MIAMI, FL - MARCH 14: Teruaki Sato #7 of Team Japan takes the field during the pre-game ceremony prior to the 2026 World Baseball Classic Quarterfinals game presented by Capital One between Team Venezuela and Team Japan at loanDepot park on Saturday, March 14, 2026 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Daniel Shirey/WBCI/MLB Photos via Getty Images) | MLB Photos via Getty Images
The Athletic | Jim Bowden ($): Bowden gives us his picks for the top 40 free agents’ landing spots, and most interestingly he projects NPB’s Teruaki Sato as likely to sign with either the Yankees or Red Sox after his posting. Sato, 27, is coming off a .991 OPS with the Hanshin Tigers, launching 39 home runs and probably being a better option at third base than Ryan McMahon. The Yankees don’t have the best track record when it comes to signing Japanese stars lately, but a successful pursuit of Sato would be a big boost.
New York Post | Joel Sherman: We’re going to hear a lot of whinging about “competitive balance” as owners and the MLBPA battle out a contentious CBA negotiation this winter. Despite the fact that two of baseball’s smallest markets are facing each other in the World Series, we’ll still be told that baseball’s a game you pay to win, and therefore we need a salary cap. The other great counter to this argument is what’s perennially the toughest division in baseball to win, the AL East. In the last three seasons three different teams have taken the division, with the Rays atop this year, the Blue Jays winning the tiebreaker over the Yankees in 2025, and the Yankees winning outright the season before. If the meat grinder in the east can stay “balanced” without an existing cap, why can’t the rest of baseball?
New York Daily News | Gary Phillips: The Yankees are once again in the position of having a few too many first base/DH types on the roster, with Aaron Judge, Ben Rice, Luis García Jr., Cody Bellinger and Giancarlo Stanton all under contract for next year and all expected to get time at one or both of those positions. One way to unstick some of these knots is if García Jr. can play a competent second base. He was quite bad at the position in 2025, not playing an inning there this year, but he’s strong enough coming in and going to his left that perhaps pairing him with someone like George Lombard Jr. at shortstop could hide some of those other weaknesses.
William Contreras and Milwaukee team-mates Jackson Chourio and Antonio Senzatela also helped Venezuela win the World Baseball Classic in March [Getty Images]
The Milwaukee Brewers have won the World Series for the first time in the franchise's 57-year history.
They beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4-1 in game five in Florida on Wednesday to clinch a 4-1 win in the best-of-seven Fall Classic.
The Brewers, whose only previous appearance in the World Series came in 1982, are based in Major League Baseball's smallest market and this year had the 19th highest payroll of its 30 teams.
But for the second straight year, the Brewers finished the regular season with MLB's best record and they then proved their class with a dominant run in the play-offs.
They avenged last season's loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series by sweeping the two-time defending champions.
That secured a spot in the 123rd World Series, where the Brewers became MLB champions with 11 wins from 13 games in the postseason.
Milwaukee's William Contreras was named the World Series' most valuable player, with the 28-year-old becoming the eighth catcher to win the award and the third Venezuelan.
The Brewers won the first two games in Wisconsin and then the first in Florida, before the Rays, who were the American League's top seed, took it to game five.
Milwaukee went ahead at the top of the second inning as a single from Cooper Pratt sent Brice Turang home, before they added another run in the fifth off a David Hamilton hit.
The Brewers doubled their lead in their next at-bat through a double from Contreras and Pratt's sacrifice fly.
Milwaukee starting pitcher Jacob Misiorowski left the game in the sixth inning and the Rays finally got on the scoreboard in the ninth as Chandler Simpson sent Liam Hicks home off a double.
The Brewers entered MLB in 1969 as the Seattle Pilots, but the franchise moved to Milwaukee after only one season.
He gave up two hits and a walk. The Rays made contact all night. They just couldn't do anything with it.
The velocity betrayed Misiorowski’s emotions.
His first 12 pitches were all four-seam fastballs, from 100.9 to 103 mph. The swing-and-miss wasn't. He didn't strike out anyone until the 14th batter he faced, and his two strikeouts matched his career low.
He felt the moment.
"My heart was racing," Misiorowski said. "I was nervous as everyone on that field. ... It's really cool that they trust me enough to do that."
The Tropicana Field mound didn't make it easy. The grounds crew came out three times early to pack down the dirt. Then, with two outs in the sixth, a right calf cramp sent him to the dugout.
He shrugged that off, too.
"Just a cramp," he said. "Happy I left it all out on the field. Obviously, wish I could have got one more out in the inning. But whatever. It is what it is. We got the win."
The 24-year-old is in his second big-league season and has set a high bar. His 37.9% strikeout rate was the second-highest for a full season in MLB history, behind only Gerrit Cole 39.9% in 2019.
He went 16-5 with a major league-best 1.80 ERA, then spent October hearing he wasn't that guy anymore.
His catcher spent the month reminding him that even if he wasn’t the same guy as the regular season, he was the Brewers main guy – and he had to carry that.
“I’m someone that has been able to tell him things, how they are to his face and I think he needs that,” William Contreras said of guiding the young pitcher this October. “Jacob is still a kid. Jacob is still young and he’s learning in his career."
He may have starter October as a kid, but he finished with some veteran experience. He finished the postseason 2-0 with a 1.89 ERA. He opened this World Series by throwing the fastest pitch in its history, 10.5 mph, and finished that Game 1 start with 38 pitches at 100 mph or harder, the most in a World Series game since pitch tracking began in 2008.
If he wins the National League Cy Young Award, he'll join Sandy Koufax, Steve Carlton, Bret Saberhagen and Orel Hershiser as eventual Cy Young winners who won a World Series clincher.
