Brewers vs. Cubs Rivalry Was Already Intense, and Then Craig Counsell Moved South

The Brewers and Cubs didn’t need Craig Counsell to defect to the Windy City for there to be a rivalry between the two teams. The move did add fuel to the fire, though.

After the 2023 season, Counsell, a free agent, prioritized setting the market for managers by signing a five-year, $40 million contract with the Cubs. Counsell had spent the previous nine seasons at the helm of the Brewers, during a stretch in which their rise to prominence brought them into conflict with Chicago, and ignited a rivalry that ended up superseding the more traditional and longer-standing one between the Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals. 

Counsell is the Brewers’ all-time winningest manager with 707 wins, one of just five Milwaukee managers to win the division — which the Brewers did in 2018, 2021 and 2023 — and brought them to the postseason a franchise-record five times. He had previously worked in the front office and had been a member of the team when they snapped a 26-year playoff drought in 2008 (his bat wasn’t much to write home about at this point in his career, but his glove, as always, stood out). 

Counsell is also a Wisconsin native and still lived there at the time he was a manager, in the same town he grew up in. That he would leave at all was something of a surprise, but that it was for Chicago was difficult to comprehend, given the two franchises were battling back and forth in his age of newfound relevance for each. 

Craig Counsell’s move from Milwaukee to Chicago was a shocking move after nine years with the Brewers. (Matt Dirksen/Chicago Cubs/Getty Images)

This is the Brewers, though. They’re used to their more high-profile players finding a richer market, saying goodbye and, most importantly, plugging those holes and moving on. The 2018 Brewers’ team tied a franchise record with 96 wins. The 2021 squad nearly matched it with 95. 

Pat Murphy’s 2025 Brewers, in his second year as the manager, broke Counsell’s record with 97 victories, which also happened to lead MLB — something Counsell’s never managed in Milwaukee. The Brewers hired Murphy, who was Counsell’s coach during his college career at Notre Dame, and have won back-to-back National League Central titles.

It’s not that the Brewers simply let Counsell walk. The organization reportedly had a “standing offer” to Counsell for $5 million per year, which would have made him the highest-paid manager in the league, besting Terry Francona’s $4.5 million salary with the Guardians.

Counsell, however, decided to hit the open market and inevitably accept Chicago’s splashy offer of $8 million. Brewers owner Mark Attanasio said the club didn’t have a chance to counter. The deal has already benefitted the managerial market: Dave Roberts’ four-year, $32.4 million extension with the Dodgers, signed before the 2025 season, very intentionally features an average annual value of $100,000 more per year than Counsell’s.

Milwaukee, as it has in many years, moved on. The Brewers have seen All-Stars come and go over the years, and the same went for Counsell.

This year’s Brewers team is an example of how the Brewers have maintained their success. Milwaukee traded Devil Williams, heading into his final season of team control, to the Yankees for Nestor Cortes and Caleb Durbin. Durbin debuted this season and appeared in 136 games for Milwaukee in 2025, hitting .256/.334/.387 mostly at third base. Durbin won’t turn 26 until spring training next year, and the Brewers now have an above-average third baseman under team control for the foreseeable future, including two more seasons before arbitration.

Milwaukee slotted Trevor Megill in as their closer this season, and he posted a 2.49 ERA with 30 saves. The move didn’t dilute their reliever corps at all: as a unit, the bullpen had a 3.63 ERA, nearly one-half better than the league average. 

In-season, the White Sox traded Milwaukee the struggling Andrew Vaughn in exchange for Aaron Civale, who asked for a trade after being demoted to the bullpen. Vaughn hit .308/.375/.493 with nine homers in part-time play for Milwaukee, driving in 46 runs in 64 games. 

Starting left fielder and Rookie of the Year candidate Isaac Collins was a minor-league Rule 5 pick in 2022, when he was 25 years old. Now in his late-20s, he had a .779 OPS. Additions like that have complemented Milwaukee’s homegrown players like Brice Turang — the team’s leader in wins above replacement in 2025, with 5.5 — as well as Sal Frelick and Jackson Chourio. When they get expensive — and someday, they will — the machine will do what it has to do, as it’s done before.

This is how the Brewers operate, and it’s how they have managed to win five division titles since 2018 despite the highest-ranked Opening Day payroll of that entire run coming in at 17th. Conversely, the Cubs were in the top five three times and top 10 five times in the same stretch. 

Milwaukee’s front office is stellar, the farm system is deep and providing replacements and new faces as needed, and there is an obvious eye for talent. Losing Counsell was unfortunate, but replacing him with Murphy tracks with how the Brewers have operated in recent memory. 

Now, the two face off in the NLDS, an already heightened rivalry brought higher still, with the differences between the two franchises and their approaches apparent with no more than a look at where their managers and top players came from.

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