NEW YORK (AP) — When the Milwaukee Brewers defeated the mighty, monied Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday night, it set up the first World Series between two of baseball’s smallest spenders in 35 years — just as team owners are arguing that such clubs need a salary cap to compete consistently.
Milwaukee will face Cleveland or Tampa Bay in a best-of-seven series for the title beginning Oct. 23, ensuring two clubs in the bottom half of big league payrolls will play in the World Series for the first time since 1991. The Dodgers, New York Mets and New York Yankees will watch from home with payrolls this season that each cost more than the Brewers', Guardians' and Rays' rosters combined.
The low-budget World Series showdown will start six weeks before a likely management lockout, a work stoppage that threatens the 2027 season as owners and players battle over the sport's lack of a salary cap.
Speaking at the All-Star Game in July, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred made his case for a cap while saying exceptions did not reflect parity.
“Our view of the world is that over a very long period of time there’s a very strong relationship between who gets into the playoffs and who proceeds, notwithstanding the exceptions we’ve got," he said.
Milwaukee, which won the National League pennant with a four-game sweep of the Dodgers, had MLB’s 19th-highest payroll as of Aug. 31, while Tampa Bay was 25th and Cleveland 30th. The last time both pennant winners were among the bottom 50% in player spending was when Minnesota (15th among 26 teams) beat Atlanta (19th) for the 1991 championship.
In terms of market size, Milwaukee ranks as MLB’s 30th and smallest Designated Market Area, defined by Nielsen as non-overlapping geographic regions that group counties based on television viewing areas. Cleveland is 22nd and Tampa Bay 15th.
If the Guardians win the AL pennant, it would mark the first World Series involving two teams in the bottom half of MLB cities by DMA since St. Louis (24th) beat Detroit (18th) in 2006. No small-market team has won the World Series since Kansas City in 2015.
Three years after the Twins won that 1991 title, players went on strike as owners pushed for a salary cap, leading to the cancellation of the World Series. No such cap was added, and owners hadn't proposed one again until this summer.
Since the 1991 Twins, the only World Series winners with bottom-half payrolls have been the 2002 Anaheim Angels, 2003 Florida Marlins and 2017 Houston Astros.
“It's how the game is played in the moment dictates winning outcomes,” agent Scott Boras said Friday. “There’s no question that the probabilities of winning, success, are increased with greater talent, but we all know that talent has many variables as to how it performs at times.”
MLB owners have proposed a salary cap with a floor, a system players say they will never accept. A lockout is likely to start Dec. 2.
Opening-day payrolls were topped by the Mets ($358.4 million), Dodgers ($323.3 million) and Yankees ($302.8 million). The Brewers were at $125.9 million, the Rays $90.5 million and the Guardians $75.5 million.
“Don't believe what you hear from the owner who’s complaining, 'I don’t have the resources to compete,'" players' association head Bruce Meyer said at the All-Star Game. “They all have the resources to compete. Our proposals include provisions that would give them more resources and reward the teams that actually do compete.”
Manfred maintains spending big increases the odds of success.
“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,” he said. “There is no question that everybody in any sport is not going to win once every 30 or 32 years depending on how many teams you have, but the data in our sport is stark: 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.”
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Cleveland Guardians players and coaches celebrate after Game 5 of baseball's American League Division Series against the Chicago White Sox, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
The Tampa Bay Rays celebrate the team's win in Game 3 of baseball's American League Division Series against the New York Yankees, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
The Milwaukee Brewers pose for a team photo after Game 4 of baseball's National League Championship Series between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Sixteen people were rescued from the Pacific Ocean off Mexico's Baja California coast on Friday after the U.S. Coast Guard responded to a May Day call reporting their boat was sinking. Another 11 people were believed missing.
The people rescued were Mexican nationals, according to the Mexican consulate. But the boat’s origin, destination and what it was doing were not clear.
It went down in an area frequented by smugglers transporting migrants to the U.S. It's also popular with fishing and leisure boats.
One survivor was being treated for a suspected shark bite and two were in critical condition, authorities said.