Wednesday night in a beer and champagne-soaked, smokey and crowded clubhouse, Misiorowski was not thinking about the Cy Young Award. He was thinking back to seven months ago when the Brewers gathered in Arizona.
He said the Brewers saw this coming back then in spring training. There was never a doubt for them.
"Yeah, of course," he said. "I think everyone did."
"It's insane that it happened so quick. But it's really fun to be a part of."
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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 7: Rafael Devers #16 of the San Francisco Giants prepares for the game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Oracle Park on September 7, 2026 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Andy Kuno/San Francisco Giants/Getty Images) | Getty Images
On Monday, I suggested that the team’s pitching woes were the fifth-most important story of this historically bad 2026 season and yesterday I handed some flowers to Bryce Eldridge and the Giants’ player development pipeline as a meaningful positive story, but today is all about being petty. Yes, I think the third-most important story of this 2026 season was Rafael Devers making all the losers and the haters eat crow, suck it long and suck it hard, and burnish in people’s mind that he is That Dude.
He nearly tied his career high in homers (38) with 37 through 148 games and 633 plate appearances. His 136 wRC+ was exactly what he put up last season between Boston and San Francisco. He has been 36% better than the league average for 3 years now, and his 3.5 fWAR also matches basically what he’s always been: a 3.5-4-WAR player. And that’s basically as a DH and not dreadful first baseman. Despite needing season-ending surgery, he was still the 14th-best hitter in baseball, in the same bunch as Bryce Harper and Riley Greene. He was on a 40-homer pace and finished 9th in MLB with those 37. He was the first Giant in 5 years to have 90+ RBI (he ended the year with 98).
So, I can’t myself among those losers he mashed in the face of. What was I thinking when I wrote this?
[…] Devers is definitely experiencing a physical decline of some sort (he’s not hitting the ball as hard), but the decline from a good player to a practically useless one appears to be entirely self-engineered. It’s unlikely that a 29-year old goes out like this based on aging alone. But, as Buster Posey is fond of saying, baseball is hard.
The situation isn’t hopeless, especially since Devers wound up having a good year after a rough time following the trade last year. It’s just that nothing the Giants have done this year and most of the last decade should give anyone hope for a better future.
Well, okay. There it is. Misery is contagious. Because the Giants had been such a bummer, I simply mapped those vibes onto Devers’ season to that point and on the occasion of the 1-year anniversary of his acquisition: .235/.293/.413, 7.5 BB%, 30.3 K%, 9 HR, 33 RBI (94 wRC+).
And, nope, he was hurt! Not a physical decline! He also had a fantastic post-trade 2025 with the Giants and wound up playing in 163 games. I, and many others across the sport, let a bad start to the year confirm some statistical suspicions. Everyone’s been trying to predict his downfall and all because the Red Sox signed him to a long-term deal and then came to regret it when they viewed his AAV as being too cumbersome to manage under their self-imposed salary cap upon the realization that they needed more money to cover holes they didn’t realize were there.
But I was just a loser. I was never a hater. Just disappointed that this was another Giants move that didn’t seem to be working out in a season that already promised to be extremely painful. These were the haters:
One Year Later, the Rafael Devers Blockbuster Doesn’t Look So Great
The Giants’ Long-Term Contracts Are Becoming A Big Problem
Rafael Devers has already become the worst contract in baseball
Nearly one year after his controversial trade, Rafael Devers is now the 3rd worst player in MLB
Giant problems: How the 2026 season has gone off the rails for Rafael Devers, Buster Posey and San Francisco
The Red Sox made the right move by trading the overrated manchild that is Rafael Devers — It has only been one year, but Rafael Devers is already wearing out his welcome in San Francisco
Inside the Giants’ tailspin: Everything that’s gone wrong since the Rafael Devers trade
Sure, less than a week after the 1-year anniversary there was a major public dispute between he and Tony Vitello which necessitated an apology, but that was a part of the larger story of Tony’s Terrible Start. I never accepted the Boston message that he was a clubhouse cancer, mainly because it was coming from Boston.
Grant Brisbee did a deep dive that offered up a pretty simple explanation:
Devers missed most of spring training, and when he returned, he faced pitchers who threw much harder than when he was a rookie. They pumped fastballs by him at the letters, which has always been the way to pitch him, but he was so concerned with them that he was whiffing on pitches down the middle. Devers wasn’t walking, so pitchers could expand the zone and get him to chase. He couldn’t get in a rhythm.
[…]
I don’t think it’s an accident that the nadir of Devers’ season in terms of OPS was April 30 (.537). It fits with the image of a player taking a deep breath and starting over. April couldn’t hurt him anymore. He immediately started an eight-game hitting streak, and while nothing can really hint at the kind of tear Devers has been on lately, he’s been the same hitter as always, which is pretty good indeed.
The tear he’s referencing is .275/.367/.588 (.955) from May 1st through September 7th. He was the third-best hitter in baseball (159 wRC+), trailing only Pete Crow-Armstrong (177) and Yordan Alvarez (166). When the smoke settled on the season, his average exit velocity of 93 mph was in the top 4% of MLB and his 51.6% Hard Hit rate was top 6%.
Folks, this elite hitter continued to be an elite hitter.
So, why is this such a big story deserving of the #3 spot of this top 5? It changes the narrative for many aspects of the Giants.
They can pull off a big trade — they might have even won it
Power hitters can hit for power at Oracle Park (19 HR, .533 slug at Oracle, 18 HR, .517 slug away)
The Giants’ lineup really was just one big bopper away from being well above average — during this Devers hot streak, the Giants as a team were 10th in MLB (103 wRC+)
Buster Posey is not completely ignorant about running a baseball operation
It’s very important to create some organizational certainty. Knowing that the middle of the order is basically set for the next couple of years is a very good thing. It makes it easier to build a lineup and it takes the pressure off, say, Bryce Eldridge to be the 40-home run guy. Not many lineups have 35-40% better than the league average hitters in them.
