a specific win impact to a manager because so much of the job isn’t measurable. But what you can say about Vogt and Murphy is that they slot perfectly into their roles as parts of high functioning organizations. That matters.
The ability to identify and develop young talent has always had currency in the majors. Right now, no one does it better than the Brewers and Guardians, who ranked as the top two organizations in baseball entering the season, according to ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel.
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Both clubs feature lineups with an average age below the MLB average, and both feature pitching staffs that rank among the three youngest, per Baseball-Reference.com. They also rank in the top five by ERA+.
Misiorowski is an NL Cy Young front-runner at age 24, in his second big league season. Cleveland’s Parker Messick is in the running for AL Cy Young and Rookie of the Year at 25.
This also plays into the under forecasting. Even hyped young players tend to be forecasted with a measure of caution, but the Guardians and, especially the Brewers, tend to unveil their young players in a way that allows them to provide contention-level production almost immediately.
Both clubs are contending because of run prevention than run production. That’s true of the Brewers, who have a high-scoring attack, but it’s especially true of the Guardians.
Milwaukee has the better offense, but what is similar between the clubs is they both have diversified attacks. Cleveland ranks 25th in runs via homers (34.6%), while the Brewers are at 29th (30%). Meanwhile, both rank in the top 10 in steals and sacrifices. Both rank in the top 10 in walks and the bottom three in first-pitch swinging. Both are in the bottom 10 in strikeout rates despite the patient approaches.
The Brewers rank third in BABIP, while Cleveland is 27th, and that’s the main reason why the Milwaukee offense has been more prolific, even if the styles are similar. Both approaches fly in the face of an era that has been dominated by three-true-outcomes offense.
As baseball’s rulebook has evolved over the years, the general push has been to provide more of a platform for athletic players as opposed to the all-or-nothing sluggers who have tended to dominate our perception of the 21st century big leagues. The Brewers and Guardians have been out in front of these changes at seemingly every step of the way.
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The Brewers in particular have been adept at finding and developing young, athletic players sooner than most organizations. We see that paying off now. According to Baseball Savant, the Brewers rank third in average sprint speed and have generally deployed outfielders who are all capable of playing center field.
But the thing that stands out is that these teams have been able to adapt, albeit in different ways.
The powerful Guardians teams of the past decade were built on a foundation of dominant starting pitching. And while the Cleveland pitching factory rolls on, the recent clubs have more relied on deep powerhouse bullpens.
Milwaukee, meanwhile, has evolved its offense to suit the times. The 2019 club that took the Dodgers to Game 7 of the NL Championship Series ranked second in runs via homers and three-true-outcomes percentage. The Brewers, who faced the Dodgers in last year’s NLCS, ranked 28th and 26th, respectively, by these measures.
At least part of the reason observers might have consistently sold these teams short is that they’ve tended to keep their payrolls low, even when it means dealing established, winning-type players.
During the 2016 to present period we’ve been looking at, the Brewers rank sixth in the majors with 89.2 wins per 162 games. They’ve ranked 17th or lower in Opening Day payroll in each of those 11 seasons. Their median rank is 22 and they entered the 2026 season ranked 20th, per Cot’s Contracts at Baseball Prospectus.
Cleveland has won even more with less. The Guardians rank fourth in average wins per 162 (90.1). Their payroll high point was a No. 15 ranking in 2018, but they’ve been 23rd or lower in eight of the 11 seasons. Their median rank has been 24.
You can argue that both teams could — or even should — spend more, but you can’t argue that they haven’t found ways to win even without high-level payrolls.
Cleveland is the owner of baseball’s longest title drought — 78 years through last season. Milwaukee, born in 1969 as the Seattle Pilots, is working on a 57-year drought and is one of five franchises without a World Series win.
For all the things these two overachieving franchises do well, that remains the bottom line. This regular-season meeting between Cleveland and Milwaukee is compelling, but it would be so much more compelling in hindsight if these clubs managed to end up winning pennants, making the current matchup a World Series preview.
Can it happen? Well, sure. In my newest run of simulations, the Guardians and Brewers met in the World Series 2.15% of the time, making it the 12th-most likely matchup. The odds are long but defying odds — and forecasts — is what these teams do.
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