MVBrewers #1: Willy Adames

Our MVBrewers series is finally reaching an end this week with shortstop Willy Adames taking the top spot on the team for 2022.

After an underwhelming start to his career with the Rays, Adames has played extremely well with Milwaukee. He turned in a .238/.298/.458 slash line with a 112 OPS+ in 2022, finishing second on the team with 31 home runs and leading the way with 98 RBIs.

While Adames saw some regression from his post-trade 2021 season where he slashed .285/.366/.521 to help the Brewers rally into the playoffs, he still played well enough to finish with a 4.4 WAR in 2022, the highest WAR on the team.

His 31 home runs broke the franchise record for most homers by a shortstop in a single season, which was previously held by Robin Yount, who hit 29 in 1982.

In addition to his strong offense, Adames also turned in his best defensive season since 2019, finishing at 10 defensive runs saved after finishing at just one defensive run saved in 2021.

While Adames spent some time on the injured list, he still played 139 games, third most on the team behind Christian Yelich (154 games) and Rowdy Tellez (153 games).

While Adames had two two-homer games in a span of a few weeks early in the season, the April 26 game against the Pirates was arguably the best of his career.

He went 4-for-5 with two homers, a double, and seven RBIs in Milwaukee’s 12-8 victory. His seven RBIs tied the franchise record for RBIs in a game with 11 others, but the record was broken just over a week later when Rowdy Tellez drove in eight.

With that, we’ve reached the end of our 2022 MVBrewers rankings. While the season didn’t go like many expected it would, there were still a few gems on a team that came up just one game short of the postseason.

Here are the final 2022 rankings:

1. Willy Adames
2. Corbin Burnes
3. Brandon Woodruff
4. Hunter Renfroe
5. Rowdy Tellez
6. Devin Williams
7. Kolten Wong
8. Josh Hader
9. Christian Yelich
10. Luis Urias