“Why don’t we just get good players” is a simple enough idea, but the reason why not every team does it is for the same reason why a lot of firms shy away from the seemingly obvious move: consequences. What if the obvious move doesn’t work out? If it were so obvious a move, why hadn’t somebody done it before? Doesn’t that indicate a huge downside? Well, sure. Devers’ contract could be a huge weight around the team’s next in a few years, but what really compounds it are the Adames and Chapman deals. I think Buster Posey made the move ignoring that for the enormous upside: what if we get one of the best hitters in baseball into our lineup?
The main reason why there was so much blowback from non-Giants fans is because most internet people are trying to get jobs in front offices and the best way to post into that position is to emphasize surplus value. The rest of the noise was Boston media-generated. At the end of the day, if the Giants think 3-4 years of Devers bringing 40+ home run power into Oracle Park is worth the obvious downside of the final 4 years then I don’t really see what the problem is; the Giants might need a flawed profile like him more than the Boston Red Sox, but they probably could’ve used a hitter like him in 2026, when their offense was below league average (99 wRC+).
It’s easy to forget that these professional athletes have a bare minimum of professionalism that gets them into nine-figure deals and they don’t necessarily need revenge as a motivator to rebalance themselves after a stumble — but my goodness, it’s nice to think that Rafael Devers’ season got better exponentially as he silenced his critics one after another with every clout and multi-hit game. The Giants might’ve had a bad season that put them on a course for oblivion, but not Rafael Devers. He had a great one, and if the Giants have nothing else, at least they have him.
Here's a look at the scenes from Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, as the Brewers celebrated that championship after defeating the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 5:
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Bob Uecker’s presence has remained a big part of the Brewers’ culture since he died last year, and in the franchise’s biggest moment on Wednesday night, Christian Yelich made sure the beloved broadcaster wasn’t forgotten.
“He’s smiling, man,” Yelich said to Ken Rosenthal on the Fox broadcast. “I really wish he could have been here to see this. It would have meant everything to him, but we said a bunch, he’s been with us a lot. We keep him close to our hearts, and this one’s still for Bob and still for Ueck. Ueck, I love you, man, and we did it.”
Christian Yelich (right) celebrates after the Brewers’ 4-1 World Series-clinching win over the Rays in Game 5 on Oct. 28, 2026 in St. Petersburg, Fla. Getty Images
Uecker was the voice of the Brewers for 54 years and became a beloved figure among Brewers supporters and baseball fans as a whole.
Uecker died on Jan. 16, 2025, at the age of 90 after a private battle with cancer.
Ahead of the first pitch on Wednesday, fans left beer cans at the Uecker statue, TMJ 4 reported.
Christian Yelich holds the World Series trophy after the Brewers Game 5 win over the Rays. AP
Following the final out, Hall of Famer CC Sabathia paid homage to Uecker in a post on X.
“Bob Uecker smiling down,” wrote Sabathia, who spent the 2008 season in Milwaukee.
During the Game 4 broadcast on Tuesday, Fox play-by-play man Joe Davis paid tribute to the famed Brewers announcer with his home run call on Cooper Pratt’s solo blast in the 12th inning.
Bob Uecker and Christian Yelich celebrate after the Brewers won the Central Division title after beating the Mets on Sept. 26, 2021 at American Family Field in Milwaukee, Wisc. Getty Images
“Hitting a high drive! Deep left field! Get up, get up, gone!” Davis said, emulating Uecker’s signature home run call of “Get up, get up, get outta here, gone!”
“Ueck is obviously a guy that you grew up listening to and was underrated because he was such a comic genius that his ability to master the craft and be an amazing play-by-play announcer didn’t get enough love,” Davis told MLB.com.
“I say that to say I was always studying him and listening to him, and just by osmosis, that stuff is in there.”
The Brewers are officially World Series champions, and after their magical postseason run, our friends at Breaking T have created a ton of shirts to help you celebrate! You can even get free shipping on orders over $100! Check out the shirts below, and be sure to stock up on your gear today!
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This Milwaukee Brewers team has been defined all season, and especially all postseason, by its resilience. On Tuesday, the Brewers had a chance to sweep the Rays and win their first-ever championship. It didn’t go to plan. Doubts crept in amongst fans. Horrible “what-ifs.”
Luckily for us, we don’t play the games. As they have all postseason, the Brewers immediately bounced back from their Game 4 setback. With their ace on the hill, the Brewers’ pitching staff utterly shut down the Rays’ offense, even if Jacob Misiorowski was doing it differently than he did for most of the season. A rookie on a hot streak, a night after just missing out on creating the most legendary moment in the history of the franchise, picked up a couple more hits and a couple more RBIs and set a major league record in the process. And the on-field leader, Wild Bill, picked up a big hit and a fancy new piece of hardware.
Yes. The Brewers did it. They won the World Series.
In one of the big storylines of the game, Tampa Bay went with their ace, Drew Rasmussen, on just three days rest. He looked good in the first inning, as he struck out Jackson Chourio and Jake Bauers before he got Christian Yelich to ground out. In the bottom of the inning, Misiorowski — pitching to contact tonight, as we have seen through this postseason — got the first two Rays on flyouts before Junior Caminero, after the first of several pauses to work on the mound tonight, extended the inning with a single. Liam Hicks, though, hit a soft little pop fly to Brice Turang at second base, and both pitchers had scoreless first innings.
