MILWAUKEE -- Will a 60-game schedule play closer to a sprint or a marathon? How will rosters built to survive a six-month grind perform in a season about a third as long? How will empty stadiums impact play on the field?

Manager Craig Counsell and the Brewers are about to find out.

“We all have to remind ourselves that we don’t know what’s going to happen the next day,” Counsell said at the start of Summer Camp, words that still resonate three weeks later. “We’re going to be hit with the unexpected frequently. Instead of getting frustrated by it or complaining about it, we’ve got to move on to the next thing, and understand that’s where we’re at right now and do our best with it. I’m looking forward to leading the guys on that journey.”

What needs to go right?
If the Brewers can replicate their recent knack for finishing strong, they will have a chance to make the postseason a third straight year for the first time in franchise history. In each of the past two seasons, they have gone 20-7 from Sept. 1 through the end of the regular season, good enough to make the playoffs. Counsell has pushed all the right buttons with expanded rosters in September. Now the expanded rosters come up front, with 30 active players for the first two weeks of the regular season, 28 players for two weeks after that, then down to 26 players the rest of the way. Can the Brewers capitalize on those extra hands at the front end of this season the way they did at the end of 2018 and ’19? Notably, it’s a different team than those previous postseason entries. Christian Yelich, Lorenzo Cain and Ryan Braun are still the core, but the 2020 Brewers have a dozen or so newcomers including outfielder Avisaíl García, catcher Omar Narváez, first basemen Justin Smoak and Logan Morrison, infielders Jedd Gyorko and eventually Luis Urías, starters Josh Lindblom, Brett Anderson and Eric Lauer (though Anderson and Lauer will join Urías on the injured list) and reliever David Phelps.

Big question
Is the pitching good enough? It seems this is the question every year of the David Stearns era, as the Brewers’ president of baseball operations builds a staff built around the concept of strength in numbers instead of investing big dollars -- and significant risk -- in high-end arms. That means there are lots of smaller questions under the umbrella of that big question, like: Can Brandon Woodruff take another step forward like he did in 2018 and then ’19? Is Adrian Houser as good as he looked in last season’s second half? Can Anderson get healthy and stay healthy? Will Lindblom’s success in recent years in South Korea translate to similar success in MLB? Can Corbin Burnes and Freddy Peralta rebound from disappointing years? Can Corey Knebel and Phelps get back to former form following Tommy John surgery? The Brewers look like a team that will hit, so it could be the arms who put the club over the top.

Prospect to watch
Burnes. Attach an asterisk, because Burnes shed prospect status long ago. But the right-hander remains a prospect in this sense: He remains an unproven commodity in MLB with a chance to make a significant impact. After logging an 8.82 ERA in 49 innings during a 2019 season that included multiple demotions and a stint in the Brewers’ high-tech pitching lab, Burnes sweated his way through an intense offseason of physical work and mental reflection, and appears to have emerged better for it. When Burnes retired all 12 hitters he faced in his first start in the Brewers’ Blue-Gold Series in Summer Camp, infielder Eric Sogard simply said, “The dude is very impressive.” With Anderson sidelined by a blister for the start of the season, Burnes becomes especially valuable in the kind of season that demands a quick start.

On the schedule
No team will have the luxury of settling into this condensed regular season, and that’s especially true for the Brewers. Beginning with their home opener July 31, they play 17 games in 17 days entirely against formidable opponents. The Cardinals and offseason-fortified White Sox are on the first homestand, followed by two more games against the White Sox on the road. Then back home to play the greatly improved Reds and the defending American League Central champion Twins, followed by four games against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. By the end of the trip, the Aug. 31 Trade Deadline will be two weeks away.

Team MVP will be ...
Yelich. As much as things will be different in 2020, some things are likely to remain the same, and that means Yelich will emerge from his Summer Camp slump. He is the type of player who would be particularly driven to bounce back from a quiet camp -- he was 1-for-18 with 12 strikeouts at one point of intrasquad action -- and to make good on the nine-year, $215 million contract he signed in Spring Training, less than a week before baseball paused due to the coronavirus pandemic. In Yelich’s first two seasons in a Brewers uniform, he has slashed .327/.415/.631 -- the best average in baseball during that span, and the second-best on-base percentage and slugging percentage to Mike Trout. Yelich has won the first two league batting titles in Brewers history. He won one NL MVP Award and finished runner up in Year 2. And he is healthy again after missing the final three weeks of last season with a fractured right kneecap from a foul ball.

Team Cy Young will be ...
Josh Hader. As MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince noted earlier this month, this is the kind of season in which relievers are poised to make noise, just like in 1981 when Brewers closer Rollie Fingers won both the AL Cy Young Award and the AL MVP Award in a season split in two by a player strike. Starters will be limited to a dozen starts at most, but Hader should get the opportunity to impact games in multi-inning, high-leverage spots like he has done each of the past two seasons on the way to back-to-back NL Reliever of the Year Awards. His 44.6% strikeout rate is highest in MLB history. Will Counsell be able to push Hader’s usage because of the shortened schedule? The manager suggested not, but it remains one of the unknowns of a unique year ahead.

Bold prediction
Yelich will hit .400. (They told us to be bold.) He has wisely decided to save all of his hits for the regular season.