Final Thoughts About the 2026 MLB Postseason

Wednesday October 28, 2026: the night that the Milwaukee Brewers won their first World Series title. A date that they and their fans will remember for the rest of their lives.

According to Nielsen, the five-game series had an average of 11.8 million viewers while Game 5 itself had 14.2 million viewers. The Brewers and some of their players hardly got any attention or praise for putting their all into winning a championship. Jacob Misiorowski: The potential National League Cy Young Award winner. Media calls him a flamethrower for a few seconds before they resume talking about the Dodgers payroll. Jackson Chourio: Hit .400 in the four-game sweep of the Dodgers. Wasn't mentioned until the start of the NLCS. Cooper Pratt: Broke Robin Yount's Brewers rookie Postseason record with six consecutive hits over Games 4 and 5 of the World Series. William Contreras: Barely mentioned until Game 4. Won the World Baseball Classic with Venezuela and World Series MVP in the same year.

This kind of disrespect bothers me, because this is the same team that won over 100 games during the regular season and swept the Los Angeles Dodgers, another 100-win team, in the NLCS. Most importantly, they won the World Series for the late, great Bob Uecker. Ueck was and will always be Milwaukee. He's a legend and I'm glad that Brewers fans finally got to celebrate something meaningful in their city. Many people weren't thrilled or excited about the World Series matchup between the Brewers and the Rays, because they were small market teams and also because neither the Dodgers nor Yankees weren't in it. However, as I've stated before in previous stories: everything doesn't revolve around the Dodgers or Yankees. Everything isn't always about Shohei Ohtani or Aaron Judge. As much respect and appreciation I have for Derek Jeter, David Ortíz, and John Smoltz for the amazing work they do, I don't want them to focus so much on these two teams and players so heavily every season. To me, it's an enormous turn off. Players should be recognized when it's due, but there has to be a healthy balance. It's almost like saying that other players and the 29 teams don't deserve to be acknowledged or recognized for their achievements. Plus, Joe Davis has been accused of being biased towards the Dodgers, since he announces their games. I have much respect for him, but I want him to be as unbiased as possible. You don't want to be seen as being a homer or playing favorites. I'm glad that the Brewers were able to shut the Dodgers and their toxic fans up by sweeping them in the NLCS. The Postseason is for everyone. It's for teams who earned the right to be there in order to pursue the ultimate goal: a World Series title. It's not about pushing a Dodgers-Yankees agenda on everyone every year. We need different teams besides those two teams to have a chance of winning it all. I've accused both teams of stealing the attention away from other teams and players who are doing well. They're talking over them and both display a main character syndrome mentality.

One player that I need to heavily criticize wasn't on the Brewers or Rays. During the coverage of the World Series, Payton Tolle served as a correspondent, which didn't sit well with me. I didn't agree with current players taking on this type of role, even if they've been doing for years. I saw Payton's action as disrespectful and inappropriate. I got so much pushback on social media for my opinions about this topic, but I still stood by them. The reasons behind my disdain of what he did was because I saw it as a conflict of interest and also as a threat to the journalistic integrity of the game. Plus, a player or players who do this might spread bias or have influence on games during the Postseason, whether their team is in it or not. If Payton really had a deep interest in becoming an analyst or correspondent for MLB Network, Fox Sports, or any other network whenever his player career ends, that's fine. He could've asked Derek Jeter or David Ortíz for some advice privately. Payton can't be a baseball player and a correspondent at the same time. It's one or the other. If he wants to do correspondent work, then he needs to be retired. There's plenty of former players who are either analysts, commentators, or correspondents for different networks. Names such as Joe Girardi, John Kruk, Mark DeRosa, and Pedro Martínez. They waited until their careers were over to take on these roles. Because of the disrespectful stunt he pulled, it made me give Payton the major side-eye and an F for this foolishness. If Payton interviewed his fellow teammates during the regular season, then yes, I would be in support of that. He could show off his interviewing skills and put them to use, hoping that networks would notice. I'm all for players wanting to become analysts and whatnot but wait until after you retire from baseball. Payton should've been more focused on working with the owners, fellow players in the league, and Commissioner on the CBA, not at the World Series being a correspondent. The deadline is in a few weeks and is set to expire if no deal is agreed upon. There may not be baseball played in 2027, which will result in a lockout.

The Milwaukee Brewers deserve way more attention, because it's their first World Series title in franchise history. The four players I mentioned earlier also deserve to be acknowledged and appreciated. They deserve this moment and it's theirs. Their 44-year wait was finally over and now, they've earned the right to call themselves World Series Champions. Whether the 2027 MLB regular season will happen or not is unclear at the moment, but The Brew Crew's future looks promising.