In the second, Turang scorched a line drive past shortstop Taylor Walls and into the gap for a one-out double. Sal Frelick followed with his second hit-by-pitch of the World Series, which brought up the world’s hottest hitter, Cooper Pratt. Pratt, who got hits in his last four plate appearances on Tuesday, went after the first pitch he saw on Wednesday and lined a single into center, scoring Turang from second. The Rays lucked into the second out when Pratt was thrown out on the bases — pretty excusable, all things considered, as he was aggressively trying to take second on a throw to third, but Caminero made a smart play to get him caught in a rundown. But with that out, the Brewers had Frelick at third with two outs instead of runners on the corners and one out, and Garrett Mitchell struck out to end the inning. The Brewers, though, had an early lead for their ace.
Misiorowski picked up a 1-2-3 inning in the bottom of the second with three more balls in the air. In the bottom of the inning, Rasmussen matched that when David Hamilton failed to reach first on a bunt-for-hit attempt, Chourio struck out, and Bauers popped out. In the bottom of the third, after a defensive gem from Jake Bauers robbed Ryan Vilade of a hit, Misiorowski walked Yandy Díaz with two outs, though Díaz tweaked his hamstring on a swing and miss during the at-bat and was clearly uncomfortable; he was checked on by the trainer before the end of the at-bat and again at first a couple of pitches later. Díaz was able to stay in the game, and didn’t have to test his leg when Jonathan Aranda flew out to right.
The Brewers again went down in order against Rasmussen in the fourth, but with a near-miss: Turang, with two outs, blasted a ball 412 feet and 105 mph but hit it to straightaway center, where it was caught on the warning track. Caminero led off the bottom of the inning with a warning-track shot of his own, this one down the line to right, but Frelick made the catch. The Rays then put some pressure on Misiorowski for the first time in the game: Hicks was hit by a pitch, and after a Jonny DeLuca strikeout, Chandler Simpson singled to right and advanced to second when Frelick bobbled the ball. That put runners on second and third with two outs, but Misiorowski got Ben Williamson to ground out to third — a play on which Bauers made his second really good defensive play of the night by bailing out Hamilton on a high throw.
Rasmussen, whose workload tonight was always going to be limited given that he was pitching three days after throwing 89 pitches on Saturday, was done after four — he left in position for a loss, but pitched pretty well all things considered. Kevin Kelly was the first man out of the bullpen, and the Brewer offense grew into the game as soon as Rasmussen was out. With one out in the top of the fifth, Pratt picked up another single, his sixth straight hit going back to yesterday’s game, setting a record for a rookie in the World Series. Mitchell followed that by slicing another single into left, putting runners on the corners with one out. That brought up Hamilton, and with the Rays defense drawn in, he knocked a single past Williamson and into right field for a run-scoring single.
Kelly managed to strike out Chourio, and he was then replaced by Garrett Cleavinger, who struck out Bauers to strand Mitchell and Hamilton, but the Brewers’ lead was now 2-0. Misiorowski had an easy bottom of the fifth, and then the Brewers struck again in the top of the sixth. Yelich got things started by taking a Cleavinger sinker to the side, and the Rays chose to leave Cleavinger in the precarious position of facing Contreras with a platoon disadvantage. They should not have let him do that. Contreras hit one deep into the left-field corner that bounced in front of the wall; Yelich scored from first, and Contreras had a double.
Cleavinger then had a matchup advantage against Turang, but Turang won that battle too and singled on a fly ball down the left-field line. Contreras had to hold at third, as it wasn’t immediately clear that Simpson wouldn’t make the catch. Cleavinger was pulled in favor of Tyler Wells, who was able to strike out Frelick for the first out, though Turang stole second base during the at-bat. Pratt, the human flamethrower, was up next, and while he didn’t make it seven straight at-bats with a hit, he did hit a sacrifice fly into foul territory down the right-field line, on which Contreras scored from third. After a Mitchell walk, the Rays moved to Steven Matz, who got Hamilton to fly out to end the inning. But the Brewers now had a cautiously comfortable four-run lead.
Misiorowski was also cruising, as he approached 80 pitches in the bottom of the sixth; aside from the one stressful inning in the fourth, he’d been in control all night despite lacking strikeout stuff. That continued for two outs in the sixth as Aranda grounded out and, for the second time in the game, Caminero flew out to Frelick on the warning track. During Hicks’ at-bat, though, an old foe conquered Misiorowski: leg cramps. After the first pitch to Hicks, Misiorowski pulled up, and after a conversation on the mound, he was removed in favor of JoJo Romero, who finished off Hicks for the third out.
It wasn’t how Misiorowski would’ve liked his night to end, and he surely had eyes on the seventh inning, but he was able to be extremely effective tonight despite just two strikeoutsfor the guy who led the majors in Ks and K/9 this season. He allowed just two hits and walked only one batter, and completed 5 2/3 huge scoreless innings for a team whose bullpen was in somewhat rough shape after Tuesday night’s 12-inning game.
Chourio led off the seventh with a sharp single to center off of Matz, but Bauers hit into a tough-luck double play when a 99-mph ground ball down the line was snagged by Aranda, who stepped on first and then threw to second, where Chourio was tagged out. Yelich flew out to center for the third out.
Romero continued in the bottom of the seventh and struck out DeLuca looking. He should’ve retired Simpson, too, but bad throws continued to plague the Brewers this postseason: Simpson hit a dribbler in front of the plate, but Contreras, when throwing to first, airmailed it. Simpson reached second, and with that, Romero was removed in favor of Abner Uribe. On Uribe’s first pitch, pinch-hitter Richie Palacios hit a harmless ground ball to first. Simpson moved to third, but there were two outs. Another pinch-hitter, Victor Mesa Jr., came to the plate in place of Vilade. Uribe, being careful with Mesa Jr., fell behind 3-0. He worked it back full, and Mesa hit three two-strike foul balls, but on the ninth pitch of the at-bat, he grounded out. The error did not come back to bite them.
