Remember in that end-of-season report by The Athletic Reds beat writer C. Trent Rosecrans, where he reported that Reds ownership, after the Reds lost out on Kyle Schwarber, instructed Nick Krall to “pursue a power hitter, saying fans liked home runs”?

Is that really true, though? Home runs are fun, sure. But if they don’t actually win games, what good do they do? Heck, Barry Larkin once infamously said that home runs kill rallies.

Personally, I miss when the game’s best hitters put the art of hitting on full display. The hitters who hit for average, grinded out at-bats, hit .350 seemingly every year, and thought about just making contact and keeping the pressure on opposing pitchers. Ichiro, Jacoby Ellsbury, Derek Jeter, Juan Pierre, Tony Gwynn, Paul Molitor, George Brett; hitters like those are the ones I miss. Now, there’s a feeling that it’s home run or bust across Major League Baseball. The art of hitting seems to be dissipating.

But the Milwaukee Brewers, who won the World Series with a dominant postseason run, play the game in an old-school way. Consider this: In the World Series, the Brewers only hit three home runs. Two of those were in Game 4, and the other was in Game 2. That means they didn’t hit a home run in three of the five World Series games.

Further, in their four-game Division Series win over the San Diego Padres, they only hit three home runs in four games. Add in their seven home runs in the NLCS, and the Brewers hit just 13 home runs in 13 games in the postseason, an average of one home run per game. Yet, they still had double-digit hits in five of those 13 postseason games.

Reds manager Terry Francona, who’s won two World Series and managed in three World Series, knows well why the Brewers are so successful offensively.

“Milwaukee, they just grind you into the ground,” Francona said on a recent edition of the Reds Hot Stove Show.

That’s a powerful way to describe it. The Brewers hit .258 as a team in 2026, driving in 832 runs and banging out 1,422 hits. William Contreras, Brice Turang, and Jackson Chourio each had over 150 hits. Jake Bauers was the only player with more than 25 home runs, with 26, and Bauers, Turang, and Chourio were the only three hitters to hit over 20 home runs for Milwaukee this year.

But the Brewers still found ways to score runs and keep pressure on opposing pitchers, winning the chess match that exists between pitcher and batter at the plate more often than they lost it. It’s a lost element of Major League Baseball, winning that chess match. The Brewers, though, have mastered it,

“It’s a really good way to play the game,” Francona continued. “But you’ve got to have the players to do it.”

Do you think the Reds have the players to play the game on offense the way the Brewers do? Based on the drastic gap in the NL Central standings and the head-to-head meetings between the two teams in 2026, it’s clear that the Reds aren’t close to the Brewers’ level on offense. That’s a glaring weakness going into 2027.

You can hear Francona's full comments on the Reds Hot Stove here.