It’s arguably the most important question for organizations and fans across Major League Baseball; how do you win in the playoffs?
There’s a theoretical formula for getting to October, draft and develop well, build a complete roster that has depth at key positions, use analytics to piece together the best mix of skill sets and sign targeted free agents to fill in missing pieces. The more money you have, the easier it is to sign those free agents, of course, but as the Yankees, Mets, Giants, and Angels will tell you, playing in a big market and acquiring expensive talent doesn’t always guarantee results.
But once you’re in the postseason, how can you ensure your team gets a spot in the World Series? The ultimate goal, the only outcome that matters, and the only determinant of the “best team in baseball?”
A DODGERS-LESS WORLD SERIES WOULD HURT NOW, BUT HELP MLB LATER | BOBBY BURACK
The 2026 Milwaukee Brewers are showing the rest of the sport exactly how it’s done.
For context, the Brewers enter Thursday afternoon as overwhelming favorites to advance to the World Series thanks to their 3-0 series lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers have the most expensive roster in the sport, though by active player payroll in 2026 they did trail the New York Mets, depending on which source you use. Milwaukee? They were just 19th this season.
They traded away Freddy Peralta, their best pitcher, in 2025, a year after trading star closer Devin Williams to the Yankees, and trading Corbin Burnes to the Baltimore Orioles. Their big offseason acquisitions were backup catcher Gary Sanchez, Angel Zerpa, Jake Woodford, and a trade to bring in David Hamilton, Shane Drohan and Kyle Harrison from the Boston Red Sox for infielder Caleb Durbin and a few other players.
During the season, their big moves were watching Tarik Skubal go to the Dodgers, getting Dustin May and JoJo Romero, and adding reliever Antonio Senzatela. If that sounds underwhelming, it’s because it is.
Yet in game one of the NLCS, the Brewers beat Skubal 2-1. In game two, they came roaring back from deficit after deficit, knocking out World Series hero Yoshinobu Yamamoto on their way to an easy 7-4 win. In game three, they fell behind late, only to score five straight runs and cruise to yet another 6-2 win. So how are they doing it?
They’ve found the blueprint.
Milwaukee, we’ve been told by very experienced baseball analysts, is winning because they don’t strike out. Their approach is based on contact. Put the ball in play, the thinking goes, don’t just try and hit home runs. These analysts have decades of experience at the highest level of baseball. Obviously, they’d have enormous insight and detailed statistical breakdowns backing up their opinions.
Well, in game one of the NLCS, the Dodgers struck out eight times, meaning they put the ball in play on 23 of their 31 at bats. Milwaukee struck out 13 times, only putting the ball in play in 13 of their 26 at bats. So the Dodgers’ home run approach resulted in…fewer strikeouts and more balls put in play. 10 more balls put in play, in fact, a massive number in just one game. But the Brewers won anyway, 2-1. Interesting.
In game two of the NLCS, the Dodgers struck out nine times, while Milwaukee struck out 10. Funnily enough, the only home run was hit by William Contreras for the Brewers. They won 7-4.
In game three, Milwaukee struck out a whopping 12 times in 35 at bats against Blake Snell and the Dodgers bullpen. Los Angeles? Their hitters had just eight strikeouts in 32 at bats. The Dodgers put the ball in play 24 times, Milwaukee did 23 times. Yet the Brewers won 6-2 anyway. How? Because they hit three home runs, while Los Angeles yet again put up a goose egg.
So in three games, the Brewers have struck out 35 times, averaging nearly 12 per game. The Dodgers have struck out 25 times, or just over eight per game. That’s so odd because all the baseball analysts have been saying that Milwaukee’s superior approach, just putting the ball in play, getting the bat on the ball, is the reason they’re winning. Yet they’re making contact far less often than the Dodgers are, with their awful, new school, analytics-driven, home run-only offense. And Milwaukee has a 5-0 home run advantage in a series they’re winning three games to none. Wonder what that means.
We’ll come back to that, but what about the contact itself? Maybe the Brewers have instructed their hitters to purposefully hit the ball poorly, while the Dodgers hitting staff keeps telling Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, and Shohei Ohtani to hit the ball hard directly at Milwaukee defensive players. Obviously, weak contact is preferable to hitting the ball hard, because that’s old school baseball or something.
Here’s what one user, “Dubs Only Sports” found in a post made on X. Headlined “luck doesn’t exist in baseball,” which is obviously true because every single outcome is the result of purposeful decision making while randomness is just a fake conspiracy theory, they found that, shockingly enough, there’s been little difference in quality of contact between the two teams. But a tremendous difference in outcomes.
The Dodgers have 29 hard hit balls in the series, defined as being hit at 95 mph or above. Those 29 hard-hit balls have resulted in 12 hits and no home runs.
