When David Stearns stepped down from the Milwaukee Brewers' top front office role — only to accept a similar position with the New York Mets a year later — it felt like the beginning of the dreaded brain drain that happens to successful MLB teams.
Luckily, the Crew have mostly been able to keep their core of key decision-makers intact, led by new president of baseball operations Matt Arnold. Sure, one can scrutinize their best effort at sleepwalking through this offseason, but no one can argue with three straight NL Central titles and one of the best farm systems in all of baseball.