MLB draws bittersweet comparison between Guardians and Brewers in latest tier list 

There’s perhaps no other team in MLB like the Cleveland Guardians. While they’re a small-market team who is consistently having to navigate a lack of spending, they’ve also won the fourth-most games since the start of 2016 (843), trailing only the Dodgers, Yankees and Astros. 

So it’s three modern powerhouses that can spend like no other and then a Guardians team that consistently does more with less. 

But the team with the fifth-most wins over that time period is the Milwaukee Brewers, who have recorded 836 wins while operating on an arguably even tighter budget. 

In that time frame, the Guardians and Brewers have combined for 11 division titles and 14 postseason berths. It’s clear that both Central divisions run through them. 

And although those results would be a bit different if they were both in different divisions that didn’t feature so many teams constantly rebuilding, they’ve both done the most with what they’ve given. 

That kind of thinking was reflected in a new article from MLB.com’s Mike Petriello where he divided all 30 MLB teams up into nine different tiers. And he had one tier in the middle that consisted of just the Guardians and Brewers. 

The Guardians and Brewers have proven they’re baseball’s best at doing more with less

The reason why Petriello put the Guardian and Brewers in their own tier as opposed to lumping them into one with the rest of the contenders is a simple one: They didn’t do much to improve in the offseason. 

While the Guardians authored a historic comeback to win the division title last season, they didn’t do much to add any external improvements to their roster. 

That said, part of the reason they did that is because of rookies Chase DeLauter and George Valera along with banking on internal options like Bo Naylor, Joey Cantillo and Brayan Rocchio to take leaps. All of those things happening may seem far-fetched, but weirder things have happened. 

And on the other side, the Brewers celebrated their NL Central crown by trading Freddy Peralta to the Mets along with dealing Caleb Durbin and Issac Collins in separate trades during the offseason. 

The Brewers’ front office operates with the same shrewd efficiency that Chris Antonetti and Co. are known for, which is life for most small-market teams. 

That said, the Brewers are still a buzzy pick to win their division thanks to malaise from every other NL Central team aside from the Cubs. 

The same can be said for the Guardians, who are going to have to compete with the dangerous Detroit Tigers yet again. 

Although the Guardians got past Detroit in the regular season last year, the Tigers got the better of them in the American League Wild Card Series, and are arguably even better this year thanks to the addition of Framber Valdez. 

But just because the Tigers are better now doesn’t mean that the Guardians won’t be able to handle them. They’ve spent the past decade proving everyone wrong; what’s another year?