What this year’s MLB playoffs say about baseball’s future
MILWAUKEE — Something very complicated is occurring in Major League Baseball. For a lot of the 2026 season, the league has run a public marketing campaign that paints the sport as essentially damaged, unfair for lower-payroll and smaller-market groups, remedied solely by a wage cap and flooring system it says would repair such imbalances. Meanwhile, of the 4 groups remaining within the postseason, one performs within the recreation’s smallest market, one other is carrying the sport’s lowest money payroll, and a 3rd is working out the Twenty sixth-highest payroll of the league’s 30 groups.
The fourth staff, in fact, is the Los Angeles Dodgers, the behemoth whose back-to-back championships have underpinned MLB’s rhetoric about the sport’s future upon the expiration of the collective bargaining settlement Dec. 1. The league frequently cites the Dodgers in its polemics on payroll; L.A.’s this yr is $340.6 million with a further $180.8 million in luxurious tax funds, based on Ethan Hulihen’s payroll tracker. The penalty Los Angeles pays this season is larger than the total payrolls of the opposite three championship collection golf equipment, the Milwaukee Brewers ($143.7 million), Tampa Bay Rays ($98.5 million) and Cleveland Guardians ($74.4 million). On money payroll alone, the Dodgers are outspending the Brewers, Rays and Guardians mixed by practically $25 million.
And but with the Dodgers shedding the primary two video games of the National League Championship Series, MLB is a actuality that instantly opposes its narrative: two small-market groups within the World Series. And not simply any small markets, both: Tampa Bay hasn’t received a title in its 29 years of existence, Milwaukee hasn’t received a title in its 58 years of existence, and Cleveland hasn’t received a title since 1948. This October may very simply ship the type of World Series that fulfills the will of commissioner Rob Manfred, who throughout the All-Star break instructed reporters that “competitive balance” is “the core of what we’re about.”
While 2026 would not essentially invalidate MLB’s argument — that moneyed groups over the previous decade have dominated the postseason panorama, and any single season that implies in any other case is an outlier — it completely validates the MLB Players Association’s competition that the sport’s monetary panorama would not disqualify lower-spending groups from success and doesn’t necessitate a cap-and-floor system. If Milwaukee wins the NL pennant, the mixed payrolls of the 2 World Series staff can be the bottom for the reason that St. Louis Cardinals beat the Texas Rangers in 2011.
Even so, house owners don’t intend to pivot from their contentions. Their insistence on a cap and flooring — backed, the league says, by surveys that present followers need one — stays agency regardless of who wins the Fall Classic, based on sources. Accordingly, collective bargaining talks have been at a standstill for the reason that league in May proposed a 50-50 income cut up with a $245.3 million ceiling and $171.2 million flooring. Not solely is the union viscerally against a cap, however it additionally contends gamers would lose tons of of tens of millions of {dollars} in such a system.
Upon delivering the parameters of 1 to the MLBPA in May, the league mentioned in an announcement that “the biggest issue … is fixing the payroll disparity” and that “too many fans in too many markets have too little hope their team has a fair chance to win.”
The gamers remaining within the postseason have a special story to inform.
FOR THE FIRST six years of his profession, Jake Bauers lived the nomadic existence of a participant on the fringes. It took him from Tampa Bay to Cleveland to Seattle to New York and, lastly, to Milwaukee, the place he’s now the cleanup hitter for the staff that received a major-league-best 103 regular-season video games.
Bauers’ travels have given him a novel perspective on the 2026 season. And he would not consider it is an accident that the Rays, Guardians and Brewers are amongst baseball’s remaining 4. Since 2016, they’ve mixed for 22 playoff appearances, eight league championship collection berths and two World Series makes an attempt, neither profitable. All three are regarded by their friends as mannequin organizations, not only for their capacity to win persistently on a decent finances however the type of play they embrace and embody.