Rays closer Bryan Baker was in for the top of the eighth, a night after throwing two innings. Contreras scalded the second pitch of the inning but had nothing to show for it except a 108.5-mph groundout. Baker retired Turang and Frelick with less trouble, and the lead remained 4-0 going to the bottom of the eighth.
The Brewer pitcher in that frame was Trevor Megill. The leadoff hitter Walls made surprisingly good contact on a 2-1 fastball right down the middle and sliced it down the left field line, but Chourio made a great play on which he had to go down to a slide. A pitch later, Díaz hit another ball to the warning track in right — he clearly thought he got a little more of it than he did — and Frelick had it for the second out. After Aranda struck out on a check swing, the inning was over, and the Brewers were three outs away.
Ian Seymour pitched the top of the ninth for the Rays, and for the first time in a long time, Pratt made a routine out. Seymour struck out Mitchell and Hamilton, and the Brewers would have a four-run lead to work with in the bottom of the ninth.
Megill, back out for his second inning of work, got off to a great start by striking out Caminero looking. It looked like he’d have an easy second out, too, when Hicks hit a weak ground ball toward Bauers at first. But the ball hit the base and caromed way off down the right-field line. Hicks ended up at second. Megill got another strikeout against DeLuca, which brought Simpson to the plate. As he has all series, Simpson fought for the Rays and lined a double into right that put the Rays on the board. But the Rays’ rally didn’t go any further: Palacios hit a weak grounder to Turang at second, he calmly threw over to Bauers at first, and the Brewers won the World Series.
This was as comfortable a win as a win like this one is going to feel. The Brewers got out to an early lead and built on it in the middle innings, and their pitching staff — first Misiorowski, followed by Romero, Uribe, and Megill — had the Rays offense on lockdown. Before the fluke Hicks double in the ninth, the Rays had no runs on just two hits, and Milwaukee pitchers had walked only one batter.
On the offensive side, Pratt’s World Series heater extended long enough to get a couple more hits and knock in a couple more runs. Turang hit a big double and scored a big run. Contreras had a big RBI double and also scored a run. In the end, it was Contreras who hoisted the Willie Mays World Series MVP trophy, a fitting end for the guy who not only finished the series with eight hits in 23 at-bats (.381) and four RBIs but led a dominant pitching staff through five games while limiting Tampa Bay’s dangerous running game and doing a shockingly great job with ABS challenges. For the entire postseason, Contreras hit .373/.448/.588 in 13 games with three homers and nine RBIs.
The award belonged to Contreras, but it could easily have gone to Chourio, Pratt, or even Aaron Ashby. Chourio finished the series with 11 hits in 24 at-bats (.458), two doubles, and two RBIs. Pratt, by going 6-for-8 over the last two games, finished 8-for-19 (.421) with a homer, two doubles, and seven RBIs. Ashby didn’t pitch in the clincher, but he capped his historic postseason by allowing just one hit with nine strikeouts in 5 2/3 scoreless innings across three World Series appearances, including a save in Game 2.
For Brewers fans, this was a magical ending to a beautiful season. For those fans who’ve been around since the beginning in 1970, for those who were around to see the last World Series winner in Milwaukee in 1957. For those, like me, who grew up with the dreadful teams of the late 1990s and the early 2000s and didn’t even consider winning the World Series a possibility. For those younger fans who have only known success, but who hadn’t gotten to the top of the mountain. For all Brewers fans! We won the World Series!
Plenty more to come. I don’t think you need me to tell you to soak this one in.
ST PETERSBURG, FLORIDA - OCTOBER 28: William Contreras #24 of the Milwaukee Brewers celebrates while being presented the Willie Mays World Series Most Valuable Player award after defeating the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2026 World Series at Tropicana Field on October 28, 2026 in St Petersburg, Florida. (Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images) | Getty Images
The Milwaukee Brewers closed out the Tampa Bay Rays Wednesday night to capture their first World Series championship in franchise history. Catcher William Contreras was named World Series MVP thanks to an all around effort at the plate and behind it.
Contreras hit .381/.435/.429 in the series and drove in four runs. His finest work came behind the plate where he successfully led a dominant pitching performance by the Milwaukee’s pitching staff. This was the first World Series to feature the Automatic Ball-Strike system and Contreras took full advantage. He challenged 12 calls behind the plate and had nine overturned successfully. Zoom out to the entire postseason and Contreras hit .373 with three home runs and was successful on 21 of 32 ABS challenges. Contreras was the 27th player in Major League history to have multiple hits in his first three World Series games. He is the first catcher to earn series MVP honors since Salvador Perez in 2015 for the Kansas City Royals.
The Brewers had several worthy candidates in the MVP discussion. Jackson Chourio was 11-for-24 in the series with three stolen bases and four runs scored. His 11 hits are tied for the second-most all-time in the first five games of a World Series. Rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt had hits in six consecutive at-bats which was one hit shy of the record. Pratt had eight hits in the series and drove in seven runs. Aaron Ashby was a workhorse out of the bullpen for Milwaukee for the entire postseason. He made three scoreless appearances in the World Series where he struck out nine in 5 2/3 innings. Ashby didn’t allow a run in 18 postseason innings.
Well the 2026 MLB season came to a close, as the Brewers were crowned champions in dominant fashion over the Rays, complicating the competitive balance narrative as we enter the most consequential CBA negotiation in decades for the sport. The end of the World Series also brings with it the advent of an offseason, as we expect an early flurry of moves ahead of an all-but-certain lockout with an extremely uncertain end-date and outcome. The Braves have some pressure to make some real moves this offseason, so their approach before the lockout will be interesting to track. Keep it right here at Battery Power for coverage of all the news.
