10 things to know about the Tampa Bay Rays, Brewers' World Series foe

The Milwaukee Brewers now know that it'll be the Tampa Bay Rays that they face in the 2026 World Series.

Somebody will be walking away with the first championship in franchise history, dropping the number of MLB franchises without a World Series title from five to four (sorry, Seattle Mariners, Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres).

Here's what to know about the Rays:

How did the Brewers do against the Rays this year?

The Brewers beat the Rays in two out of three games at American Family Field, but you have to go all the way back to the first week of the season.

• March 30: Rays 3, Brewers 2: After Milwaukee started the year 3-0, it suffered its first defeat at the hands of the Rays in a tight game when Nick Fortes hit a two-out RBI double in the ninth against Trevor Megill. William Contreras hit a two-run homer for Milwaukee. Kyle Harrison recorded eight strikeouts over five innings in his Milwaukee debut.
• March 31: Brewers 6, Rays 2: Brandon Woodruff's season debut went well despite a pair of solo homers allowed. Brice Turang hit a three-run homer against Rays ace Shane McClanahan (now injured and out for the year) to give his team a 3-2 lead in the fifth. Gary Sánchez and Jake Bauers later added homers.
• April 1: Brewers 8, Rays 2. Jacob Misiorowski outdueled Drew Rasmussen in a battle that we couldn't have known would be the likely Game 1 matchup in the World Series. Miz allowed a two-run homer to Yandy Díaz in the third but Turang answered with a two-run homer in the bottom half. The game turned on a six-run eighth, where Christian Yelich, Garrett Mitchell, Blake Perkins and David Hamilton all drove in runs.

An incredible irony: During labor debate over salary cap, two of baseball's smallest markets meet

With the threat of a lockout looming after the season, centered around the owners' perspective that competitive imbalance in Major League Baseball calls for a salary cap, it's incredibly ironic that two of the smallest markets are competing for a World Series.

The "market size" concept isn't entirely easy to define. The Brewers were ranked 19th in MLB in total payroll allocations by the end of 2026, and Tampa Bay was 28th out of 30, and Milwaukee is often regarded as the smallest market in MLB.

Any way you slice it, the World Series will be the first since 2015 (Kansas City vs. San Francisco) to feature two cities outside the nation's 10 biggest.

The team's top two pitchers are former Brewers

The Rays have gotten big-time contributions from top pitchers Drew Rasmussen and Freddy Peralta, both of whom are former Brewers.

Peralta is the obvious one, the 2025 ace of the Brewers traded in the offseason to the New York Mets for Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams. It was a disastrous deal for the Mets even though the two players Milwaukee got back had rough years, with Peralta posting a 4.99 ERA before he was traded to the Rays at the deadline.

With Tampa Bay, Peralta has been on a tear. He's allowed two earned runs in 16⅔ playoff innings, and that's on the heels of posting a 0.79 ERA in his final six outings (three earned runs, 34 innings). The Rays have won all nine of his last nine games.

Then there's Rasmussen, an all-star this season for the second time who was dealt by the Brewers to the Rays in 2021 for Willy Adames. Though that trade yielded Milwaukee's starting shortstop for the next three-plus years, it has some of the same vibes as the CC Sabathia deal: Milwaukee got what it wanted but paid for it.

Rasmussen, a sixth-round pick in 2018, has a career 2.83 ERA and a 1.024 WHIP, and he led AL qualified pitchers with a 0.913 WHIP this season. He went 16-5 this season with 174 strikeouts in 172 innings.

Rasmussen pitched in 27 games for Milwaukee in 2020 and 2021. Peralta, of course, is one of the organization's best-ever pitchers, appearing in 211 games (70-42, 3.59 ERA) over the course of eight seasons.

One other Brewers-adjacent note: star third baseman Junior Caminero was famously traded by Cleveland (the team Tampa Bay beat in the ALCS) for eventual Brewers pitcher Tobias Myers. Myers was also part of the deal when Milwaukee sent Peralta to the Mets.

Brewers general manager Matt Arnold has Rays history

When David Stearns took over as Brewers general manager, he hired Matt Arnold away from the Rays to be his No. 2.

Arnold, who eventually took over as GM and president of baseball operations, spent nine seasons with the Rays, working alongside general manager Andrew Friedman (now the architect of the Dodgers – the team Arnold's Brewers just beat) and current Rays president of baseball operations Erik Neander.

Arnold has helped instill some of the basic tenets in Milwaukee that the Rays have employed, namely the approach that has allowed a small-market team to thrive despite no salary cap in Major League Baseball.

The Rays have endured World Series heartbreak before

Though the Rays have only been a franchise since 1998, they do have two World Series appearances in 2008 and 2020, coincidentally losing both times to the team that defeated the Brewers earlier in those postseasons.

In 2008, the Phillies (who toppled Milwaukee in the National League Division Series) defeated the Rays in five games. In 2020, the Dodgers (who topped Milwaukee in the strange first-round format of the COVID-19 season) topped the Rays in six. In that series, former Brewers outfielder Brett Phillips had a walk-off single that scored the tying run and then the winning run following Dodgers' defensive miscues.

