Brewers Won Without the Long Ball. Yankees, Take Notes.
Milwaukee won its first World Series on contact, speed and pitching. For a homer-first Yankees team, it is time to find some Paul O'Neill grit.
Yankee Stadium. The Brewers just won a title on contact, speed and pitching. Photo: Y (@yi2026) / Unsplash.
Every Yankees fan has a version of the same October memory. Bases empty, team down, somebody in pinstripes fouling off pitch after pitch until the other guy blinks. That was not luck. That was a culture. And watching the Milwaukee Brewers win the World Series this week, we could not stop thinking about how far the Bronx has drifted from it.
On Wednesday night, Oct. 28, the Brewers beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4-1 in Game 5 at Tropicana Field to take the series four games to one. It is the first title in franchise history, for a club that started as the Seattle Pilots in 1969, moved to Milwaukee in 1970 and had reached only one other World Series, losing to St. Louis in seven games in 1982. The Rays team they beat is the same one that swept the Yankees out of the American League Division Series earlier this month.
Sit with that for a second. The team that sent us home lost to a team that barely hits home runs.
How Milwaukee won without the long ball
The Brewers hit 154 home runs during the regular season, 28th in the majors, according to StatMuse. They still scored 832 runs, second in baseball, and their pitching staff posted a 3.51 ERA, also second. They won 103 games, the most in MLB.
This was not an accident that showed up in October. Back in May, MLB.com noted that Milwaukee was dead last in homers yet in the top 10 in runs, hitting .289 with runners in scoring position, ranking second in stolen bases and third in sacrifice bunts, with one of the lowest strikeout rates in the game. MLB.com compared the formula to teams from the 1930s. It worked anyway.
In the World Series, the two teams combined for only four home runs, three of them by Milwaukee, per CBS News. The Brewers won Game 1 by a run, 3-2, and Game 2 by a run, 5-4. In Game 3, a 10-1 blowout, MLB.com credited Christian Yelich hustling into second base with helping spark an eight-run inning. That is a former MVP running hard like a rookie trying to make the team.
The actual rookie, 22-year-old shortstop Cooper Pratt, set a World Series rookie record with six straight hits. Jackson Chourio set a record for a five-game series with 11 hits. Catcher William Contreras, the Series MVP and a native of Venezuela, drove in four runs. And Jacob Misiorowski, who opened the Series with a record 103.5 mph first pitch, threw 5 2/3 scoreless innings in the clincher.
The depth told the story. Through five games, Milwaukee's 7, 8 and 9 hitters went 17 for 59 with 13 RBIs, according to FOX Sports. Tampa Bay's bottom three went 6 for 49 with one RBI. No easy outs. No free innings.
The Yankees went the other way
Now look at our side of the ledger.
In 2025, the Yankees led the majors with 274 home runs, according to an MLB.com column by Mike Lupica, but struck out 1,463 times, third most in baseball, and lost the ALDS to a Toronto team that put the ball in play. Lupica's argument was simple: homers alone are not a plan.
The 2026 Yankees ran it back. By late May they led MLB in home runs while ranking last in singles, per Empire Sports Media. They finished the season with 223 homers, second in the majors, per StatMuse. To be fair, it produced plenty of runs and another October berth. The power is real.
But October is a different sport. In Game 1 of the ALDS against Tampa Bay, the Yankees managed one hit, and the only run of the night was a solo homer by the Rays' Jonathan Aranda. The Rays finished the sweep with a 4-3 win in Game 3. A lineup built to wait for the three-run homer looked lost against a pitching staff that would not give it one.
Bring back The Warrior
Which brings us to Paul O'Neill.
The Yankees acquired O'Neill from Cincinnati in November 1992. He played nine seasons in the Bronx, from 1993 to 2001, won the 1994 American League batting title at .359, made four All-Star teams in pinstripes and hit .303 with a .377 on-base percentage as a Yankee. He won four World Series in New York (1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000), plus one with the Reds in 1990. George Steinbrenner named him "The Warrior" after the 1997 ALDS. The water coolers in the dugout knew his temper personally.
But the moment that defines him is not a home run. It is a walk.
Oct. 21, 2000. Game 1 of the Subway Series. Bottom of the ninth, Mets up 3-2, one out, nobody on, Armando Benitez on the mound. O'Neill fell behind 1-2, stepped out, reset, fouled off four fastballs and drew ball four on the 10th pitch. He later told MLB.com he was banged up and not feeling good at the plate. Didn't matter. He came around to score the tying run on a Chuck Knoblauch sacrifice fly, and Jose Vizcaino won it in the 12th. The Yankees went on to win the title.
That at-bat is the whole argument. O'Neill did not give away at-bats, did not concede a two-strike count, did not wait for somebody else to do it. When his No. 21 was retired in August 2022, he put it plainly, as CBS New York reported: "The fans remember the teams that win and we won."
That same day, the crowd booed Hal Steinbrenner and general manager Brian Cashman during the ceremony, with the team in a 4-14 slide. Fans were telling the front office something. They are still telling it.
Grit is a roster decision
We are not asking the Yankees to stop hitting home runs. Nobody in the Bronx wants Aaron Judge bunting. We are asking for balance, and balance starts in the front office.
Grit is not a slogan. It is who you draft, who you trade for and what your coaches reward. It is valuing a hitter who cuts his swing with two strikes, a baserunner who takes the extra base, a bench that can manufacture a run when the wind is blowing in. Milwaukee built that on purpose and rode it to a title with a payroll that ranked 19th in baseball as of Aug. 31, according to CBS News.
The Yankees have every resource in the sport. What they need is the attitude that used to come free with the pinstripes. Front office, coaching staff, clubhouse: somebody has to bring back the version of this team that made opponents earn every out.
From where we sit in Harlem, the late-90s Yankees were never just a dynasty. They were a mood. Relentless, a little angry, impossible to put away. Milwaukee just reminded the whole league what that looks like. It should have been us.
Your turn
Which current Yankee has the most Paul O'Neill in him, and who in the front office should be the first to change? Tell us in the comments.
Follow @theinnovatorsden.
Sources: MLB.com: Brewers win · CBS News · Yahoo Sports / AP · FOX Sports · MLB.com: runs without power · StatMuse: Brewers HR · StatMuse: team HR · MLB.com: Lupica · Empire Sports Media · Roundtable: ALDS Game 1 · Roundtable: ALDS Game 3 · MLB.com: No. 21 retired · MLB.com: The Warrior · CBS New York · MLB.com: The walk · SABR