Christian Yelich and the Milwaukee Brewers were shellshocked in October 2024, when a Pete Alonso home run eliminated them in stunning fashion from the wild-card round. Yet Yelich’s postgame sadness seemed deeper and far more profound.
Yelich’s tears that night proved prescient, as Uecker passed away from cancer in January 2025. Uecker's dream of seeing the Milwaukee Brewers crowned as World Series champions wouldn't be realized.
Yet Yelich and the Brewers kept Uecker close at hand the next two seasons, evoking his name whenever something otherworldly happened on the field, pointing toward his statue in the nether reaches of American Family Field and exhibiting the closeness that can only come when a man known as Mr. Baseball spends more than half a century with a franchise.
"He’s smiling, man, he’s smiling. I really wish he could’ve been here to see this," an emotional Yelich said in a postgame interview on Fox Sports. "That would have meant everything. He’s been with us a lot.
Manager Pat Murphy, whose postgame messages to the team from Uecker became a postseason staple, echoed the sentiments from the victory podium.
"I know the man Ueck upstairs is looking down," Murphy said. "I think about the city of Milwaukee, the state of Wisconsin. They pushed us through."
Uecker would have the entire Brewers clubhouse in stitches with his histrionics. Yet he developed a close relationship with Yelich, who joined the Brewers before the 2018 season and connected with Uecker.
"In a lot of ways, we still feel like he’s with us. He was just a great friend," Yelich said on the eve of the World Series. "It was awesome getting to hear his life stories and baseball stories. He lived such a crazy, awesome life. Talk about getting the most out of a lifetime and getting to experience cool things.
"One of my favorite things was just sitting down with him at a table in the kitchen. Some of the best players in the game were his friends, (like) Hank Aaron. We’d go to dinner once a spring training. And you knew you had to block out four, five hours for the dinner because of how many awesome stories there were gonna be.
"It was a joy being around him."
Yelich certainly honored Uecker in this World Series, driving in the game's first runs in Games 1 and 3. Perhaps Yelich is not a Brewers icon on the level of Robin Yount and Paul Molitor, Hall of Famers who starred for the 1982 club that got so close, losing Game 7 of the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals.
But he is a two-time batting champ, the 2018 MVP and has starred during this run of eight playoff berths in nine seasons. And Yelich, finally, fulfilled Uecker's vision.
"This one’s still for Bob," Yelich said postgame. "This one’s for Ueck.
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It could be the longest offseason in Major League Baseball history. And as fans stare at the crop of available free agents, the list simply won’t get any better.
So why not feast your eyes on the wares now? The World Series is over and the lockout has yet to begin, leaving almost exactly one month for clubs to augment their 2027 (or ’28) rosters before commissioner Rob Manfred pulls the plug on the offseason Dec. 1.
With that, a brief look at the top 10 free agents available as the market opens post-World Series:
1. Tarik Skubal, LHP
Not the difference-maker the Dodgers needed, but by far the best talent available. Should have every major-market team interested, and perhaps a few surprises bidding for the two-time AL Cy Young Award winner.
2. Michael King, RHP
Yeah, bit of a drop-off from No. 1 to No. 2. Yet King should command a nice package given the neverending dearth of starting pitching. Injuries have slowed the 31-year-old’s progression, but he made 32 starts and pitched 185 innings with a 1.18 WHIP and 3.21 ERA. That may put him close to the nine-figure club.
Talk about a roller-coaster. He lost his touch in Queens and was revived by the peerless Tampa Bay pitching department after a trade from the Mets. Overall, the worst of his seven full seasons as a starter but still a guy good for 172 innings and a 3.65 ERA the past four seasons.
4. Randy Arozarena, OF
What a platform year for the boots-wearing power-speed left fielder. Arozarena turns 32 in February but is coming off a 26-homer, 26-steal season with Seattle, scoring an AL-high 113 runs and posting 5.7 WAR, eighth among AL position players.
5. Brandon Lowe, 2B
Another former Tampa Bay Ray with an excellent final year before reaching the market. Lowe ripped 35 homers and posted an .824 OPS and notched 5.4 WAR for the Pirates.
6. Seiya Suzuki, OF
Possibly a future DH, Suzuki is still a nice source of power as he’s hit between 21 and 32 home runs the past four seasons, with an .833 OPS over that span.
7. Clay Holmes, RHP
Proved his chops as a starter in two seasons with the Mets, posting a 3.26 ERA over 42 appearances but getting sidelined after a comebacker broke a bone in his leg. Got up to 165 innings in 2025 and should get paid accordingly.
8. Sonny Gray, RHP
Will likely command a shorter term with a high average annual value, but Gray proved in 2026 that he can be an ace. Evolved into the Red Sox’s best starter as he led the majors with 18 wins and posted a 2.72 ERA.
9. Trevor Rogers, LHP
Put it all together over his final 18 starts in Baltimore, during which he posted a 2.87 ERA and 2.80 FIP; Rogers finished with a career-high 169 innings pitched.
10. Luis Arráez, INF
Still a hits machine, he’s the perfect element to add to a slug-heavy offense. Phillies lineup went south when he hurt an ankle just before the playoffs.
The second came Wednesday night and ended with the Milwaukee Brewers catcher holding the Willie Mays World Series MVP trophy.
Contreras hit .381 (8-for-21) with four RBIs as Milwaukee beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4-1 in Game 5 for the first title in franchise history. Seven months after he won the World Baseball Classic with Venezuela, he became the first World Series MVP the Brewers have ever had.
"I think I was going to find one way or another to bring that trophy home with me for sure," he said.
