The 2026 World Series, which begins Friday night in Milwaukee, doesn’t figure to be a 2024-style slugfest. That confrontation between the Dodgers and Yankees was stacked with literal behemoths and featured two of the top three homer-hitting teams from that season. Sure enough, they combined to wallop 16 big flies in five games.
The 2026 Brewers and Rays are not like those teams. They both finished in the bottom 10 in the Majors in homers.
But don’t be fooled: These are still good offenses. (These teams probably wouldn’t be here if they weren’t.) During the regular season, the Brewers and Rays ranked 1-2 in the Majors in batting average, 1-5 in OBP and 4-8 in OPS. They were both among the top five base-stealing teams. The Rays had the fewest strikeouts in the game; the Brewers drew the second-most walks. Bottom line, the Brewers scored the second-most runs per game; the Rays were 12th.
You don’t put up numbers like that without a bunch of good hitters up and down the lineup, so we asked a panel of MLB.com voters to rank the bats on these two teams, factoring in both the regular season and postseason. Here are the 2026 World Series Hitter Power Rankings.
1. Junior Caminero, Rays
Postseason: .273/.351/.455, 3 2B, 1 HR
Caminero has crushed the ball pretty much from Day 1 in the Majors. In his first two full seasons (2025-26), he walloped a combined 87 home runs, tied with Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews for the most in history for a player’s age 21-22 seasons. This is his first taste of the postseason (other than two pinch-hit plate appearances in 2023), and opponents have pitched him tough, as you would expect. In the first five games of the AL Championship Series, the Guardians struck Caminero out 11 times, including four times in Game 3 (three on high-octane fastballs above the strike zone). But he seemed to make the adjustment, and launched his first postseason homer to help put the series away in Game 6. The Brewers will do whatever they can to prevent Caminero from beating them, but, well, it’s easier said than done.
2. William Contreras, Brewers
Postseason: .367/.457/.700, 3 HR, 5 RBIs
This wasn’t Contreras’ best offensive season. Midway through August, his OPS was barely above .700. Something flipped, though. Since August 15, "Wild Bill" has been one of the best hitters in baseball, slashing .329/.398/.584 with 10 homers in 186 plate appearances, including the postseason. He put up the best offensive numbers of any player in the Brewers-Padres NL Division Series, and only teammate Brice Turang rivaled him in the Brewers-Dodgers NL Championship Series. His 58.3% hard-hit rate in the playoffs is the highest of any regular starter on either of these teams.
3. Yandy Díaz, Rays
Postseason: .308/.341/.564, 4 2B, 2 HR
The ALCS MVP Award went to Rays right-hander Freddy Peralta, but Díaz certainly had a case. His big series included going 6-for-14 with four extra-base hits and a 1.467 OPS over Tampa Bay’s three straight victories that came after trailing 2-1. Díaz is also the only hitter in the series who’s appeared in the World Series before, having batted .333 with a .929 OPS in the Rays’ six-game loss to the Dodgers in 2020. His ability to both put the bat on the ball (94th percentile in whiff rate) and make hard contact (86th percentile in hard-hit rate) will make him a tough opponent for the Brewers’ pitching staff.
4. Jake Bauers, Brewers
Postseason: .269/.441/.423, 7 BB, 6 RBIs
In this postseason, there have been two plate appearances that lasted more than 10 pitches and ended with the batter reaching base. Both belong to Bauers, and both came in the NLCS against the Dodgers: a third-inning walk against Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2 and a seventh-inning home run against Blake Snell in Game 3. Both were absolutely critical moments in those games, and also emblematic of the Brewers’ ability to grind down the Dodgers’ star-studded starting rotation. Bauers himself grinded for years without ever establishing himself firmly in the Majors, but his rather sudden breakout as one of the best bats on the best team in baseball this season has been a terrific story.
5. Jackson Chourio, Brewers
Postseason: .171/.211/.343, 2 HR, 7 RBIs
It’s a little shocking to see Chourio’s postseason slash line, because he started with a bang in the NLDS against the Padres, smacking a two-run homer in Game 1 and a walk-off single against Mason Miller in Game 2. (The latter remains easily the most pivotal play of this postseason, by Baseball-Reference’s Championship Win Probability Added.) He’s just 4-for-27 since then, but that’s a little misleading. Of the 47 hitters who have come to the plate at least 25 times this postseason, only the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman has a larger negative gap between his expected and actual production. Chourio’s .314 xBA and .585 xSLG in October suggest everything is just fine.
