We are just a couple of days away from the World Series starting. There are some great games ahead of us, and baseball has delivered some really enjoyable games this postseason. With the series beginning in a few days, it is worth taking a look at some of the futures markets and who we should wager on for MVP and the overall series.

Champion

It is really hard to bet against the Brewers. I'll be honest, I'm not a Brewers fan. Most of it is because I am a Cubs fan, and I have found the Brewers to be a bit insufferable without winning anything, so if they do win, it might just get worse. Personal issues aside, the Brewers are the best team in baseball, have been the best team in baseball, and have looked absolutely elite in the postseason. Can they be stopped?

RAYS PUNCH THEIR TICKET TO THE WORLD SERIES, TAKING DOWN GUARDIANS IN GAME 6 TO SET UP SERIES WITH BREWERS

The Tampa Bay Rays will look to do just that. It doesn't look good for them, though. They had the second-lowest OPS against 98 mph or faster pitches in baseball this season. They have struck out 66 times in the postseason, but that's actually five fewer in one less game than the Brewers. Still, the Rays will need to figure out a way to make contact against an elite pitching staff. Outside of Jacob Misiorowski, the Brewers bullpen can fire pitches in there.

I think the Brewers probably do win the World Series. At -165, the price is a bit higher than worth it at the moment, and the value is on the Rays. Tampa does have a very good team. Brewers winning 4-2 is probably my favorite look at +360.

RAYS STAR FREDDY PERALTA ACHIEVES HISTORIC PITCHING FEAT ONLY ACCOMPLISHED TWICE SINCE 1913

MVP

The edge in the starting rotation probably does go to the Rays. Drew Rasmussen is a finesse pitcher, but he has been elite. Freddy Peralta used to pitch for Milwaukee, so I'm interested to see how he performs. Nick Martinez has been strong for them as well. They have a good bullpen, too. The Rays have a shot to win this game, but if they do, it will probably be because Rasmussen wins two games and likely is involved in a third at +2000.

For the Brewers, there are a number of guys who could've been selected for the NLCS MVP, but it went to Jake Bauers. It really wouldn't surprise me to see him get it in the World Series as well. William Contreras at +650 is my favorite look. He has had numerous big hits, and if he can call great games for the club, he could get a bit of an edge. Contreras had a good series the one time the teams played this season. The Brewers have so many good players it is hard to pick just one guy who will get the credit.

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Series Leader - Hits

I think betting on Contreras to get the most hits in the series at +850 is also a look. Most of it is the same logic as the MVP. I don't like anyone on the Rays to get this because the speed of the pitching might be hard for them to catch up to.

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After roughly two weeks of radio silence, New York Yankees brass delivered their official postmortem on Wednesday, and owner Hal Steinbrenner made it very clear who he blames for the team tying its longest championship drought since winning its first World Series in 1923.

Steinbrenner spoke alongside general manager Brian Cashman during a joint Zoom news conference from the team's spring training ballpark in Tampa, Florida, and manager Aaron Boone followed with a video news conference from Yankee Stadium.

With Boone and Cashman seemingly public enemies No. 1A and 1B among the Yankees fan base , making them available for the conferences all but confirmed Steinbrenner's loyalty to both of them, and he confirmed that fact.

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"The bottom line is the players didn’t live up to their end of the bargain in the playoffs," Steinbrenner said.

Steinbrenner said that he felt the 2026 Yankees were a "world championship caliber team," yet for the second year in a row, they were eliminated by a division rival in the American League Division Series on their own home field.

Steinbrenner said Boone, who will return for his 10th season, "managed a good season" which included numerous injuries to several star players. However, the postseason proved practically impossible for the offense.

"I believe we absolutely had a team that was winning a championship. I was disappointed, quite frankly, with the offense throughout the course of the year as a whole," Steinbrenner said. "That is certainly one part of the organization that I will be looking at from top to bottom ... but this is twice now when the offense just hasn't lived up to their end of the bargain and got the deal done."

AARON BOONE WILL RETURN FOR 10TH SEASON AS YANKEES MANAGER DESPITE FAN OUTRAGE: REPORTS

Cashman himself later broke the news that he had agreed to an extension - his current contract expires later this year, and he became the team's GM in 1998. When Cashman took over from Bob Watson in 1998, it was the 15th change at GM since George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees in January 1973. Cashman has been the only GM under Hal Steinbrenner, who succeeded his father as controlling owner in November 2008.