His RBI double in the sixth Wednesday scored Christian Yelich and made it 3-0.
With his bat, he set a franchise record with 19 postseason hits. Most of his damage, though, came from behind the plate. He threw out four runners trying to steal in the first four games, the first catcher to do that since Lance Parrish in 1984.
He also turned the new automated ball-strike system into a weapon.
This was the first season of MLB's automated ball-strike challenge system, and Contreras used it more than anyone. He challenged 185 calls in the regular season and won 105, both major league highs. He won about two-thirds of his challenges this postseason, went 4-for-4 in Game 3 and won another one Wednesday.
"It's not magic," he said. "I think it's the experience of playing every day throughout the season."
His job got bigger last winter, when the Brewers traded Freddy Peralta and left Contreras with a young pitching staff. Peralta started Game 3 of this series for the Rays.
"I took that upon myself and I knew the responsibility I was going to have that year," Contreras said.
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The celebration may have been delayed by a day after a furious 12th-inning comeback by the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 4, but with a 4-1 victory on Wednesday night, the Milwaukee Brewers secured the franchise's first-ever World Series title.
In many ways, the Brewers hoisting the World Series trophy is an underdog story. They are in Major League Baseball’s smallest Designated Market Area (DMA), which is defined by Nielsen as "non-overlapping geographic regions that group counties based on television viewing areas." They had the 19th-highest payroll in baseball this season and hadn't been to a World Series in 44 years.
On the other hand, they had the best record in baseball this season by three games. Four players currently on the team have been MLB All-Stars, including this year’s likely NL Cy Young winner Jacob Misiorowski. They have a well-respected organization and also have the top prospect in baseball, Jesus Made.
Still, despite their success this season, a World Series title was not a likely outcome for the Brewers. A team in the bottom half of DMA has not won a World Series since the 2015 Kansas City Royals, let alone a team that is literally last. On top of that, the 2017 Houston Astros were the last World Series champions to be in the bottom half of baseball in payroll.
So, in many ways, the Brewers winning the World Series in 2026 was both surprising and expected.
It was expected because winning games is what they’ve done all season, and the way they won Game 5 was reminiscent of how they won so many games this season.
In each of their final 18 games of 2026 (reg & post), the @Brewers:
allowed fewer than 5 runs allowed fewer than 10 hits struck out 5+ batters
That's the longest streak by any team at any point in a season in MLB history. pic.twitter.com/Km5xJys71t
It started with a dominant performance from Misiorowski. He may have only struck out two batters over his 5.2 shutout innings, but the Rays never really threatened. The lanky right-hander allowed just two hits and walked one batter while throwing 58 of his 86 pitches for strikes. He likely would have gone at least another inning, but a calf cramp forced his removal in the sixth inning. Trainers came out to the mound with fluids, and he threw a few warm-up pitches, but he simply couldn’t keep going.
Not to worry, the Brewers have had pitching depth in spades all season.
They came into the playoffs with the 2nd-best ERA in the league. This staff had the best strikeout rate in baseball, the 4th-best WHIP in baseball, and the 2nd-best batting average allowed. After Misiorowski left the game, JoJo Romero and Abner Uribe combined to throw 1.1 scoreless innings before turning the ball over to the closer, Trevor Megill, to close it out for two innings.
The Rays didn’t go down without a fight, though. Liam Hicks hit a one-out double that hit the first base bag and skirted off towards the bullpen. Two batters later, Chandler Simpson doubled down the line to score Hicks. It was Simpson’s fifth hit in the last two games as he fought to keep Tampa Bay alive. Simpson went 2-for-4 on the day and hit .311 in 48 plate appearances this postseason.
Offensively, the Brewers were not led by the familiar faces in this one. Yes, William Contreras clubbed an RBI double in the sixth inning, but the top four hitters in the Brewers’ lineup went 2-for-15 in Game 5. Jackson Chourio was 1-for-4 with three strikeouts, and Christian Yelich was hitless in four plate appearances, going 0-for-3 with a hit by pitch.
That was a credit to Rays starting pitcher Drew Rasmussen, who was pitching on just three days' rest after starting Game 2 of this series. Rasmussen struck out four in four innings while allowing one run on two hits. He threw 36 of his 48 pitches for strikes but was on a strict pitch count given the short rest and unable to go deeper into the game. Unfortunately for the Rays, the next two pitchers, Kevin Kelly and Garrett Cleavinger, allowed three runs in the next inning after Ramussen left the game.
Despite the struggles of the top of Milwaukee’s lineup, the rest of the Brewers' hitters stepped up, particularly rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt. The 22-year-old rookie hit a massive extra-inning home run in Game 4 and continued to stay hot in Game 5. His first at-bat was a line drive single to center field to score Brice Turang for the game’s first run. His second at-bat was a single to left field in the fifth inning, and he would later be knocked in by a single from nine-hole hitter David Hamilton.
That single allowed Pratt to set a World Series record for a rookie with hits in six consecutive at-bats. He finished 2-for-3 with 2 RBI in the game and hit .354 in 51 postseason plate appearances. Hamilton, who finished 1-for-4 with an RBI on the day, hit .333 in 29 at-bats in the playoffs. The Brewers’ lineup simply proved too deep.
“This is one of the greatest moments of my life,” smiled Pratt after the game. “It doesn’t even feel real. This is surreal…The pressure is out of this world. It’s some of the hardest but most fun baseball I’ve ever been a part of. I messed up a lot of times this postseason, but the guys picked me up. We’re here, and we’re world champions.”
