Baseball America has named the Milwaukee Brewers its 2018 Organization of the Year.
“We honored the Brewers as our Organization of the Year not just because they had a very successful big league season,” said Executive Editor of BA J.J. Cooper. “We try to ensure that our flagship award digs deeper than that. The Brewers’ run to the National League Championship Series was built by successful player development, scouting and analytics departments. We’ve been impressed with Milwaukee’s ability to develop and graduate prospects to the Major Leagues, as well as the Brewers’ ability to use their farm system to improve the Major League club, most notably with last year’s Christian Yelich trade.”
The award is selected by the staff of Baseball America. The honor recognizes not only the success at the Major League level, but also the organization’s amateur, professional and international scouting, farm system and player development efforts.
It marks the fourth time that the Brewers have taken home the award and the first since they won it three times in a row from 1985-87.
The Brewers finished the 2018 regular season with a National League-best 96 wins, leading to a Central Division title. Including the postseason, the Brewers recorded 102 wins, a franchise record for a single year, breaking the previous mark of 101 wins accomplished in 1982 and 2011.
The team featured a franchise-best five All-Stars, including Jesus Aguilar, Lorenzo Cain, Josh Hader, Jeremy Jeffress and Christian Yelich. Yelich took home the MVP award, marking the fifth time a Brewer has done so. Rollie Fingers in 1981, Robin Young in 1982 and 1989, and Ryan Braun in 2011. Yelich clubbed 36 home runs, with 110 RBI and led the National League in batting average (.326), slugging percentage (.598) and OPS (1.000).
