2026 NLCS Preview: The Brewers Get Their Rematch

When the Los Angeles Dodgers finished off the Atlanta Braves in Game 4 of the NLDS, they set up a rematch of last year’s NLCS against the Milwaukee Brewers. Last time around, the Brewers, coming off an extremely successful 97-65 season, ran into the Dodger buzzsaw and were swept out of the postseason. While Milwaukee mostly kept Los Angeles’ offense in check, the Brew Crew could only muster one run in each of their four games, and when that’s all you manage to score, you have to pitch shutouts to prevail. As noted in many a book and movie, revenge frequently comes with a good deal of satisfaction, whatever Herman Melville may have thought. And the Brewers now have the chance to turn the tables on the Dodgers and stymie their quest for baseball’s first three-peat (please don’t sue me, Pat Riley) of the 21st century.

Going back to the start of the modern World Series in 1903, there have been 45 consecutive-year postseason rematches in major league history (here we’re including a rematch in any playoff series the following year). In 17 of those 45 rematches, the previous year’s loser got their revenge, but no team has immediately avenged a playoff sweep. Granted, before now, there have only been five chances for a team to get vengeance the year after being swept in the playoffs — Orioles-Twins in 1970, Yankees-Rangers in 1999, Cardinals-Padres in 2006, Red Sox-Angels in 2008, and Yankees-Twins in 2010 — but it still gives the Brewers the opportunity to do something that’s never been done before.

ZiPS favors the Dodgers by a significant, but not overwhelming, margin in the NLCS. But with the fourth-most wins in the majors over the last decade, including the most wins in each of the last two seasons, the Brewers aren’t your typical scrappy underdog fighting for table scraps. Yet, in another sense, they are: Every year, they crush the expectations of fans, the Vegas oddsmakers, and projection systems. As the developer of one of those projection systems, I’ve spent a lot of time scratching my head over how the Brewers so routinely defy the expectations of my model in a way no other team has, and while I think I’ve identified the mechanism of my humiliation, I’m still trying to figure out how to model it.