Building the Brew Crew

When they began their franchise life as the Seattle Pilots for a season, they couldn’t hit, and that remained their normal state for nearly a decade.

The team that would become the Milwaukee Brewers spent their first season playing in a minor league stadium in Seattle, batting a collective .234 in 1969 and finishing in the bottom half of the league in runs. They had Tommy Harper, and he could run really well and draw walks, but he wasn’t a great hitter. And they had Don Mincher, who had great power but couldn’t hit lefties if his life depended on it. Mike Hegan was pretty good, even made the All-Star team that year, but he was never a consistent big-league regular. There just wasn’t a ton of talent on the team.

They moved to Milwaukee and became the Brewers in 1970, but not much changed with their offense. They were 11th in a 12-team league in runs and batted .242 as a team. Harper hit much better and still ran a lot, and Hegan was fine, but most of the rest of the lineup was filled with the Phil Roofs, Ted Kubiaks, and Bob Burdas of the baseball world, and that’s not a high-offense recipe.

That wasn’t a notable problem in those first couple of years because no one had very high expectations of an expansion team, especially one that had to move for lack of fan support after only one season. Plus, the team couldn’t pitch either, so the poor offense didn’t really stand out. The Brewers were bad at everything.

But, but 1971, things were different. The Royals, who joined the American League the same year as the Brewers, had a winning record and the makings of a good young core to build around. And the Brewers could suddenly pitch a bit. Young pitchers like Bill Parsons and Skip Lockwood were keeping them in games, as were veterans like Marty Pattin and Lew Krausse. They also had they league’s best closer, for that season anyway, as Ken Sanders had a 1.91 ERA while leading the league in appearances and saves.

Now the lack of offense was a problem, but nothing had changed in that department yet. It remained Tommy Harper and a band of misfit toys. Sure, Dave May was added as a productive regular and John Briggs was acquired to fill a hole at first base, but otherwise they ran out a lineup most days that included far too many automatic outs like Ellie Rodriguez, Rick Auerbach, and Tommy Matchick. If not for the Angels being terrible, Milwaukee would have scored the fewest runs in the league.

That offseason they tried to do something about it. A week after the season ended they packaged Harper, Pattin and Krausse off to the Red Sox in exchange for a group of players that included George Scott. At first that didn’t help much, as the team still struggled offensively in 1972, but they were a bit better. Instead of finishing 11th in runs they were ninth, with Scott immediately being their best hitter. With him, Briggs, and Joe Lahoud (also obtained in that Red Sox deal), they had a real heart of the order for the first time.