Cubs over Brewers in division? National League Central's back-to-back-to-back champs aren't worried

MILWAUKEE — So we’re doing this again, are we?

Talking about the big-market Cubs as though the National League Central is theirs to lose?

Minimizing the mini-market Brewers as though maybe, if all goes right, they’ll little-engine-that-could their way back into the postseason picture?

All the major league previews in the national media, and all the sports gambling sites and apps in the degenerate-o-sphere, are indicating the Cubs should be expected to win in the neighborhood of 90 games.

And they’re telling you the Brewers — the back-to-back-to-back division champs, lest anyone forget — are more of a low-to-mid-80s type of outfit.

You want to believe that? Go ahead.

“I think a lot of people have been really waiting for the day that we suck and they can finally say, ‘We told you so, they’re no good,’ ” veteran outfielder Christian Yelich told the Sun-Times this week at American Family Field, where the Brewers tied a bow on their spring with two exhibition games before welcoming the White Sox for Opening Day.

“We’ve become accustomed to winning and being a postseason team, being a team that’s competing for the division. That’s definitely not changing this year.”

Seriously, why would it?

In 2023, win projections for the Brewers were right around 84½. On planet reality, though, they went 92-70. That was manager Craig Counsell’s last season before being lured away by the Cubs.

In 2024, with Counsell gone, ace Corbin Burnes gone and standout starting pitcher Brandon Woodruff in doubt for the season, the Brewers were projected to go under .500 and finish fourth in the division. Instead, they fared even better — 93 wins this time — and won the division by a whopping 10 games over the Cubs and Cardinals.

In 2025, it was the same old dance. The Brewers were projected to win around 83½ — and the Cubs, for the second year in a row, to take the division — but the Cubs finished looking up at a 97-win Brewers squad with the best record in the NL. And we know how the rivals’ division series matchup went down.

The Brewers have Pat Murphy, who has won back-to-back NL manager of the year awards. If Hall of Fame-bound Reds manager Terry Francona is the division’s best — and he is — that must make Counsell an unofficial third in the rankings.

They have president of baseball operations Matt Arnold, winner of back-to-back executive of the year awards. It seems Arnold has more ideas about what can be done with a dollar than Jed Hoyer and the rest of his peers can even imagine.

They have mostly the same lineup that knocked the Cubs out of the playoffs, with Jackson Chourio, Brice Turang, William Contreras and Yelich back for more; rock-solid base running and defense, which never goes out of style; and, again, an imposing bullpen featuring Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill.

Ace Freddy Peralta was traded, bolstering a farm system commonly ranked at the top of baseball. But Woodruff is back in the rotation — though he ramped up slowly and cautiously this spring — and fireballer Jacob Misiorowski, an instant superstar in 2025, is in an extremely rapid ascent.

There’s no one here expecting to take a step back.

“We know what this locker room can do,” Turang said. “That’s all that matters.”

Third baseman and utility player Luis Rengifo signed a modest free-agent deal in the offseason and has a chance to become the latest big-league veteran to find a higher level of performance and purpose in a Brewers uniform. Rengifo, who came from the Angels, has noted a hunger level in the clubhouse that’s greater than what he’d been exposed to and says his own desire to contribute anything he can to the cause of winning has been elevated by the guys around him.

“The things that are important here are all [about] winning games, always,” he said. “It’s just different here.”

Said outfielder Sal Frelick, “You’ve got to be a ballplayer to play here.”

Meaning what, exactly?

“Meaning drop a bunt down when needed, be a good base runner, play the best defense you can,” Frelick said. “Those three things — situational hitting, base running and defense — are who we are, and that means every one of us, and I know that’s not the case with every team. But it’s why I always believe in our team, always have the utmost belief in us.”

Asked about the projected win totals out there, Murphy made a joking show of tearing into the Brewers’ communications staff for not furnishing him with printed examples of the specifics.

“I keep asking for them,” he said. “I want evidence. Receipts. You know what I’m saying.”

But this is one confident skipper, as always.

“If someone tells me I suck, it usually challenges me to try to prove I don’t,” Murphy said.

“Buckle up and get ready, because it’s going to be a fight. There’ll be a lot of bloodshed and a lot of pain to get where you want to go.”

That goes for everybody in the Central, the favored Cubs included.

“I meant that figuratively,” Murphy said with a smile and a wink.

Thank goodness for that.