MILWAUKEE — DL Hall walked into the first full day of his first spring training as a Milwaukee Brewer and prepared for the tension.
It’s not often grown men – millionaire athletes, in particular – get those knots in their stomach like the first day of grammar school. Yet gather nearly 100 ballplayers in a room, statuses uncertain, six weeks of internal competition ahead, and it can get more than a little awkward.
Yet Hall, a left-handed pitcher freshly acquired from the Baltimore Orioles, couldn’t believe what he saw when the group gathered and awaited the first speech from manager Pat Murphy in February 2024.
“You start spring training with 60, 70 guys in a big league clubhouse, before they trim the rosters,” Hall tells USA TODAY Sports. “I show up to spring training and all 70 of those guys – not just the 26 on the active roster – were like best friends. Everybody knows each other. Everybody’s talking.
“It’s like a big family. Anybody that’s come in including myself – they made me feel comfortable and part of the family immediately. You don’t get that everywhere.
“I think that’s special, right?”
World Series-special.
WORLD SERIES 2026: Brewers manager with Springsteen tattoo got call from The Boss
For the first time since 1982, the Brewers are in the Fall Classic, set to host Game 1 on Friday, Oct. 23 at American Family Field. Their opponents, the Tampa Bay Rays, are their mirror image in so many ways: Smaller market, lower revenues, and in this Series, three star players who have suited up for both squads.
Perhaps most notably, Milwaukee’s president of baseball operations, Matt Arnold, toiled for nine years in Tampa Bay. And if there’s anything that binds these overachievers together, it’s that “culture” and “alignment” aren’t just corporate buzzwords or part of a mission statement.
No, this matchup might just feature the most immaculate vibes a World Series has ever seen.
“It’s the best environment I’ve ever played in in the big leagues,” Rays second baseman Richie Palacios, a former Cleveland Guardian and St. Louis Cardinal, tells USA TODAY Sports of his three seasons in Tampa Bay. “From the young guys coming in and the old guys not making them feel like they can’t step on toes. It’s old guys bringing the young guys in, taking them shopping, taking them to team dinners, making them feel loved so they can be comfortable. So when they do show up, they can be successful.
“We’ve got the young guys respecting the old guys. We’ve got everybody respecting each other, loving on each other, everybody hanging out outside the field.
“Be able to let your guard down. Learn where someone’s from, learn about their family, and go to battle with each other.”
To great success. The Rays won the American League East with an AL-best 98-64 record. Milwaukee, meanwhile, was the best team in baseball, winning a club-record 103 games and then stunningly sweeping the two-time champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL Championship Series.
Both bear the hallmarks of progressive, analytically-inclined low-revenue teams who must innovate to survive. Yet there’s something beneath the surface, too.
“I know the Brewers culture,” says Rays starter Freddy Peralta, a seven-year Brewer traded to the New York Mets last winter and then to Tampa Bay this summer. “I know everything about them and I believe we are very similar.
“We do a lot of things where it looks like each other, kind of the same. But I am here now. This is my place now.”
Indeed, Peralta was a two-time All-Star and beloved in Milwaukee, dealt to the Mets because he was a pending free agent that the Brewers likely couldn’t afford to keep. His four months with the Mets represented, essentially, the only black mark on his resume in a nine-year major league career.
But a near-immediate turnaround occurred under vaunted Rays pitching coach Kyle Snyder. While Peralta was a star before then, the fix-up is not unlike what sluggers Jake Bauers – the NLCS MVP – and Andrew Vaughn experienced in Milwaukee.
Vaughn, chosen third overall in 2019 by the Chicago White Sox, was practically given away in 2025. The Brewers unlocked his slugging prowess and, over two seasons, posted an .849 OPS compared to .709 in Chicago.
“It’s the culture surrounding everybody from the front office down. A culture that was built so that guys just come here and buy in,” says Vaughn. “I think that’s what makes this group special – I feel like everybody bought in.
“It’s everybody. Everybody has to be on the same page. Everybody has to want the same things. I feel like this group is so tight-knit. It’s just instilled in everybody.”
Yes, that’s another well-worn phrase: Buy-in.
Brewers' secret weapon?
While the Rays and Brewers both steer hard into a be-who-you-are ethos, Milwaukee has something of a secret weapon in manager Murphy, the former college coach who has, in fact, achieved total buy-in from his club.