"Well, look, Cash is great every season," Steinbrenner said. "I think the roster he put together, the team that we rolled out of spring training with, was as good as any in baseball, in my opinion. We had a lot of bumps and bruises along the way, but the team was fantastic, and it was a world championship-caliber team."

Boone finished his ninth season as manager and has one season left on a two-year contract extension agreed to in February 2025. The 53-year-old former third baseman has led New York to a 790-565 regular-season record and three first-place finishes in the AL East but a 27-30 postseason mark.

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"At the end of the day, we haven’t won a championship with me at the helm," he said. "Ultimately that’s what has to happen to satisfy certainly myself — that's why I'm doing this — but to answer those questions ultimately."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Major League Baseball is viewed as one of the more traditional sports, along with golf, where an expected standard developed over 150 years of history. But things change over time, and in recent years, there's been a concerted effort to allow players to show more personality, be more demonstrative, and celebrate their success.

Some pitchers now demonstrably react after striking out opposing hitters, to varying degrees. Mets reliever Jefry Yan being the most prominent example. Many hitters are now more willing to wear their emotions on their sleeve, in moments big and small.

How you feel about this can relate to your age, the generation you grew up watching, or willingness to change with the times. But there are celebrations, and then there are celebrations. Monday night, in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series between the Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Guardians, we had the latter.

RAYS PUNCH THEIR TICKET TO THE WORLD SERIES, TAKING DOWN GUARDIANS IN GAME 6 TO SET UP SERIES WITH BREWERS

Needing a win to get to the World Series, the Rays were up 3-1 in the bottom of the seventh inning, facing Cleveland's best reliever, Cade Smith. Caminero came up with a runner at first and nobody out, crushing a line drive to left that hit the foul pole for a two-run homer.

A huge moment for the 23-year-old second-year player that put his team one step closer to a championship. And Caminero enjoyed it. Really, really enjoyed it.

At nearly 39 seconds, it was the second-slowest home run trot in the Statcast tracking era, per MLB.com's Sarah Lang. 39 seconds! To run the bases. And it's not just Caminero.

In game two of the NLCS between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers, catcher William Contreras hit a game-tying home run in the bottom of the fifth and, again, admired it and took an extraordinary amount of time to get around the bases.

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Reactions to Caminero's example were, well, mixed, to say the least.

ESPN's Jeff Passan posted the video on X, "This is how you celebrate a home run in a game that could send you to the World Series. Junior Caminero is ready."

Other fans called it a "disgrace," comparing it to how Derek Jeter would celebrate a big homer. One fan wrote, "Junior Caminero is a disgrace to the game of baseball. Imagine someone on the Yankees acting like this in a big playoff game. Imagine playing in the same division as Derek Jeter and acting this classless. There’s an argument that the Rays should bench Caminero. This isn’t how you act."

Another had a similar sentiment, calling it a "slap in the face" to baseball.

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"An absolute disgrace to baseball and everything this great game stands for! I first saw this video when Fry Daddy posted it, and I still can’t believe what I witnessed. Congratulations to both teams—one has a chance to win its first World Series, and that’s awesome. But what he did was an embarrassment, a complete disgrace, and a slap in the face to the game I love."

No other sport has the number of "unwritten" rules that baseball has traditionally had in place. Don't show up the other team being one of them. But the celebrations this postseason raise the question, should those "rules" exist in the first place?

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There are two valid sides to it; one says that baseball is about tradition and big celebrations are against the tradition of celebrating like you've been there before. The other is that players showing their personalities and emotions is important to modernize the game and bring in fans who enjoy seeing how much the moment means. Even Shohei Ohtani, who is rarely demonstrative, had a big celebration after hitting a home run in game four of the NLCS.

Cade Smith, the closer who gave up the homer to Caminero, was asked his thoughts about the celebration after the game and had a magnanimous answer, saying, "It's not my style but I guess if I don’t like it, I shouldn’t give up home runs."

Videos of Caminero's home-run, uh, walking trot, exploded on social media, and isn't that what MLB wants? Fans who don't normally see baseball to get the passion and energy and excitement that the postseason brings? On the other hand, though, is that the best example of it?

Though, again, if you're going to celebrate anything, a huge home run to give your team a stronger chance to reach the World Series is probably the time to do it. Caminero and Contreras will have a chance to celebrate in the actual World Series when it starts on Friday. Just imagine if one of them hits a walk-off homer.