Brewers banking on 'elite group' of starters

MILWAUKEE -- Willy Adames must think this is normal. He played his first four Major League seasons with the Rays, who churn out pitchers like some teams pop ballpark popcorn. Now, Adames is in his sixth month with the Brewers, who drafted their first two scheduled starters in the National League Division Series against the Braves, Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff, and did most of the development of Freddy Peralta after acquiring him at 19 years old.

For Adames, this is life in the big leagues. But developing pitching of this caliber in-house is not normal.

“First of all, it's not easy,” manager Craig Counsell said. “The way pitching works in the big leagues, for most teams, is that the pitchers go somewhere else and succeed, because it takes a while to become a really good starting pitcher. It's common and it's normal, almost.”

But the Brewers have developed their best pitchers in-house. Counsell and Adames both used the same word to describe them: “Special.”

“Our main thing is the pitching staff, the same as the Rays,” Adames said. “I feel like there is something there, and when you have a pitching staff like that, you have a pretty good chance to go deep in the postseason. I think there's a lot of similarities.”

First arrival

Of the Brewers’ so-called “Big Three,” Woodruff came first. The Rangers selected him in the fifth round of the 2011 Draft out of Wheeler, Miss., but Woodruff thought he could do better so he went to pitch for a big-time college program at Mississippi State. It was a struggle, however. Woodruff says he “stunk” in college after his freshman year, he had surgery for a bone spur and a stress fracture, and he fell all the way to the Brewers in the 11th round as a Draft-eligible junior.

Woodruff didn’t know the first thing about Milwaukee.

“The Brewers were never on my radar,” he said. “I never knew they were even looking at me. I knew nothing about pro ball, and I remember showing up to Helena [Mont.], hopping on the yellow school bus to go from the hotel to the field to practice.

“Coming from Mississippi State, it was like, ‘Oh gosh, what did I sign up for?’ We were averaging 12,000 fans on the weekend and now you get into the real grind of Minor League Baseball.”

Peralta came next. He was not the most heralded of the three teenage pitching prospects acquired from the Mariners for first baseman Adam Lind at the 2015 Winter Meetings in one of the first trades executed by new 30-year-old general manager David Stearns. But the Brewers had data and video showing Peralta had a promising fastball.

“We had two deals we liked,” Stearns said. “One was with the Mariners, the deal we ultimately executed, and one was with another organization for a singular prospect, who was a little bit further along and more highly rated. We decided to frankly choose variance and choose some guys with upside -- understanding that there’s a chance nothing works there.”

Something did work.

“We were fortunate that we got a guy with just tremendous aptitude and incredible feel for his body, and a great desire to work,” Stearns said. “That’s what made it great.”

Laser focus

Then came Burnes. In 2016, when Woodruff was on his way to winning the organization’s Minor League Pitcher of the Year Award, the Brewers added Burnes with a fourth-round pick out of St. Mary’s College. He came recommended by area scout Joe Graham and West Coast supervisor Corey Rodriguez, who’d been alerted to Burnes’ unique makeup by an old friend, Kelly Nicholson, who coached Burnes in the Cape Cod League.

The Brewers watched Burnes closely and liked the heavy sink on his fastball, and the seemingly effortless way he reached 93-96 on the radar gun. The following January, Rodriguez and Graham met Burnes on a rainy evening at a coffee shop in Moraga, Calif., to sit down and talk baseball.

Rodriguez doesn’t remember Burnes’ coffee order, but he does remember being sold on the kid.

“He sits down, and you could just tell there was something different about him, and in a really good way,” Rodriguez said. “He could articulate what he was trying to do, his process. I said, ‘There is extreme value here.’”

Rodriguez added, “He had a presence about him. A confidence. An intensity, but also very composed. I would say a laser focus.”

Elite group

By 2018, the Brewers’ trio came together.

Woodruff made the Opening Day roster that year. Peralta arrived on Mother’s Day with a 13-strikeout performance against the Rockies at Coors Field, with his mom watching him pitch professionally for the first time. Burnes debuted July 10 at Miami, aired his first Major League pitch to the backstop, then settled in and became the first Major Leaguer in five years to get a save in his debut.

They have all faced adversity along the way. Woodruff had his first All-Star season in 2019 interrupted by an oblique injury, forcing him to rush back to start the NL Wild Card Game against the Nationals. Burnes gave up 14 home runs in his first four starts of that 2019 season, got demoted multiple times and had entirely remade his arsenal and mental approach. Peralta struggled to stick as a starter for years until he finally mastered a slider and changeup.

In 2020’s pandemic-shortened season, there were signs of something special as Burnes unveiled his killer cutter, Peralta harnessed the slider he’d honed with former Brewer Carlos Villanueva, and Woodruff began to make his curveball a weapon. Some of the credit, all of them say, goes to pitching coach Chris Hook, who’d got to know how all three tick as Milwaukee’s Minor League pitching coordinator.

In 2021, they became co-aces after being challenged by Counsell to lead the team.

“We knew we had an elite group,” Counsell said. “I think the challenge for them was to do it.”

Parallel paths

So, they did it. Burnes led the Majors with a 2.43 ERA, combined with Josh Hader on the second no-hitter in franchise history on Sept. 11 at Cleveland, matched the MLB record by striking out 10 consecutive hitters on Aug. 11 at Chicago and made a case to be the club's first Cy Young Award winner since Pete Vuckovich won in the American League in 1982. Woodruff was not far behind Burnes’ ERA at 2.56. Peralta had a 2.81 ERA and fell five strikeouts shy of giving the Brewers their first trio of teammates with 200-plus strikeouts. That attempt will have to wait for next year.

“Organizationally, we poured a lot into understanding pitching, trying to develop it, trying to find it in every corner,” Counsell said. “Trying to understand where it comes from, what are the signals that make it in scouting. And it's been exhaustive. You just keep doing that. It ends up a process where you kind of stack a couple good decisions on top of each other along with some really talented players, and you end up in a spot where you've got some home-grown guys.

“We're really fortunate from that perspective. There was a little fortune in that perspective in terms of how they've all lined up.”

Burnes reminisced on Thursday about their parallel paths. He and Peralta have been pitching together in rotations since the Minor Leagues before merging with Woodruff at Triple-A and then the big leagues.

“We've had this three-way competition for the last three years, wanting to push each other, wanting to get each other better,” Burnes said. “It became more relevant this year in Spring Training when we realized, ‘It's going to be us three at the top, let's bring in [Adrian] Houser and other young guys with us to try to push each other.’

“We talk about it all the time, it's a friendly competition. If I can go out and have a good start, Woody the next day follows up and has a good start. Freddy tries to one-up him. If you are constantly pushing each other, constantly trying to make each other better, it's only going to create good results for the team.”