It wasn’t supposed to be like this. For months, Major League Baseball has pushed – in ads on its MLB Network channel and on MLB.com – that economic disparity was making it impossible for low-payroll clubs in small media markets to compete. The Dodgers were well on their way to their third straight World Series championship and would become not only the first three-time champion since the 1998-2000 Yankees, but also the first National League team to pull off the threepeat.
Then, the baseball gods got involved.
The 2026 World Series will see the Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays face off, with one being crowned champion for the very first time. Of the four teams that made the League Championship Series, there was the Dodgers – the Goliath of the league, with the #1 ranked Competitive Balance Tax (CBT), or more commonly called the Luxury Tax payroll projected by FanGraphs to be $422 million – facing off against the #19 ranked Brewers at $154 million.
All the Brewers did was sweep the Dodgers, who looked every bit the part of the league’s oldest team in the league.
On the American League side, the #28 ranked Tampa Bay Rays ($110 million CBT payroll) faced off against the #29 Cleveland Guardians with a skinny $103 million CBT payroll. Only the Miami Marlins, with an $86 million Luxury Tax payroll, came in lower.
The ALCS wasn’t as lopsided as the NLCS, but it highlighted everything about how this year is simply different in so many ways. Pitching from both teams was sharp, sans Game 6, where it wasn’t until 4.2 innings pitched that the Guardians had their first strikeout of the game (Espino struck out Mesa, Jr.). And while it got dicey in the top of the 8th, ultimately the Rays prevailed 7-3 when Yandy Diaz crushed a 2-RBI home run to right to ultimately give the Rays the 4-2 series win and punch their ticket to the Fall Classic.
The Brewers, in MLB’s smallest media market, will face the Tampa Bay Rays in what might be best described as the peak-analytics World Series ever played.
None of this will alter the league’s trajectory of pushing for a salary cap and locking the players out come December 1st. It’s an anomaly, which they will point to, reminding everyone that the last time a small payroll team won before 2026 was the Kansas City Royals in 2015.
But there have been changes since then, namely the number of teams in the playoffs and how teams are seeded. In other words, the playoffs are random enough that players will say 2026 is another reason to fight against a salary cap.
The MLB Players Association has stayed quiet through it all. Reached for comment after the Brewers won the NLCS and advanced to the World Series, MLBPA executive director Bruce Meyer said, “I’m gonna let the moment speak for itself.”
There will be questions as to how relevant the two teams will be nationally after the Dodgers, with all their star power, were shoved out the door. There’s still the underdog story.
The Rays will play in the World Series for the third time, after last losing to the Dodgers in six games in the pandemic-shortened 60-game regular season of 2020. For the Brewers, it will be their first appearance since 1982.
So, competitive parity, at least for this year, is a thing. Baseball fans will be treated to a first-time World Series Champion. After that… get ready for a long, cold winter as, regardless of the optics with these two teams facing off for baseball’s ultimate crown, the owners will go to the mat for a salary cap system, a lockout, and possibly lost regular-season games in 2027.
The World Series on FOX starts on Friday, Oct 23rd at 8pm ET.
This article was originally published on Forbes.com