Brewers' top 10 players of the decade

MILWAUKEE -- The assignment is “top 10 players of the decade,” and the instructions stop there. Like any good list, that means this one is open to some interpretation.

When lining up the Brewers’ top 10 of the 2010s, are we looking at players’ peaks? If that’s the case, then Prince Fielder and Christian Yelich have cases on par with Milwaukee mainstay Ryan Braun. Are we fielding a team of the decade comprised of eight position players, a starter and a reliever? If that’s the case, then we need a shortstop. Or, are we looking at the decade as a whole and attempting to line up the players who delivered the most value over the long haul?

All three sound like entertaining exercises, but Nos. 1 and 2 will wait for another day. We’ll go with total value over a 10-year span that represented the most successful decade in franchise history in terms of regular-season victories (824) and postseason appearances (three).

Here are the 10 most valuable Brewers of the 2010s:

1) Ryan Braun
Seasons: 2010-19
Fangraphs WAR: 31.7

It was a complicated decade for the Brewers’ longest-tenured player. But it was productive, as he hit .294 with 241 home runs and 811 RBIs in the 10-year span. Along the way, he broke Robin Yount’s franchise record for home runs. Braun was the third different player in club history to win his league’s Most Valuable Player Award in 2011, and he finished runner-up to the Giants’ Buster Posey in ‘12 before being suspended for the final 65 games of ‘13. He delivered some of the Brewers’ biggest hits before and after that episode, including go-ahead home runs in the team’s postseason clinchers in ‘11 and ‘19. Braun is entering the final guaranteed season of his contract in ‘20.

2) Jonathan Lucroy
Seasons: 2010-16
Fangraphs WAR: 35.3

By Fangraphs’ measure of wins above replacement, Lucroy delivered more value in six and a half seasons from 2010 and beyond than Ryan Braun did in 10. Fangraphs valued him at 8.2 WAR in ‘14, the second-best season in Brewers history to Robin Yount’s 9.8 in 1982. It’s a reflection of how Lucroy came of age in Major League Baseball at the same time as analytics, which efforted to quantify the contributions of a player like him on defense. In his early years with the Brewers, Lucroy was given particular credit as a pitch framer, which may have been influenced by some of the great command of the pitchers he handled. But by any measure, Lucroy was one of the best catchers in baseball during the first half of the decade, peaking in '14 when he started the All-Star Game and led MLB with 53 doubles while shattering Ivan Rodriguez’s doubles record for catchers. In ‘16, Lucroy’s decision to veto a trade to Cleveland forced new general manager David Stearns to send him to Texas instead for a package of prospects including Lewis Brinson, who was subsequently the centerpiece of the trade that landed Christian Yelich from Miami.

3) Carlos Gómez
Seasons: 2010-15
Fangraphs WAR: 18.9

Like Jonathan Lucroy's, Gómez’s value to the Brewers came to light with the help of analytics to spotlight his defense and speed. For years, he was a project, first with the Mets, then with the Twins and finally with the Brewers, who acquired him in November 2009 for popular shortstop J.J. Hardy. Gómez struggled for his first two years in Milwaukee under Ken Macha and then lost part of the ‘11 season to a broken collarbone, but he began to flourish in ‘12 under Ron Roenicke. He made the All-Star team, won a Gold Glove Award and posted the second-best Baseball-Reference WAR (7.8) in Brewers history in ‘13, then started the All-Star Game in ‘14.

Yes, he sometimes irritated opponents. And yes, sometimes his enthusiasm got the best of him. But Gómez was good enough that when the Brewers shifted to rebuilding in 2015, he was the centerpiece of a trade with the Astros that netted the Brewers four future big leaguers in Josh Hader, Domingo Santana, Brett Phillips and Adrian Houser, all of whom played their part in back-to-back postseason appearances at the end of the decade. Memorably, that trade came together a day after the Mets backed out of a deal that would have brought Zack Wheeler to Milwaukee.

“For me, Milwaukee was special,” Gómez said in 2019. “In the five and a half years I played there, I got so much respect from those fans, the front office, the media. And I’m never going to forget that.”

4) Christian Yelich
Seasons: 2018-19
Fangraphs WAR: 15.4

Yelich’s first two seasons in a Brewers uniform represented some of the greatest in the club’s 50-year history, no matter your preferred version of value. He was worth 7.8 fWAR in 2018 and 7.6 fWAR in ‘19, the third- and fourth-best seasons in franchise history. His 1.100 OPS, .442 weighted on-base average and 174 weighted runs created plus in 2019 were franchise records, despite consistently being pitched around as the reigning National League MVP Award winner. As the decade closed, Yelich was the new face of the franchise.

