Four teams remain in Major League Baseball’s playoffs and it’s simple enough to consider them three paupers and a prince. The Los Angeles Dodgers’ $338 million payroll – which shoots past a half-billion dollars after luxury taxes – makes that tough to avoid.
The game’s second highest-paid roster in the majors is still standing, along with No. 19 Milwaukee ($144 million), No. 25 Tampa Bay ($98.3 million) and the 30th-ranked Cleveland Guardians, whose $74.2 million payroll wouldn’t quite cover the Dodgers’ pitching rotation, alone.
But the Davids and the unavoidable Goliath obscure another fact about this final four: They’re perhaps the best-run franchises in baseball, a petri dish for both on-field and executive talent that’s created a spirit of mutual regard in these AL and NL Championship Series.
MLB payrolls 2026: Dodgers spend more than other three LCS teams combined
You can tell simply by the former players and management who once worked for the other guys.
When the Tampa Bay Rays take the field for Game 1 of their American League Championship Series against the Cleveland Guardians, nine of the 26 players on their roster will have played for one of the other three clubs, including a whopping six players who came over from Cleveland.
Their manager, Kevin Cash, got his start on Cleveland’s coaching staff, spending two seasons as bullpen coach under Terry Francona before Tampa Bay hired him in 2015.
In Game 1 on Monday, Oct. 12, Cash will hand the ball to Drew Rasmussen, the two-time All-Star who was acquired from Milwaukee in a 2021 trade. The Brewers GM for that deal – now their club president – was Matt Arnold, who spent nine seasons learning his craft with the Rays.
And both Arnold and current Rays baseball operations president Erik Neander all worked in Tampa Bay under Andrew Friedman – now something of a godfather in the sport as he lords over the Dodgers, his keen acumen building a top-to-bottom machine ensuring every season ends in the playoffs, the past two with World Series championships.
Yes, these AL and NL championship series will be fiercely fought and tightly matched as all four clubs vie for a trip to the World Series. Best to get the admiration out of the way early, then.
“Chris and Cherny, they're first-class individuals and they run a first-class organization,” Cash said Sunday of Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff, the Guardians’ longtime top front office executives. “I do think there's more similarities than not. I feel Cleveland does mirror us or we mirror them. And I say that with the utmost respect to them, the way they develop pitching, the way they think about the game.
“As far as developing and acquiring (players), there's a lot of similarities. And know that we are facing an extremely talented opponent top to bottom on that roster.”
That includes two former Rays – slugging first baseman Nathaniel Lowe and reliever Shawn Armstrong. The Guardians-to-Rays pipeline is, shall we say, a little more robust.
Guardians of Tampa Bay
The Rays may play their games just a long fly ball from the Gulf of Mexico, but their roster seems soaked in the freshwater of Lake Erie.
All-Star third baseman Junior Caminero was acquired by Tampa Bay from Cleveland in November 2021 for pitcher Tobias Myers, perhaps the worst deal in the Antonetti-Chernoff era.
Slugging first baseman Yandy Diaz played 88 games over two seasons for Cleveland before a three-team, five-player trade in December 2018 sent him to the Rays. Second baseman Richie Palacios, who dealt the knockout blow to the Yankees in the ALDS, was a Cleveland draftee who debuted in 2022, but has been an increasingly important player in his three seasons in Tampa Bay.
Relievers Cole Sulser and Kevin Kelly were also Cleveland draft picks, with Sulser now in his second stint in Tampa Bay after originally coming over in the Díaz deal.
Yet the river of talent doesn’t just go in one direction. The Guardians can thank the Rays for bringing their manager into pro ball.
Stephen Vogt was a 12 TH-round pick out of Azusa Pacific University in 2007 – the Rays were barely a decade old – and debuted with them for 18 games in 2012.
He went 0-for-25.
“I always joke whenever I come here with the players,” says Vogt Sunday, “my career hits as a Tampa Bay Ray will be playing on a loop the whole series.”
Of course, Vogt eventually carved out an excellent 10-year career, making two All-Star Games with the Oakland Athletics and, by the back end of his career, carving out a clubhouse niche that screamed, future manager.
A day before Game 1, he couldn’t help but reminisce about returning where it began – even if his debut was ignominious.
“Nate Lowe and I were talking about our time as Tampa Bay Rays,” says Vogt of his first baseman. “And once the Rays won their series, I really wanted to get here for a number of reasons. I mean, this is the organization where they gave me my first shot in pro ball. And this is where I grew up in the game. And the reason I'm sitting here is a lot of the people that have worked here or still work here that poured into me that saw value in me and who I was and helped develop me into the person and player that I am.
“It's going to be really fun to see a lot of those people over the next week. It's really special coming back here.”
Once a Ray, then a Guardian, now a star in Milwaukee
It’s been something of a scourge since baseball’s “Moneyball” era began in the 2000s – certain organizations or executives labeled as “smart.”