Milwaukee has just 21 hard hit balls in the series, which have resulted in 11 hits and five home runs.
Well sure, you might say, but who cares about hard-hit balls when you can just hit the ball poorly and steer it in the right direction? Turns out, the Dodgers are trying that too!
LA has 40 balls put in play this series that were “soft contact,” or under 95 mph. On those 40 balls put in play, they’ve gotten just three hits, good for a .075 batting average. Milwaukee has put 42 balls in play with soft contact, resulting in 16 hits and a .381 batting average.
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Wow! So the Dodgers are more frequently hitting the ball harder, and putting nearly as many weakly hit balls into play, a difference of less than one per game, than Milwaukee. They’re striking out far less often than the Brewers. Yet their results have been much worse. Really makes you think, doesn’t it? In actuality, of course, it will not make anyone think, because of the inescapable conclusion: nothing actually matters.
Sarcasm aside, that’s the real answer to the “secret formula” for winning in October: there is no secret formula. Just be a pretty good team and hope you get the benefit of timing with your offense and pitching staff.
When it comes to postseason baseball, the gaps between teams are so small that the win probability for each team is only marginally different from a coin flip. Per FanGraphs baseball analyst Dan Szymborski, creator of the ZiPS projection system, the Dodgers had a 58% chance of winning the series before it started. That’s what a $250 million payroll gap buys, a 58% chance instead of a 50% chance. Obviously, the outcome in this year’s NLCS is the 42%.
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Because the gaps are so small, as opposed to sports with poor competitive balance like the NFL, the outcomes rely much more heavily on luck and random chance that fans or very smart analysts will ever admit. Because humans have to have an explanation for everything, every result is ascribed to some kind of intent, process, or approach, as opposed to the inherent variability of baseball.
Milwaukee’s bullpen has allowed two runs in around 32 innings in the postseason. Filled with castoffs from other teams and cheap internal options having the best few weeks of their careers at the perfect time. That’s not unexpected or unusual, it’s an undeniable part of baseball. Their batting average on balls in play in this NLCS is .393, where league average is around .300. The Dodgers? Just .221. Milwaukee has a 31.3% strikeout rate, while the Dodgers’ is just 23.4%. Milwaukee has outperformed their expected stats, based on quality of contact, by nearly 20 points. The Dodgers have underperformed by 67 points.
The Brewers aren’t winning because of soft contact, they’re winning because they’ve hit home runs and benefitted from fortunate bounces on balls put in play.
This isn’t to say that the Brewers aren’t a good team, because of course they are. They somehow managed to turn Jake Bauers from an unplayable castoff, to a top-10 hitter in baseball. Misiorowski is the likely NL Cy Young Award winner. Their prospects, like Brice Turang, Jackson Chourio and Garrett Mitchell have all panned out, a testament to their player development staff. Every single trade they’ve made in recent years has worked out in their favor, another feather in the cap for their scouting department.
But the Brewers have inarguably gotten “lucky” this series, because the results have outperformed the quality of their contact and approach. The Dodgers got lucky to win in 2024 and 2025. Luck is not a byproduct in postseason baseball, it is quite literally required. Over a large enough sample size, most of the randomness and luck in baseball evens out. Meaning that if the Dodgers played the Brewers 162 times, LA’s talent advantage would almost certainly matter, to the point where they would win 58% of the games. But in a best-of-seven? Or a best-of-five? The talent advantage is so small that a few bounces either way can lead to a wildly different outcome. Which is what we’re seeing.
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This is why the guiding philosophy in baseball has become, “do what you can to win 85 games and hope for the best.” Because that gives you a 42% chance of beating the most talented roster in a playoff series. It’s rational, because it’s correct. The Toronto Blue Jays rode Addison Barger and Ernie Clement to within two outs of a championship. They finished in last place this year.
LA’s success in 2024 and 2025 has given fans the inaccurate impression that World Series results are a foregone conclusion, when the exact opposite is true. The Dodgers have made the postseason 17 times since 2008. When they’re eliminated by Milwaukee this week, they’ll have won three championships in 17 tries. There is no sport less predictable than baseball. There is no way to “ruin” baseball, or to break it, or to build unbeatable superteams. Because the volatility of it will create series with outcomes like this, where the Dodgers hit the ball harder, make more contact, strike out less, and still get obliterated.
Even if LA put together a roster with Skubal, Yamamoto, Paul Skenes, Misiorowski, Aaron Judge, Ohtani, Bobby Witt Jr., Freddie Freeman, Junior Caminero, and Pete Crow-Armstrong, that team would have a 58-60% chance of winning a best-of-seven postseason series against the 84-win Cleveland Guardians. It doesn’t sound right, but it is objective fact. Looking for meaning in October is pointless. Looking for a blueprint of how to win the World Series is insanity.
