Since last July the Milwaukee Brewers team chemistry and relationship between the front office and players has been questioned. Numerous reports and quotes exist from players such as Lorenzo Cain, Eric Lauer, and Devin Williams supporting this. However, 2023 is a new season and there are lots of new players on the team. So far interviews with players and reports have indicated that this squad is a close tight-knit group. Here’s how it happened so fast.
How did the 2023 Milwaukee Brewers quickly become a close tight-knit group?
In Bob Nightengale’s latest notebook, he discusses several strategies that the 2023 Milwaukee Brewers are utilizing to help teammates bond. Here are the examples that he lists.
- During spring training players with different personalities and backgrounds were paired with one another for dinner and they had to report back the next morning as to what they learned about each other.
- The front office has organized a full team breakfast the first day of each road trip.
- The players laid down instructions to minimize their time on cell phones and spend time talking to one another.
Two players who were paired together for the spring training dinner were Joel Payamps and Jesse Winker. This created an interesting conversation of when Winker hit a walk-off home run against Payamps. The only counter Payamps had was to reference the fact that he has broken Winker’s bat on three different occasions.
The full team breakfast was actually something that the 2018 Milwaukee Brewers did, so it’s nice to see that return. Speaking of the 2018 team, starting pitcher Wade Miley is back with the team and Brandon Woodruff said he’s been the most helpful in uniting the team. “He’s (Wade Miley) just old school. He wants to talk. He wants to interact with everybody. And he can talk with anybody.”
So far the team does appear more connected. Clubhouse leader Willy Adames perhaps had the most striking quote in Nightengale’s notebook by saying, “I feel like now we are way more together than last year. We do a lot of stuff off the field, and hanging out, and last year we didn’t do any of that kind of stuff. It was bad last year. The vibe was not there.”
Props to the Milwaukee Brewers front office, staff, and players for all coming together and realizing that change needed to occur. Together they have created a positive clubhouse and environment that has been conducive to winning.
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