5) Yovani Gallardo
Seasons: 2010-14
Fangraphs WAR: 11.5

Speaking of interesting debates, who was the best home-grown pitcher in Brewers history? Gallardo certainly belongs in the conversation, a second-round Draft pick in 2004 who was trusted to start the Brewers’ first postseason game in 26 years in ‘08 despite the fact he was just coming back from knee surgery. By ‘11, Gallardo anchored a starting rotation fortified by trades for Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum. He delivered career-bests for victories, innings and strikeouts for a team that set the franchise record for regular-season victories, then won a postseason series for the first time in 29 years. Gallardo broke Ben Sheets’ franchise strikeout record in ‘14 before being traded to the Rangers for a group of prospects that included future All-Star closer Corey Knebel.

6) Rickie Weeks Jr.
Seasons: 2010-14
Fangraphs WAR: 11.8

Weeks gets dinged for falling short of some fans’ estimations after the Brewers drafted him second overall in 2003, and for declining the team’s request to move to the outfield late in his career when a need arose. But beyond the statistics -- only Ryan Braun and Carlos Gómez scored more runs in the 2010s, and only Braun, Jonathan Lucroy and Gómez had more runs created -- Weeks gave the team a quiet toughness that made him a clubhouse leader, even though he rarely got credit for that.

7) Corey Hart
Seasons: 2010-12
Fangraphs WAR: 8.8

Hart ranks below some other players in terms of the metrics, but much of that is because the analytics never thought much of his defense. What Hart did deliver is power and versatility, moving from position to position for the team based on need. Only Ryan Braun and Rickie Weeks hit more home runs for the Brewers in the 2010s than Hart (87), and only Christian Yelich, Prince Fielder and Braun had a better OPS than Hart’s .857 or a better wRC+ than Hart’s 130 in the decade.

8) Aramis Ramirez
Seasons: 2012-15
Fangraphs WAR: 9.4

Ramirez’s tenure fell between Milwaukee’s postseason appearances in 2011 and '18-19, when the Brewers generally underperformed and fell into a rebuilding period, so it’s tempting to forget how productive he was. In '12 he hit .300 with 27 home runs, 105 RBIs and an NL-best 50 doubles for a team struggling to get past the departure via free agency of Prince Fielder. In '14, he was voted the NL’s All-Star Game starter at third base. In four and a half seasons with the Brewers, Ramirez slashed .284/.342/.473.

9) Jeremy Jeffress
Seasons: 2010, 2014-16, 2017-19
Fangraphs WAR: 4.2

It was proven time and again that for a variety of reasons, Jeffress was at his best in a Brewers uniform. He was a hotshot prospect in 2010 who helped Milwaukee land Zack Greinke in a trade. Then Jeffress came back in the middle of the decade, became the closer and helped the Brewers make the trade with Texas that landed Lewis Brinson, who in turn headlined the trade that landed Christian Yelich. Jeffress returned once again in '17 and helped anchor the bullpens of ‘18 and ‘19, making the All-Star team in that final season. Josh Hader could have filled this spot, but Jeffress delivered over 100 more innings in the 2010s. Of the 37 pitchers who worked at least 100 frames for the Brewers in this decade, only Hader had a better ERA than Jeffress (2.42 to 2.66). No one took the mound more often in the 2010s than Jeffress, who appeared 301 times for the Brewers in the regular season.

10) Prince Fielder
Seasons: 2010-11
Fangraphs WAR: 7.3

Ryan Braun was the 2011 NL MVP Award winner, but Fielder was Milwaukee’s heart and soul that season, the team’s finest in a generation. He played every day, doing so with edge, and his departure coincided with a series of frustrating years. Fielder’s career came to a premature end in Texas because of a neck injury, but the Brewers had him back in '18 to honor him with a spot on the team’s Wall of Honor. He should be a lock for the Miller Park Walk of Fame when eligible.

"I gave it my all," Fielder said, looking back on his career. "I literally put my neck on the line. I'm kind of at peace with it now. If I didn't play that way, it probably would be tougher now."

Just missed: Josh Hader, Lorenzo Cain, Chase Anderson, Zach Davies, Travis Shaw, Francisco Rodríguez