Welcome to the small-market World Series. This is a theme you’re likely to encounter a lot this week, as the momentum toward this Rays-Brewers showdown gathers.
To be sure, there are a number of similarities between the Brewers and Rays, but those similarities are mostly top-line items. The sub-traits beneath them are very different.
Take their markets, for example. They are small in different ways. By metro population figures and Major League Baseball’s internal market score, Milwaukee is at the bottom of the league, while Tampa Bay ranks closer to the middle.
But if you look at revenue, their places flip. The Milwaukee metro area might be small, but the Brewers are a regional franchise that has fans all over Wisconsin.
It’s a similar situation on the field. Both clubs have become known for pivoting away from the onslaught of strikeouts and home runs in today’s game. But when you dig a bit deeper, it’s clear they took different routes to get to the Fall Classic.
This series isn’t alluring because of how the teams are alike, but how they are different. And this is why this promises to be a tremendously entertaining matchup between two legit No. 1 seeds, one in which two of the game’s best managers — Tampa Bay’s Kevin Cash and Milwaukee’s Pat Murphy — might play outsized roles.
So how are they different?
Long ball liberation
This was the theme of a piece I wrote about the Brewers’ offense at the outset of the playoffs. It isn’t that Milwaukee is a small-ball offense; it’s that the Brewers play like a small-ball offense when the situation warrants. But when they need to muscle up, they are able to do that. These aren’t the 1980s Cardinals of Willie McGee and Vince Coleman, even if the Brewers also feature a second baseman who drove in 100 runs (Brice Turang, while Tom Herr did it for those St. Louis teams).
The key stat that will spur many to lump the Milwaukee and Tampa Bay offenses together is this: The Rays ranked 29th in percentage of runs coming via the homer, ahead of only the Brewers. This is indeed how they are most similar — neither club relies on homers to score.
But while both teams have power, they have different strategies about when to emphasize it. The Rays ranked 13th in slugging with the bases empty, but 17th with men on base. The Brewers ranked 24th in slugging with the bases empty, but fifth with men on base. Similar results, different paths. For both clubs, it’s truer to say that they don’t rely on homers than to say they can’t hit them.
During the playoffs, both teams have featured more or less balanced offenses, at least in relation to the rest of the playoff field. The Brewers have scored via the long ball 35% of the time; the Rays are at 31%, both below the overall playoff average of 38%. Both rank in the top half of playoff teams in runs per game both with, and without, home runs.
Hitting with the bases empty
Both teams hit .258 during the regular season, with the Brewers topping the majors once you go out a fourth decimal point. Batting averages! Old-school approaches! Yes, but the routes these offenses take to the same average could hardly be more different. Once again, we can see this vividly in how the offenses approach bases-empty situations.
With no one on base, the Brewers had by far the lowest swing rate in the majors (42.5%); the Rays were 15th (47.1%). The Brewers saw the most pitches in those spots (4.07 pitches per plate appearance); the Rays were 28th (3.82). The Rays had the second-best rate of putting the ball in play (78.2%), while the Brewers had the second-best BABIP (.306).
The Rays are all about ambushing early in the count, especially with no one on base, which in part translates to their high slugging percentage in those situations even though their overall hard-hit rate is nearly at the bottom of the majors. The Brewers, on the other hand, grind. When no one is on base, the top priority is to change that and get to first base.
Hitting with runners on base
Here we’re talking about the ability to alter approaches with runners on base. These are the two best teams in the majors at doing this. The Brewers led the majors with an RBI rate of 18.9% (percentage of runners on base driven in); the Rays were second at 18.1%.
The difference in their success rates means the Brewers drove in 73.1 runs above expectation, while the Rays were at 45.1.
So these are the two best teams at cashing in their baserunners, but once again, there are differences in how they do this. The Rays get even more aggressive, with their rock-bottom pitches-per-plate-appearance figure dropping to 3.69. They put the ball in play but do so with the lowest isolated power figure (.135) in the majors. The Brewers, on the other hand, remain patient, but their slugging and isolated power indicators go up, as does their home run rate.
If there is a lesson here for other teams when it comes to succeeding in RISP situations, it might lie in another common trait between the Rays and Brewers: swing path. The Brewers hit the ball harder more often than the Rays, who seem to actually favor lower exit velocities in their style of play, at least for some of their players. But however the ball comes off the bat, for both of these teams it’s likely to come in the form of a grounder or line drive. The Rays (29th) and Brewers (30th) have the two lowest average launch angles in baseball.
Speed
Both clubs are full of plus runners who pressure opposing defenses on the bases and run down balls in the field.
The Rays ranked second in steals and steal attempts per opportunity; the Brewers were fifth and sixth in those columns. They were both successful around 75% of the time, with the Rays ranking 18th and the Brewers 19th. Thus, both clubs are willing to accept a few caught stealing when it comes to pressuring the opponent.