It wasn’t Pratt or another one of Milwaukee's unheralded players who was awarded the World Series MVP trophy, though. That honor fell to William Contreras, who hit .373 in 13 postseason games and was 8-for-21 (.381) with four RBI in the World Series. Contreras is one of only two catchers to win a World Series MVP since 2000, joining Salvador Perez, who won it back in 2025. Contreras, Chourio, Antonio Senztela, and Angel Zerpa also now become four of the six players to even win a World Baseball Classic and a World Series in the same season after capturing the WBC title with Venezuela at the start of this season.
Contreras tried to pull reliever Aaron Ashby up to share the MVP trophy with him after Ashby completed a scoreless postseason. However, the left-handed reliever refused to accept, instead speaking about just how much Contreras means to the team.
"He wants to complete every single day. He wants to die for every single person on this team...He's our bulldog, and we love this dude."
So the 2026 season comes to a close with the Brewers winning their first-ever title. A moment 57 years in the making. A crowning achievement for the best team in baseball in the smallest market in baseball. It could be, and should be, a galvanizing moment for the organization and also the sport. The Brewers could easily be back in this position next season, and baseball fans everywhere are hoping there’s at least a chance for that to be true.
Counsell departed the Milwaukee Brewers for a $40 million contract down I-94 with the more celebrated Chicago Cubs. The Brewers, once again feeling less than their bigger-market rivals down I-94, looked around and decided to promote Murphy, Counsell’s college coach whose rough edges ran counter to the new-age managers he’d call his peers.
Stearns jumped ship on the Brewers, even taking time off for his contract to expire before joining the New York Mets, who envisioned Stearns’ smarts combined with Steve Cohen’s hedge fund money to create Dodgers West. Arnold, Stearns’ top lieutenant, was summoned to replace him.
Matt Arnold is now a World Series champion.
Cooper Pratt is no Willy Adames.
Adames hit 107 homers and was a top 10 MVP finisher for the Brewers, a superstar shortstop who jumped at a $182 million free agent contract with the San Francisco Giants in 2025. Pratt was plucked out of a Mississippi high school two years earlier, agreed to sign a contract that could keep him in Milwaukee through 2034 and assumed the shortstop position in Milwaukee only in June.
Cooper Pratt is now a World Series champion.
Aaron Ashby is no Josh Hader.
Hader pitched his way to four All-Star Games as a Brewer, the franchise’s most dominant relief pitcher since Rollie Fingers was winning a Cy Young Award in 1981. But Hader would eventually command $95 million in free agency and has been replaced by a cadre of relievers over the years – with Ashby, another tall lefty, setting a postseason record with 18 consecutive scoreless innings in the most crucial of situations.
Aaron Ashby is now a World Series champion.
They all earned their championship Wednesday, Oct. 28 under the lights of Tropicana Field, a 4-1 Game 5 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays, clinching the first World Series title in the Brewers’ 57-year history.
Make no mistake: This was a dominant Brewers team.
They won 114 games, including playoffs, and rampaged through October on an 11-2 heater, a run that included dethroning the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers, a squad whose $338 million roster earned more than double the $144 million Milwaukee’s players earned.
Yet for years, as the Brewers contended with high-profile departures on and off the field while exiting the playoffs in the early rounds, they were defined as much by who was gone as who they had.
Such was life in a lower-revenue town, said the conventional, external wisdom. Lose elite talent, try to backfill with leftovers.
Yet these Brewers ultimately never bought into that.
Not Murphy, whose collegiate coaching chops resonated with a roster that always skewed younger, and responded strongly to his resolute culture of accountability.
Not Arnold, who toiled in the shadows of several brilliant executives before coming to Milwaukee and taking a number behind the ultimate Boy Genius, Stearns, who moved on to the Mets and their mega-bucks. But he didn’t take all the secrets and all the executive talent with him, and Arnold pushed Milwaukee from 92 to 93 to 97 to 103 wins the past four seasons, reaching heights Stearns never could.
Arnold’s administration spent a sixth-round pick on Pratt, gave him a well-above slot bonus to keep him away from Ole Miss and, three years later, signed him to a $95 million contract. This past June, he made his major league debut.
It was a leap of faith for player and franchise alike, and in Game 2, Pratt threw away the first ball he fielded, burying the Brewers in a four-run hole.
But Pratt stayed with it, like all Brewers do. He banged out six consecutive hits across Games 4 and 5, including a 12th-inning home run in Game 4 and a two-run single in Game 5. These guys learn quickly.
Arnold’s fingerprints were all over this club: A three-way trade to land indispensable catcher William Contreras, whose ABS wizardry, eight base hits and handling of a near-perfect pitching staff dominated this World Series.
Collecting NLCS MVP Jake Bauers and closer Trevor Megill off various scrap heaps and integrating them seamlessly into the mix.
To say nothing of the epic work by their international and domestic scouting departments through both regimes, a haul that netted Pratt, Ashby, Jackson Chourio (17 hits this postseason at age 22), Brice Turang, Garrett Mitchell and, of course, Jacob Misiorowski.
It was a late bit of due scouting diligence just before the 2022 draft that got The Miz into the fold. And phenomenal player development and work from pitching coach Chris Hook that turned him into baseball’s most dominant force.
They have seven regulars between the ages of 22 and 28. They will hit this offseason minus the body blows so many champions suffered in recent seasons, when they employed starting pitchers in high-impact relief situations, appearances that take their toll over time.
No, it’s too soon to call this a burgeoning dynasty. Yet as Counsell does his best with the 89-win Cubs, who finished 14 games behind Milwaukee, and Stearns aims for the perfect formula with the Mets, the Brewers don’t need to dwell on who’s gone.
Our editors independently choose our recommendations. Some content is produced with paid support from a third party, however our editorial decisions remain independent. If you buy through our links, the USA TODAY Network may earn a commission. Prices and availability may change.
