2025 Team Previews - Milwaukee Brewers
As part of my 2025 team previews series, I go through all fantasy-relevant players on the Milwaukee Brewers ahead of the 2025 season.
Check out the intro and team links page here.
Intro
I grew up really disliking the Brewers. The Pirates would go there three times a year and win about one game. It was terrible. To this day, I still don’t like watching games on TV in that park. It just looks so dark.
Now, as a mature man in my mid-30s, I have forgiven them. If Richie Sexson, Bill Hall, or Rickie Weeks showed up at my door asking for help, I’d welcome them in. I also live just a few hours from Milwaukee, so I plan to get to a game out there soon. Maybe even this summer, who knows! There are five MLB teams within a four-hour drive (Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cincinnati) from me. I’ve only taken advantage of that once. My wife and I went to the dumbest Pirates vs. Reds game I could have imagined last summer. All of our kids are now over the age of two, which is a huge milestone in terms of manageability. So yeah, it won’t be super long before I’m drinking a Yuengling Lager in Miller Park. And I absolutely do expect one of you people reading this to buy me said Yuengling.
Roster
The Brewers overperform—or maybe they perform just as they should. I don’t know! Who is to say what is over or under? The point is that the roster hasn’t looked very good in recent years, but they keep winning the division.
This roster looks worse than it has in some time. Willy Adames and Corbin Burnes have departed in the last two offseasons, and they haven’t replaced either guy with much. But there’s some young talent and no gaping issues, so I think they’ll be a competitive team once again.
Hitters
Jackson Chourio
Age: 21
Pos: OF
Chourio was one of the game’s top prospects prior to his rookie year in 2024. The Brewers were so confident in him that they gave him the big extension before the season began and had him in their Opening Day lineup. He started slow, as is often the case, but did not disappoint overall:
573 PA, .275/.327/.464, 21 HR, 22 SB, 21.1% K%, 6.8% BB%
He really took off after a slow couple of months. He struggled a bit to make contact early on and posted a 27% K% through the first two months. After May ended, he took off. He lowered that K% to 18.5% the rest of the way and slashed .303/.358/.525. Elite stuff. Here’s the month-by-month data:
He was one of the most valuable fantasy players in the second half. He just seemed to flip a switch after seeing those first couple hundred PAs against Major League pitching.
Let’s look at some of the other numbers from June 1st on.
Brl%: 8.5%
Cont%: 74.4%
xwOBA: .354
xBA: .281
EV90: 105.8
GB%: 46%
None of those numbers make him look like an MVP threat, but they are all solid enough to make you think he can pretty easily clear 25-homers, even if he doesn’t improve very much.
When you add that to the steals ability, you have a clear top-20 fantasy player. He stole 22 bags overall with a 22% attempt rate. His sprint speed puts him in the 97th percentile, and his bat speed landed him in the 70th percentile. That’s all from a guy who was just 20 years old.
I think the floor is 20-25, and the ceiling is something like 30-40 with a .290 batting average. He’s very good, and I think his second-round cost is fair.
Rank
Projection
673 PA, 100 R, 26 HR, 77 RBI, 32 SB, .269/.323/.456, $16.30 roto value
William Contreras
Age: 27
Pos: C
The playing time alone gets Contreras pretty close to the top of the catcher ranks, but then you factor in what he’s done since joining Milwaukee, and he’s the slam-dunk #1 backstop in fantasy.
Hitting .282 with 23 dingers and nine steals would be very valuable at any position, but it really set him apart from other catchers.
He has always hit the ball hard, but he has always been a bit of a ground ball hitter. He improved slightly on that last year but not completely
William Contreras Brl% and GB% by Year
2022: 13.4%, 53%
2023: 9.1%, 55%
2024: 10.0%, 54%
The thing that drove his 2023 breakout was that drop in K% (28% → 21%). That’s a huge gain, and he kept every last bit of that improvement in 2024.
The exit velocity is great, which gives him even more power upside if he can lift the ball a bit more frequently in 2025.
That’s a highly concentrated launch angle distribution. His FB% is very low (19%), but most of his batted balls are between 0 and 25, which means it’s either ground balls or line drives. The xBA was .271 last year, the best of his career.
The one knock on him for 2025 was that it’s possible that we look back and see 2024 as his best season. The lack of fly balls absolutely could turn into a sub-20 homer season, and the batting average could fall a little ways if he can’t repeat a high BABIP again next year. His .330 BABIP looks high last year until you see that it was actually a bit lower than his previous two seasons:
William Contreras BABIP By Year
2022: .344
2023: .348
2024: .330
He hits a bunch of line drives and hits the ball hard, and that turns into a reliably high BABIP. But it’s possible that some of those line drives turn into ground balls, and he’s a bit unlucky, and the batting average falls below .270.
I’m nitpicking here.
I think he’s great and clearly the #1 catcher. Drafting him is pretty league-dependent. I don’t like the idea of buying high on the #1 catcher after a career year for the guy. I don’t think I’m going to be the first one into the catcher pool this year, but again, this is clearly the best guy at the position.
Rank
Projection
653 PA, 86 R, 25 HR, 91 RBI, 8 SB, .268/.354/.452, $12.70 roto value
Christian Yelich
Age: 33
Pos: OF
Yelich was his best work of the decade before the injury last year.
He was on his way to a 20-40 season with a .300+ batting average while scoring an absolute ton of runs. But the back acted up, and they finally elected the surgery for him. That ended his season after July 23rd.
The K% reached a new low (18.5%,) and the stolen base attempt rate came up to 22%. It was looking great. Yelich is one of the few guys with round-one upside if everything goes right.
The question is about that back. Will the surgery fix the problem for good? It’s been an issue for a long time for him. The other thing to consider is that we did see him reach 600+ PAs in the prior two seasons without being a stud fantasy player because of the lack of homers. It’s absolutely possible that the first few months were a mirage last year, and he’ll go back to that 18-homer, 22-steal pace that we saw from him in 2022-2023.
All things considered, I like where he’s at price-wise.
He is not an outfielder without risk, and I’m much more willing to draft him in leagues with a higher replacement level in the outfield.
Rank
Projection
615 PA, 86 R, 18 HR, 72 RBI, 25 SB, .267/.364/.433, $12.45 roto value
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