This similar penchant for derring-do on steals doesn’t translate to running the bases in general, though. The more-aggressive Rays took the extra base 42% of the time, right at the MLB average, while the Brewers were at 41%. Still, only three teams made more outs while running the bases than Tampa Bay (54); the Brewers were tied for 21st (28).
Pitching
These are two of the best pitching staffs in baseball and two of the best at overall run prevention. In the playoffs, the Rays’ rotation has outperformed every other team’s starters, largely because of how hot Drew Rasmussen and Freddy Peralta have gotten.
The Brewers have gotten less from their starters, but the dominance of their bullpen has been one of the postseason’s leading narratives. Runs will be hard to come by in the World Series.
There are stark differences in collective emphasis between the two staffs. The Brewers led the majors in strikeout rate; the Rays led in walk rate. Perhaps due to their focus on strike-throwing, the Rays were more susceptible to the long ball. If Milwaukee is able to power up situationally as I’ve suggested, this might be the series to do so.
In terms of the rate of pitches in the zone, Milwaukee actually ranked higher (second) than Tampa Bay (third). The Rays get away with being in the zone so much because they allowed the third-lowest exit velocity this season and the lowest opposing BABIP. The Brewers do it by missing bats.
The real difference that will jump out is the Rays’ much-touted use of the changeup, by far the highest usage in the majors. The Brewers led the majors in hard stuff — two-seamers, four-seamers, cutters.
Two great pitching staffs with very different approaches against two contrasting styles of offense. It’s a seamhead’s dream matchup.
Home-field edge
The Rays and Brewers tied for the MLB lead with 55 home wins during the regular season. They are a combined 8-1 at home during the postseason. One difference between these similar levels of home dominance is attendance — the Brewers drew almost twice as many fans per game during the regular season. Based on what we saw in the ALCS, this won’t be in effect in the World Series. Both venues will be loud and jam-packed.
Still, there are differences here. I have a home reliance metric that looks at how much of a team’s overall run differential is based on its play at home. It’s expressed as an index, and Milwaukee’s 125 tied with the Chicago White Sox for the highest in baseball. The Rays were more middle-of-the-pack at 104.
The disparity comes at the plate. Milwaukee’s 5.52 runs per game at American Family Field were considerably more than any team. The Brewers’ offense was still good on the road, ranking sixth at 4.75. The Rays were 13th in home scoring and 15th on the road. Of course, it should be noted that while these numbers explain Milwaukee’s greater degree of home reliance, its offense performed better than the Rays through either prism.
Managers
Cash and Murphy have both won two Manager of the Year awards. Murphy is likely to win a third straight this season. Cash has a chance at his third, too, though Chicago’s Will Venable is probably the AL favorite. Still, it adds up to the same thing: These are two of baseball’s elite managers, perhaps its two best.
It’s hard to really capture the differences between managers with trackable strategy preferences because managing is so much more than that. Both rank near the top of the majors in calling for steals and bunts, and they pinch run more than anyone. Cash is about twice as likely to call for an intentional walk. But the real differences here are more ephemeral, subjective and based on impressions.
Cash is a bona fide skipper who is empowered to run his team as he sees fit. He’s an extension of the Rays’ cutting-edge front office in that he has such a firm grasp of analytics and probability that he is able to seamlessly factor that data into his decision-making. Because he’s a participant in those processes and not a puppet, he’s the ideal 21st century manager, especially for a low-payroll team such as the Rays that needs to play every edge.
Murphy’s front office is as innovative as any team, with the Rays perhaps being the only exception. But to hear Murphy tell it, he can’t count to 10 without using his fingers. It’s a put-on of course because that’s what Murphy does: He raises self-deprecation to an art form. But there is no question that Murphy doesn’t fixate on numbers.
What I mean by that is the actual numbers, not the stories they tell. Murphy can’t tell you what Jackson Chourio‘s batting average is, much less his exit velocity. But he does have a preternatural grasp of baseball concepts honed over time at every level of the game. It’s not that Murphy doesn’t listen to his front office, it’s that he’s able to internalize the information he’s given and then channel the takeaways toward his clubhouse and his coaches in an unmistakably Murphy-esque manner.
The approaches are different and they’ve both worked spectacularly.
Star power
What is stardom in baseball? Is it media attention and/or celebrity? Or is it being really good at baseball? Let’s focus on the latter.
In terms of my true talent ratings, there will be 11 top 100 players in the series. The Brewers feature six, including No. 5 Jacob Misiorowski and No. 6 Turang. The Rays have five, led by No. 11 Junior Caminero and No. 13 Rasmussen. The MLB median for top 100 players on a team is three.
These teams might not have baseball’s most famous rosters, Misiorowski aside, but both are laden with top-flight, baseball-playing stars. That ultimately is where I want to leave you. These teams are young, talented, deep, athletic and good at every facet of the game. They are the two best teams in baseball, each vying for the first title in franchise history.
All right, so maybe this is one example of how their similarities make the series more alluring than their differences do. Either way, this is the best possible World Series matchup the 2026 season could have given us. Relish it.