6. Brice Turang, Brewers
Postseason: .222/.382/.370, 1 HR, 7 BB
Turang ranked in the 93rd percentile in walk rate this season and has continued to show that skill this month. He’s seen roughly 4.5 pitches per plate appearance, and he walked twice in both Game 2 and Game 4 of the NLCS. Turang still hasn’t actually hit much early in his postseason career -- he’s got a .641 OPS in 22 games over the past four Octobers -- but it’s only a matter of time. Over the past two regular seasons, he’s established himself as an elite second baseman, and really, one of the best all-around players in the sport. That includes becoming much more of a power threat than most expected, with 39 homers and 65 doubles across 2025-26.
7. Jonathan Aranda, Rays
Postseason: .257/.333/.343, 1 HR, 5 RBIs
If Turang is near one end of the patience-at-the-plate spectrum, Aranda is near the other. He’s seeing just 3.2 pitches per plate appearance in October, and during the regular season, his 38 hits on the first pitch were the fifth most in the Majors. He’s up there to swing the bat, and generally, it works out for him. The Mexico native -- whom a Rays scout discovered by accident -- suddenly emerged as a Rays regular as a 27-year-old in 2025 and over the past two seasons has hit .291/.372/.456. Along with Caminero and Díaz, he’s part of the big three bats atop the lineup that the Rays will need to deliver in order to win this World Series.
8. Garrett Mitchell, Brewers
Postseason: .207/.303/.483, 1 3B, 2 HR
Mitchell was the 20th pick of the 2020 Draft out of UCLA and a top prospect, but for all the promise he’d shown, including at the big league level, he’d never been healthy enough to really emerge as a standout player … until this year. The 2026 season was the fifth in which Mitchell appeared in the Majors but the first in which he played 70-plus games. This postseason has shown all of Mitchell's strengths and weaknesses: He’s struck out 12 times and hit just over .200 but also provided some serious thump. The surprise has been when he provided that thump: Mitchell had just two career homers off left-handed pitchers entering Game 3 of the NLCS, then accomplished the feat in two consecutive games, off a two-time Cy Young Award winner (Blake Snell) and one of the top closers in the Majors (Tanner Scott). Go figure.
9. Christian Yelich, Brewers
Postseason: .292/.370/.333, 3 RBIs, 2 SB
This version of Yelich is a long way from the version that was perhaps the best player in baseball for a two-year stretch from 2018-19. But even after batting just .235/.315/.378 in the regular season, Yelich is still capable of contributing to this Brewers team, beyond just his new role as captain. In fact, of the 21 hitters on these two teams who have batted at least 10 times in the postseason, Yelich ranks first in xBA (.374) and fourth in xSLG (.538). Given that the Rays’ October pitching staff skews right-handed, Yelich should get plenty of opportunities to impact the World Series with his bat, and even his legs.
10. Chandler Simpson, Rays
Postseason: .240/.259/.360, 4 RBIs, 3 SB
If this list were purely based on a 'fun to watch' factor, Simpson would almost certainly be higher. As enjoyable as it is to experience, say, Caminero launching a homer into the stratosphere, there’s also something to be said for Simpson tearing around the bases for a standup triple or burning down the line for a bunt hit, or swiping a bag when everyone on the defense knows he’s going to run. To his credit, though, Simpson isn’t just a novelty: He batted .306 this season and stole 46 bases, while greatly improving his defense in left field. The Rays will hope he can pester the Brewers to distraction throughout this series.
Others receiving votes: Liam Hicks (Rays), Victor Mesa Jr. (Rays), Richie Palacios (Rays), Cooper Pratt (Brewers)
Voters: David Adler, Jared Greenspan, Thomas Harrigan, Brent Maguire, Max Ralph, Manny Randhawa, Shanthi Sepe-Chepuru, Andrew Simon