Even when he yanks a star player for lack of hustle, or the perception thereof. And perhaps that buy-in occurs because anyone who wouldn’t has simply been shipped elsewhere.
“It takes a certain type of player to play here,” says center fielder Garrett Mitchell. “And it starts with not making it about yourself. If you’re a guy more worried about your personal statistics, it’s not going to be the place for you.
“And the buy-in is what’s important, because all of us are willing to do what it takes to win. And we’re not putting it on our own shoulders to get it done.
“We have that trust and belief in each other.”
Mitchell and lefty reliever Aaron Ashby say belief flows naturally from Murphy and veteran outfielder Christian Yelich, who was named captain late in the regular season, then found himself sitting against a pair of lefty starters in the NLCS.
He wore it gracefully, buttressing his rep among teammates.
“If our cap is ready to do it,” says Mitchell, “you better be willing to do it, too.”
The Rays do differ from Milwaukee in one aspect: Roster stability, or lack thereof. Ten of 26 players on their ALCS roster were acquired after the start of the 2025 season, including half their pitching staff. Shoot, the Rays have traded for Marlins catchers twice in the past year (and yes, Liam Hicks and Nick Fortes have blended in seamlessly).
“When you look at the makeup of the roster, it’s guys who have been around,” says set-up man Tyler Wells, acquired from Baltimore at the August trade deadline. “Been traded for. May have not have been big pieces on their teams.
“But they really make people comfortable in their own skin. And they’re very uplifting. They really want to focus on the things you do really, really well. They don’t want to change what makes you, you.
“It gives you the freedom to go out there and produce in the way we have.”
Or, as lefty reliever Cam Booser puts it, "They treat everybody here like kings. They want everybody to be their best self every day."
Arnold, the Brewers president, notes that he was a Rays executive when they still had “Devil” attached to their name – the bad old days, in a sense. Yet general manager Andrew Friedman, now running the show with the Dodgers, hatched a franchise renaissance and mentored four executives who’d eventually run their own teams, including Arnold and Erik Neander, the man who replaced Friedman in Tampa Bay.
“It helps to have good players,” says Arnold. “When they perform well, obviously the vibes are good. I've been in situations where it's not good. I was a Devil Ray, so I know what it's like to pick first multiple times, and to have that evolution.
“One of the important things we learned there and obviously have tried to carry on hereis that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. No matter how bad it is.”
Brewers and Rays are genuine juggernauts
It hasn’t been bad in either precinct in a long time. The Brewers have missed the playoffs just once since 2018. Tampa Bay’s ups and downs are a little more cyclical yet has made playoff trips six of the last eight seasons, with a World Series berth in 2020.
And there’s no project too unique to take on. While the Rays’ rep has been largely built on maximizing recycled parts, the journey of left fielder Chandler Simpson from speedy second-round pick who’s yet to hit a professional home run into deluxe defensive player and offensive disruptor is nothing short of remarkable.
No, the Rays aren’t a small-ball team by any stretch. Yet they can drop Simpson into the No. 3 hole in ALCS Game 4 and ignite for seven runs and a crucial victory, even if his base hits likely aren’t the sort that leave the infield.
“Definitely appreciative that they’ve instilled trust in me and my game,” says Simpson, “and just trusted that the game would play out and that I would evolve.
“I just knew that I had to pay them back by putting my head down and grind and make sure I continued to get better throughout my game.”
Cash on numerous occasions has lauded Simpson’s work with outfield coach Corey Dickerson. This season, Simpson produced 2.5 WAR despite a 94 adjusted OPS that doesn’t measure the havoc he wreaks offensively.
“I think he's in Gold Glove consideration in left field,” says Cash Thursday. “Offensively it's a different dynamic. It's a throwback dynamic you just don't see every day. What stands out and impresses me most about Chandler is he knows his game and himself as well as any player I've ever been around, first-year player or ten-year veteran, and he's going to work on that craft.”
He has the runway to do it. The Rays and Brewers always have time for players who work hard and develop. And while it’d be foolish to call them a team bereft of star power – not with Junior Caminero and William Contreras and Jackson Chourio lurking – sometimes it seems that way.
And maybe that’s the secret sauce to a great culture.
“We’re all the same here. Everyone’s treated the same,” says Contreras, the Brewers’ All-Star catcher. “No one gets any special treatment.
“And we’re all brothers.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How Brewers and Rays created immaculate vibes and culture on road to World Series
