MILWAUKEE -- For the fourth straight year, the Brewers made the postseason. And for the fourth straight year, they fell short of the World Series, forcing an abrupt pivot to offseason planning in an effort to give it another go next year.  

Here are five questions the club is facing in the offseason: 

1. How much retooling needs to happen? 
Compared to other recent winters, not much -- presuming the Brewers are willing to pay the players due raises in arbitration. Their key free agents are starter Brett Anderson, relievers Brad Boxberger, Hunter Strickland and Daniel Norris, infielder Eduardo Escobar, backup catcher Manny Piña and outfielder Avisaíl García if he elects to decline his half of a mutual option. In all of those instances, the Brewers have players ready to step into prominent roles, most notably Aaron Ashby in the starting rotation, Luis Urías at third base and Tyrone Taylor in the outfield.

Everywhere else, the Brewers have players returning, though in many cases, the cost will go up. Starters Corbin Burnes, Adrian Houser and Eric Lauer are all eligible for arbitration for the first time, provided that system remains in a new collective bargaining agreement. The same goes for Urías, shortstop Willy Adames and first baseman Rowdy Tellez. Under the current system, they would be due significant raises in addition to those players already a year or more into arbitration, including Woodruff, closer Josh Hader and reliever Brent Suter. FanGraphs, using arbitration estimates, pegs the Brewers’ payroll for next season at about $112 million at the moment -- significantly up from their end of the year figure of $96 million in 2021.

2. Is this the year the Brewers trade Hader?
Ever since he emerged as one of baseball’s best relievers, it seems Hader’s name has appeared often in trade rumors. So far, he’s stayed put and continued to produce at historic levels, with the highest career strikeout percentage of all time and, in 2021 alone, regular-season stretches of 19 and 20 scoreless appearances, before he was touched up by Freddie Freeman for the home run that ended the Brewers’ season.

Hader is going into his third of four years of arbitration, with one notable projection seeing his salary rise to eight figures for the first time. The Brewers haven’t had a $10 million closer since Eric Gagne’s ill-fated stint in 2008. On one hand, the Brewers are under no pressure to deal him since Hader has another year of club control. On the other hand, this is arguably the peak of his value, since he’s at the top of his game and this represents the last offseason in which he has multiple years of club control remaining. The Brewers also have seen two elite seasons from Devin Williams as Hader’s setup man.

“Devin's season ended very unfortunately,” Stearns said, referring to Williams’ lapse of judgement when he punched a wall and fractured his right hand with a week to go in the regular season, “and no one feels worse about that than Devin. But seeing him as a dominant reliever now for a full season, I think it's very encouraging for all of us. Coming back, [he is] someone we feel like we can really count on.”

3. Are there any contract extensions in the offing?
With Woodruff already into the current system of arbitration and Burnes and Adames now at that point, the Brewers have some core players at the stage of their careers where clubs sometimes like to lock into multiyear contracts, often gaining cost-certainty over the arbitration years and perhaps buying one free-agent season at the end.

Stearns was asked whether he’d had conversations with any players during this season or was open to future talks, and his answer requires some reading between the lines:

“We’re always open to keeping good players here as long as we can. As with all these things, there needs to be mutual interest, and there needs to be a mutual appetite for compromise and frankly, some risk-taking on both sides,” Stearns said. “We’ve been able to overlap at certain times with some guys and sometimes we haven’t. We understand that’s part of this. So much of these particular dialogues is where the player is in his life, where their personal and familial risk tolerance is, but as a general rule, we like keeping good players here as long as we can.”

4. Do they need to fix the offense?
There is no question that the Brewers didn’t do enough at the plate to beat the Braves in the NLDS, batting below .200 as a team and striking out 48 times in four games while scoring six total runs. The larger question, with so many positions accounted for, is whether an offseason overhaul is necessary.

Here were the final regular-season numbers: The Brewers were 14th of 15 NL teams with a .233 average, eighth with a .317 on-base percentage, 11th with a .396 slugging percentage, eighth with 194 home runs and sixth with 4.56 runs per game. Those numbers were driven down by less production than expected from Christian Yelich and Keston Hiura in particular.

“We didn't score over the last 10 days in September particularly consistently, and we also didn't score particularly consistently in the NLDS. Those are the facts, I can't dispute those facts,” Stearns said. “I think we have a team that is capable of scoring runs. If you look over the course of the full 162, we are roughly a league-average team in terms of run scoring and our offensive capabilities, so we aim to be better than that. I think that's a good goal going forward.”

5. Will Stearns continue to lead the way?
Stearns grew up a Mets fan in Manhattan, and after leading the Brewers to the postseason in four of his first six seasons at the helm -- after they reached the postseason four times total from 1970-2015 -- it’s natural that his name has been mentioned often as a top potential candidate for the Mets' president of baseball operations. The Brewers have never revealed any details about Stearns’ contract, but the most recent reporting from MLB Network insider Jon Heyman states that he has one more year with the Brewers in 2022 plus some kind of option for ’23. So, the Brewers have some say, and the New York Post reported on Monday that over the weekend the club formally declined the Mets’ request to speak to Stearns about New York's opening.

When asked about the Mets rumors in September, Brewers principal owner Mark Attanasio said, “He’s a great executive. He’s also under contract with us.”

And in a Sept. 22 conversation with 620-AM WTMJ, the Brewers’ flagship radio station, Attanasio said, “Look, ultimately, it will be his decision on what he wants to do. I just love what he’s brought to Milwaukee and the team. And we’re going to do everything we can to keep him here.”

Stearns declined to say much when he was asked about outside interest in the wake of the Brewers’ postseason exit.

“Consistent with how I’ve handled those questions in the past,” Stearns said, “I think I’ll shy away from any media or external speculation other than to say I’m happy here; my family is happy here. And we’ve got work to do here.”