The Rays are 3-0 in AL Championship Series. They've made it to the playoffs 10 times since 2008, the same number of times as the Brewers in that stretch. Tampa Bay didn't have a winning season (or even more than 70 wins in a season) for the first 10 years of its existence.

Chandler Simpson is probably the fastest human in baseball

David Hamilton and Garrett Mitchell are two of the fastest four players getting from home plate to first base in Major League Baseball, at least according to Statcast metrics. But nobody is faster than Rays outfielder Chandler Simpson.

Simpson's 3.97-second speed is easily the fastest in baseball (the next is 4.04). He's also an above-average defender in the outfield, but he has the ability to create serious havoc on the basepaths. He went 2-for-3 in Game 5 with a run scored and a stolen base.

Junior Caminero is one of baseball's great young stars

Third baseman Junior Caminero, at age 23, is easily the top offensive player of the team. The two-time all-star hit 42 home runs this year after hitting 45 last year, played in all 162 games, posted an .885 OPS and won't even be arbitration eligible until 2028.

He's one of the best stars in the game, and Baseball Reference regards him as 5.7 wins above replacement, easily the best player on the team (though by comparison, the Brewers have two players in Brice Turang at 7.3 and Jacob Misiorowski at 6.5 who rate higher).

Caminero hasn't dominated in the playoffs, but he did hit a two-run homer in the clinching Game 6 of the ALCS.

The Rays defense is sensational ... probably?

Only the Chicago Cubs had a better "defensive runs saved" metric according to Fielding Bible, with a count of 87 that was well ahead of Boston (67) and Milwaukee (62). The Cubs, at 115, were tops.

Shortstop Taylor Walls is regarded as one of the five best defenders in all of baseball by that format, with plus assessments of outfielders Victor Mesa Jr., Simpson, Cedric Mullins and Jonny DeLuca.

But then there's Outs Above Average produced by Statcast, and the Rays rank just 15th out of 30 MLB teams in that category, basically average. The Cubs are again the cream of the crop (73 OAA), but the Brewers (20) are just as close to the top as to the middle.

Ball off a roof? It's normal here

The Brewers, of course, already have a memorable playoff moment involving a ball off the roof. That's normal stuff at Tropicana Field, where two of the four catwalk rings around the stadium's roof are in play and often enter the picture.

The four rings are labeled A, B, C and D, and there's a full rundown of how they work.

Closer Bryan Baker has been a standout this year

Tied for the American League lead with 41 saves, closer Bryan Baker has been one of the best relievers in the game, with a 1.44 ERA and 63 strikeouts in 62 innings. The 31-year-old was an all-star for the first time this year after starting his career in Baltimore (following a very brief stint with Toronto), and his WHIP this season dropped from 1.202 in his career to 0.982.

Overall, Tampa Bay's bullpen has been gettable, but the entire pitching staff has been nails in the postseason, allowing just 11 runs between Game 2 and Game 6 of the ALCS after surrendering just five runs over three games to the New York Yankees in an ALDS sweep.

Baker joined Rasmussen, Caminero, starter Nick Martinez and designated hitter Yandy Díaz as all-stars in 2026.

Kevin Cash is the longest-tenured manager in MLB

Kevin Cash has been manager of the Rays since 2015, and he has a .540 winning percentage in that tenure, with seven winning seasons (out of 12) and two pennants. He was hired one year before the Dodgers hired Dave Roberts and two years before the Diamondbacks hired Torey Lovullo.

Seven additional nuggets

• The Rays play in St. Petersburg, which is close to Tampa, but Tampa Bay refers to the water. It's not like Green Bay, which refers to either the water or the city itself.
• Tropicana Field was damaged badly by Hurricane Milton in early October 2024, including a destroyed roof (a fiberglass membrane). The team played all of its games last season at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, a minor-league facility, then returned to "The Trop" this year. The team won't be here for much longer; a new stadium is targeted for a 2029 opening.
• Tyler Wells is a pitcher. Taylor Walls is a shortstop. Cam Booser is a pitcher. Cam Boozer won't be in Milwaukee until Feb. 1 when the Memphis Grizzlies play the Milwaukee Bucks.
• The Rays won only 77 games last year but bounced back to win their 78th with a week still to play in August. At 98-64, they had the best record in the American League. It's the second time in three years that the teams with the best records in each league meet in the World Series.
• Kenosha native Gavin Lux, who was part of World Series championships with the Dodgers in 2020 and 2024, is on the Rays this year but has been out all season with a shoulder injury and hasn't appeared in a game for Tampa Bay. He was traded to the team before the season from the Cincinnati Reds.
• Former Brewers minor-leaguer Jadher Areinamo is on the Rays 40-man roster but has not debuted in the big leagues. The Brewers dealt him to the Rays at the 2025 trade deadline for catcher Danny Jansen, an Appleton West High School alumnus who played with Texas in 2026.
• Yandy Díaz led the American League with 180 hits this season (one ahead of presumed MVP Yordan Alvarez of Houston) and belted 22 home runs in his second all-star campaign.