Brewers and Rays success puts even more pressure on Reds ownership in 2027

The Milwaukee Brewers' sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS guaranteed an all-small-market World Series. The Brewers, who rank 19th in payroll at $146 million (just one spot ahead of the Cincinnati Reds), will face off against the 28th-ranked Tampa Bay Rays in the 2026 World Series.

The Reds' ownership is going to have a hard time standing on the grounds that the club plays in too small a market to compete. Tampa's payroll is $95 million, while the Cleveland Guardians — the Rays' ALCS opponent — has a staggeringly low $74 million financial commitment. At $128 million, Cincinnati's payroll dwarfs both of these AL finalists.

While the ongoing labor dispute is centered around the question of a salary cap, the 2026 postseason has proven that money is only a secondary factor and that being a well-run ball club is the true differentiating element when it comes to contending.

The Chicago White Sox beat the Houston Astros, despite Houston spending roughly $137 million more on talent than Chicago. The Rays took down the New York Yankees, who were one of only three teams to exceed the $300 million threshold. The Philadelphia Phillies, Atlanta Braves, San Diego Padres, and Chicago Cubs all bit the dust early, too, despite all three of them ranking within the top 10 in payroll.

The Reds no longer have an excuse not to emulate small-market darlings like the Brewers and Rays

Back before Nick Krall and the Castellini family made nice with each other, the embattled executive made it known that ownership often asked why Cincinnati wasn't performing like the Brewers, while allegedly vetoing moves that were similar to ones that the Brewers make all the time.

With these shoestring-budget franchises playing on the game's biggest stage, the blueprint to compete without a lot of financial might is now out in the open and on full display.

A great throughline here is one that indirectly connects the Brewers and Rays: Freddy Peralta. The Brewers traded Peralta ahead of his final year of team control when his value was at its peak. They got back a haul of high-end and nearly MLB-ready prospects.

Then, when the Mets couldn't solve Peralta's struggles and traded him to the Rays, Tampa immediately went to work tweaking his positioning on the rubber, eliminating his wind-up, and altering his pitch mix. Through their coaching, he returned to his previous ace-like form, and has been one of the postseason's most dominant hurlers.

These clubs specialize not only in scouting and player development at the minor league level, but also in the majors. Look at the acquisitions the Brewers have made; Jake Bauers and Andrew Vaughn are a couple of examples. Both players were barely holding onto roster spots in their previous stops, and now they are key contributors on teams that are making deep playoff runs.

Related to that, these clubs make moves aggressively when they believe it will help their team. For example, the Guardians identified a problem with their catching situation back in May and pulled the trigger on a trade for Patrick Bailey. Again, this was a player who was underwhelming in his last home, but leveled up with the coaching he received with the Guardians because they identified traits that they believed they could maximize.

Another key point is that these clubs are aggressive in locking up their prime young talent. Just this year, for example, Milwaukee locked up Luis Lara and Cooper Pratt before either made their big league debut. In the past, they were quick to extend Jackson Chourio, and the list goes on and on.

How often have we pled with the Reds to get extensions for key players like Sal Stewart done? How much money has it cost them to wait on these young foundational pieces? Even when they do get them done early, like in the case of Chase Burns, his performance made it so that the new contract would be more expensive than if it had gotten done just a few months prior.

“I was open to it,” Stewart said back in June regarding an extension. “The Reds don’t feel like right now is the right time, which is 100 percent fine. I still have to prove to myself and prove to the league what I can do. I leave all of that [contract issues] up to my agent. I have him for a reason. I trust him. I trust his decision-making, as well.”

Now that he's turned into an NL Rookie of the Year frontrunner after turning in a historic campaign that included him crossing the 30 home run and 100 RBI thresholds, that new contract is going to be so much more expensive than it would have been just a few short months ago.

We've also seen issues with Cincinnati's coaching, and times where the player acquisition side doesn't match up with the philosophy of the coaching staff. We've seen the Reds make the wrong bets on change-of-scenery trades (Ke'Bryan Hayes, anyone?), and seen the franchise allow past mistakes to handcuff them and prevent them from pursuing new opportunities.

It's easy to list the myriad issues and lay the blame solely at the feet of Krall, Terry Francona, and the staff, and ultimately that group is not blameless. But the buck stops with ownership. The Castellinis can't sit there and say that they want to become the Brewers and then veto Brewers-like trades.

They can't allow Krall to run the organization in a way in which resources aren't being optimized. And they can't stand by and not invest in the type of scouting infrastructure that results in finding diamonds in the rough at all levels.

At the end of the day, the Castellinis call the shots. They don't need to have the baseball vision, but they need to empower the people with that skill set to execute a winning plan, or find others who can. This year's playoffs have shown that it's not just random chance that can have a small-market team making a run, and that should turn the heat up on this ownership group. The size of the market and the economics of the game are no longer valid excuses.

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