“You can’t just throw nine guys out there and say, play fundamental baseball and expect to win,” Bauers mentioned. “There still has to be a certain amount of talent in the room. And I think if you get the right guys who will buy into what you’re preaching, who are also talented, who can hit a homer in a big spot when you need them to, but who can also hit a backside ground ball when you need them to, get a bunt down, play good enough defense and base run well — that, to me, is what every team left has in common.”
The commonalities of the three small-market survivors — they prolong to the Dodgers, too — are clear with a dive into the numbers. The 4 groups left all do necessary issues properly. Each boasts a robust bullpen. Milwaukee and Tampa Bay rank first and second, respectively, in batting common, and the Brewers additionally lead MLB in stroll charge and on-base proportion. The Rays strike out lower than any staff in MLB — with Cleveland not far behind in fifth, and its stroll charge is eighth. All three are demons on the basepaths, as Tampa Bay ranks second, Milwaukee fifth and Cleveland seventh in stolen bases. As gauche because the sacrifice bunt has grow to be, the small-market professionals embrace its utility and consider a willingness to make use of it fosters selflessness — and with the Rays main MLB in sacrifices, the Brewers fifth and the Guardians eighth, they apply what they preach.
“Anybody on our team can get the bunt sign and put it down,” Brewers All-Star second baseman Brice Turang mentioned, and he illustrated that in Game 1 of the NLCS. With Milwaukee trailing the Dodgers 1-0, Turang in some way powered a low and in sinker from left-hander Tarik Skubal to the other area for a solo residence run. Two plate appearances later, with Milwaukee clinging to a 2-1 benefit, Turang stepped into the batter’s field following a leadoff single from Jackson Chourio. On the primary pitch, he laid down an ideal sacrifice bunt.
“That’s all I’ve ever known baseball to be,” Turang mentioned. “Being able to bunt guys over, move them over. The situation of the game called me to bunt and move them over. And that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to help the team win in any way I can. So if that’s a bunt, a stolen base or whatever, just trying to do that.”
This is to not recommend that small-market groups can bunt their strategy to the World Series. It’s extra of a mentality that may converse to lower-payroll golf equipment: If there are inherent monetary disadvantages — and in a capped system, there nonetheless can be, although not practically as distinct — groups have to forge an identification that may bridge the hole.
“There’s no formula to it, and I know this being a kind of guy who doesn’t match the idea of slug, homers, all that kind of stuff,” mentioned outfielder Stephen Kwan, the second-longest tenured Guardians participant behind star third baseman Jose Ramirez. “I think that’s a sign that if you play really good baseball, you do the fundamentals, you do the right thing, you can win any kind of baseball game anytime.”
Each participant queried on the matter talked about fundamentals, and that goes for the groups’ protection as properly. The Rays have been the earliest adopters of accepting a lesser bat for superior protection. Tampa Bay additionally has been the business customary in strike throwing, whereas the Guardians and Brewers have became pitching improvement machines. Cleveland’s capacity to develop top-tier beginning pitching dates twenty years and right this moment consists of left-hander Parker Messick and American League Championship Series Game 3 starter Gavin Williams. The Brewers’ historical past goes again about a decade and right this moment has produced Jacob Misiorowski, Logan Henderson and a bevy of different arms.
At the top of the day, all three of the low-payroll groups left acknowledge simply how random the MLB postseason is — and the way no matter their regular-season successes, they may’ve simply as simply misplaced within the division collection. Milwaukee wanted to play a near-perfect collection — and get some luck — to oust the San Diego Padres. If Aaron Judge is wholesome, maybe the New York Yankees would’ve pushed Tampa Bay. And Cleveland wanted to win three consecutive video games, together with a capper on the highway, to dispatch a plucky Chicago White Sox membership.
“There’s not one recipe to have a winning team,” mentioned Messick, an All-Star this yr and certain finalist for AL Rookie of the Year. “I think we are living proof of that.”
