MLB EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR MATT ARNOLD, BREWERS

Continuity is the Brewers’ secret weapon. Matt Arnold made sure the 2024 club met expectations

- TODD ROSIAK

The Brewers had every excuse to take a significant step back in 2024.

They lost their manager. They traded their ace. They suffered through myriad injuries to key players. Their payroll once again matched their status as baseball’s smallest-market team.

In the end, none of that mattered.

Thanks in large part to the deft decision-making of general manager Matt Arnold, the Brewers went on to win the National League Central division and make their sixth postseason appearance in the last seven years.

“Matt has been the glue in our baseball ops group,” Brewers principal owner Mark Attanasio said.

Now, Arnold is the Baseball America Major League Executive of the Year.

Arnold, 45, has been with the Brewers since October 2015, when he joined as right-hand man to then-GM David Stearns. Arnold ascended to the top spot on the baseball operations side in October 2022 after Stearns announced he was stepping back into an advisory role for what would be his final year with the Brewers before taking over as president of baseball operations for the Mets in 2024.

Milwaukee won the NL Central in Arnold’s first year at the helm in 2023. But only weeks after the season ended, major moves began taking place that would ultimately build the framework for 2024 success.

No move was bigger than hiring bench coach Pat Murphy to take over for departed manager Craig Counsell, whose defection to the rival Cubs was a gut punch as well as a slap in the face to the organization.