A rescue helicopter reached the site about two hours after someone on the boat transmitted a May Day call at about 1 a.m. to say it was sinking, said Coast Guard Lt. Santiago Tamburini. It took about 90 minutes for the crew, which included a rescue swimmer, to pull the 16 people from the water, Tamburini said.
"People were holding onto each other, to debris, just treading and trying to stay above water before being rescued,” he said.
The boat went down about 140 miles (225 kilometers) west of Ensenada, Mexico.
The search for more survivors across some 950 square nautical miles (3,200 square kilometers) was to continue overnight, officials said.
No vessel, only debris, was found and it was unclear what type of boat was involved, the Coast Guard said.
“Boats in that area can be for fishing, leisure, personal recreation. We just don’t know what they were doing out there. We all know it's a suspected smuggling route,” Tamburini said.
“The sea is unforgiving” in that area, he added, and it was unclear if the vessel got lost, had engine failure, was swept out to sea or meant to go that far.
Survivors said as many as 27 people had been on board, officials said. Some but not all of the people rescued were wearing life vests.
They rescued were flown by helicopter to San Diego and transported to hospitals. The Mexican consulate in San Diego said they were offered consular assistance.
Three were taken to Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego, including the person with a suspected shark bite and two people treated for cold exposure, said hospital spokesperson Janice Collins. Three others were evaluated at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla and later discharged, said Steve Carpowich, a Scripps Health spokesperson.
Two patients were in critical condition, said Matt Hoffman, a spokesperson for the city of San Diego. It was not clear if that included the suspected shark bite victim or the two people with cold exposure.
The Coast Guard and U.S. Navy were searching the area with two helicopters, a fixed-wing plane, a cutter and a Navy combat ship.
The Mexican Navy also launched a search and rescue operation from Ensenada, which is about 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of San Diego by road.
“As long as we think it's viable, we will continue to search,” said Coast Guard Capt. Rob Tucker.
Conditions on the water at 1 a.m. Friday appeared to be windy but fairly typical for the area, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Jonathan Suk in San Diego. Winds out of the north and northwest measured about 10 knots (18.5 kilometers per hour) and waves measured 5 feet (1.5 meters) at a buoy north of Ensenada, he said.
“I wouldn’t want to be out there in a sea kayak,” Suk said. “For the vessels that usually operate out there, they’re usually built to handle things like that.”
The water temperature measured 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius) -- fairly warm for the Pacific -- and the air was 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius), Suk said.
Migrants are increasingly turning to the risky alternative offered by smugglers to travel by sea to avoid heavily guarded land borders. Small boats called pangas leave Baja at night and sometimes travel hundreds of miles (kilometers) north.
There have been several episodes where migrant vessels capsized en route to California in recent years.
In May of 2025, at least three people died when a panga flipped off the coast about 35 miles (56 km) north of the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2023, eight people were killed in one of the deadliest maritime smuggling accidents off the U.S. coast, when two boats approached a San Diego beach in heavy fog and one capsized in the surf.
A federal judge sentenced a San Diego man to 18 years in prison in 2022 for piloting a small vessel overloaded with 32 migrants that smashed apart in powerful surf off the coast, killing three people and injuring more than two dozen.
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Watson reported from Los Angeles and Brown from Billings, Montana. Amy Taxin in Santa Ana, California, Fabiola Sanchez in Mexico City and Laura Turbay in Little Rock, Arkansas, contributed to this story.
A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter lifts off at Coast Guard Station San Diego, Friday, Oct. 16, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
A U.S. Coast Guard prepares for lift off at Coast Guard Station San Diego, Friday, Oct. 16, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
Coast Guardsmen work on a helicopter at Coast Guard Station San Diego on Friday, Oct. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
Coast Guardsmen work on a helicopter at Coast Guard Station San Diego on Friday, Oct. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
Traffic passes through the front gate at Coast Guard Station San Diego, Friday, Oct. 16, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
Coast Guardsmen work on a helicopter at Coast Guard Station San Diego on Friday, Oct. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