OVER THE PAST decade, payroll disparity in MLB has grown considerably. The Dodgers, with the most important native TV deal within the recreation — and, resulting from a chapter court docket settlement, sharing a fraction of their income in comparison with different groups — in 2026 are spending no less than twice as a lot as 26 golf equipment, 3 times as a lot as 15, 4 instances as a lot as 11 and 5 instances as a lot as seven.
At the All-Star Game, when addressing the practically $450 million chasm between the highest and backside, Manfred mentioned: “It defies human experience to ask a fan to think that the bottom end of that gap has the same opportunity to win as the top.”
Well, the Guardians are on the backside finish of that hole. And after splitting the primary two video games of the ALCS at Tropicana Field, they seemingly have a greater alternative to win, no less than in 2026.
“There’s not a competition issue. There’s truly not,” mentioned Guardians first baseman Nathaniel Lowe, who got here up within the Rays group and has performed in markets large (Boston and Texas) and small (Cincinnati). “If owners wanted to spend, they would, and teams that might not spend the money on a roster still find a way to win. So look at the four. It’s not a payroll issue. It’s commitment to winning. And now being on this side of it, having spent time in Tampa, the payroll isn’t really the issue. It’s just the commitment to winning.”
How one quantifies a dedication to successful is the difficulty. Payroll is a straightforward vector, and the numbers MLB cites — even this yr, eight of the highest 10 spending groups certified for the postseason — have benefit. Teams from bottom-10 markets — Tampa is nineteenth, Cleveland twenty fifth and Milwaukee thirtieth, for context — have comprised lower than 1 / 4 of LCS qualifiers courting greater than a quarter-century. The final bottom-10 market staff to make the World Series was Cleveland in 2016, following back-to-back appearances from the Kansas City Royals, who have been the final one to win in 2015.
“The data in our sport is stark,” Manfred mentioned. “Your opportunity to make the playoffs if you are a larger-market team is dramatically higher and your opportunity to proceed to the subsequent rounds — that advantage grows with each round.”
Not in 2026. Whether it is anomalous or the start of the best-run organizations frequently making deep playoff runs is for the future to inform. But the Rays, Guardians and Brewers all reply a very powerful questions for groups with monetary disadvantages. Where can they enhance? What is their identification? As sick as followers in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati and Baltimore and Miami are of the sensation that bigger payrolls are an insurmountable hurdle, gamers, by and huge, do not concern themselves with such issues. It’s out of their management.
What’s throughout the management of those franchises? In Milwaukee, for instance, profiting from the cash the group has funneled towards infrastructure, corresponding to constructing the most important worldwide scouting workers within the recreation. Or shopping for into the Rays’ means of doing issues, with the data that no staff has performed a greater job over the lengthy haul of taking gamers who struggled elsewhere and discovering the perfect in them. Or recognizing the worth of stability in Cleveland, the place Chris Antonetti has been working baseball operations longer than anybody outdoors of Brian Cashman with the Yankees.
Nobody is aware of how lengthy baseball will shutter when the collective bargaining settlement expires at 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 1. Discussions may stay at a standstill. The events may wind up in court docket. Or on Capitol Hill, assembly with Congress, attempting to succeed in some type of détente to avoid wasting the season. It’s additionally eminently doable that Opening Day comes and goes and followers undergo for the mom of all self-inflicted wounds by these in control of the sport.
What’s plain is that proper now, within the yr that MLB staked its argument for a cap across the incapability to groups with lower than to moderately compete, 75% of the groups left within the postseason — and no less than 50% of these within the World Series — are greater than moderately competing. They harbor championship goals, and so they do not consider they’re the place they’re accidentally.
“There is a right way to play the game of baseball, and if you can commit to that and get an entire team to commit to that, you can overcome a lot of things,” Bauers mentioned. “As far as payrolls and all that, you’ve still got to play the game. And all the talent and all the money in the world can’t buy the focus that you need to win baseball games.”