Sure, some are more adept than others, but even the boy wonders can chafe at such labels. And besides, even the “smart” teams make mistakes.
If there’s one thing that binds the Rays, Dodgers and Brewers together, it’s a reputation for “fixing” or perhaps maximizing a player’s skill set. Pitching coach Kyle Snyder has led innumerable reclamation projects in Tampa Bay. All three of Tampa Bay’s playoff starters – Rasmussen, fellow All-Star Nick Martinez and former Brewer Freddy Peralta, who’d struggled with the Mets this season – showed significant improvement under Snyder.
Not all waiver claims are perfect, though. And not all players get it right the first time.
Just take it from Jake Bauers, who now stars for the Brewers yet could not stick in the big leagues with Cleveland and Tampa Bay.
Now 31, Bauers has been part of some massive deals, landing in Tampa Bay as part of the famed three-team, 11-player deal in December 2014 that most notably shipped Wil Myers from Tampa Bay to San Diego and Trea Turner to Washington.
He debuted for the Rays at 22, in 2018, and hit 11 home runs in 96 games. But the Rays saw something special in Diaz – most notably, his hard-hit rate and average exit velocity – and acquired the bodybuilding slugger from Cleveland.
But Bauers couldn’t stick in Cleveland, either, posting a sickly 73 adjusted OPS across the 2019 and 2021 seasons. Next came Seattle, Cincinnati and the New York Yankees, with stops at a pair of minor league affiliates.
He toted a lifetime .302 OBP and 80 adjusted OPS into Milwaukee after the Brewers acquired him from the Yankees in a roster-churning move for both clubs.
In Milwaukee, he found a form of tough love that he acknowledges might have been missing earlier in his career.
“I’m super grateful they traded for me. Super grateful to be here these last three years,” Bauers told USA TODAY Sports last month. “At the same time, I think playing here can be a little bit uncomfortable, compared to some places.
“There’s a lot of things that the staff, starting with (manager Pat Murphy), and also the players in the clubhouse - we don’t let slide. That’s a big key to our success but at the same time, it can be uncomfortable at times if you’re not willing to face the man in the mirror.
“But it’s been awesome.”
Bauers set a career high this year in virtually every offensive category, most notably home runs (26), OBP (.389) and OPS (.874). The lefty swinger batted cleanup against Dodgers ace Tarik Skubal in Game 1 of the NLCS, which the Brewers won 2-1.
You might say his Rays connection saved his career. Arnold, now running the Brewers, remembered Bauers from his Rays tenure and had a feeling there was more in there.
“Had some history with Jake in Tampa and knew who he was as a guy,” says Arnold before the NLCS started. “There were some ingredients that we liked. For him, again, to take those next steps putting in the work -- he was talented already, but he's put in real work and gotten strong and physical, and he's done a tremendous job and really can't be thrilled more.”
Says Murphy: “What he's done this year is just - it's been tremendous. Really happy for him. He got his chance, and he broke through. To see that happen and to see a guy have that belief system, that’s the greatest feeling in the world.”
Dodgers-Rays: An unbreakable connection
If the Rays are Guardians South, then the Dodgers are Rays West.
They’re carrying four former Rays on their NLCS roster, two of them – starters Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell – examples of flexing their financial might, as they acquired Glasnow and signed him to a $130 million extension the Rays weren’t willing to pay. Snell, dealt by Tampa Bay to San Diego after the 2020 World Series signed a $182 million deal after a stop in San Francisco.
Reserve catcher Hunter Feduccia was drafted by the Dodgers in 2018 and then shipped to St. Petersburg and back to Dodger Stadium twice in 369 days - both clubs sharing joint custody, it seems.
And then there’s reliever Evan Phillips, who was a Ray for just 12 days in August 2021, getting into one major league game, before a roster crunch put him on waivers. He was claimed by the Dodgers – and has never left.
Phillips has saved 46 games for them since 2022, sitting out most of 2025 due to Tommy John surgery yet posting a 0.96 WHIP in six seasons with L.A. Sometimes being “smart” is having an open 40-man roster spot at the right time.
Then again, Friedman knew Phillips came with the Rays’ stamp of approval, and now he can’t get away from them.
Arnold and Neander watched and learned at Friedman’s side and now, for the second consecutive year, Friedman and Arnold are matching wits in the NLCS.
Friedman has led the Dodgers to three World Series championships since 2020, the first over Neander’s Rays. The Brewers have not reached the World Series since 1982.
Regardless of which teams advance to the Fall Classic, there will be plenty of familiarity.
“When we worked together, I thought, he's going to be really successful,” Friedman said of Arnold before Game 1. “Obviously worked together with Matt and Erik for a long time. Both are very creative, big motors, really good leaders. To see each of their respective teams having success is not surprising at all.
“I think the creativity but also the ability to connect and relate to everyone - it's not surprising that they have organizations that are so synced up. And watching them have the success they've had is awesome.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dodgers have big money, but Brewers, Rays and Guardians have minds to match