This is The Best Player Development Team in MLB
When it comes to evaluating which MLB organizations are the best at developing players, there’s the hard way and the easy way.
The hard way is the path seldom trod: taking a granular look at performance for hundreds of major- and minor-league players over time, and combining those evaluations with information about coaches, performance staff (strength and conditioning, injury prevention, nutrition, etc.) and “soft factors” gleaned through interviews.
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The easier way is to tackle a simpler question: do players tend to get better when they join the organization? Relatedly, do they tend to get worse after they leave?
The latter method points at one organization as baseball‘s best, whether you’re looking at the minor-league talent that populates prospect ranking lists, or major-league talent that continues to outperform expectations: the Milwaukee Brewers.
On May 8, Brewers pitcher Jacob Misiorowski threw the five fastest pitches ever by a starting pitcher in the first inning of a game against the New York Yankees. His fastball is averaging an absurd 99.6 mph.
But “The Miz” was hardly a known quantity when he was plucked out of Crowder College, a junior college in Neosho, Missouri, in the second round of the 2022 MLB Draft. Misiorowski is an obvious success story, but the 2026 Brewers are littered with examples of players who overachieve their pedigree.
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Pitcher Kyle Harrison was a third-round draft pick in 2020 who went 9-9 with a 4.48 ERA (89 ERA+) over three seasons with the San Francisco Giants. He was traded to the Boston Red Sox last year, in the deal that sent Rafael Devers to San Francisco. Harrison spent more time in Triple-A than Boston after the move, then was traded to Milwaukee in February.
In his most recent start for the Brewers, Harrison shut out the San Diego Padres for five innings, lowering his ERA for the season to 2.09.
The Brewers have won three consecutive National League Central titles despite never running a player payroll higher than 20th in MLB in any of those seasons. They entered the 2026 season with the sport’s 20th-highest Opening Day payroll. Relying on internal development of their own players, rather than bringing in stars from outside the organization, is necessary for the Brewers’ success.
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The Brewers’ win over the Padres left them two games behind the first-place Chicago Cubs, while their run differential is the best in the division.
Milwaukee has plenty of stars in the minor leagues, too. That’s reflected in a consensusNo. 1farm system ranking - more a reflection of future stars like Jesus Made and Cooper Pratt than Misiorowski, Harrison, or 22-year-old outfielder Jackson Chourio who have already reached the majors.
If the purpose of player development is simply to improve the performance of the players already in your organization, it’s clear which team is doing it best.
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This story was originally published May 14, 2026 at 4:39 PM.