Rays vs. Brewers World Series Game 1 home run props, picks: Yandy Diaz, William Contreras stay hot

Small markets and small ball. That’s the name of the game for the 2026 World Series between the Brewers and Rays, who — for the first World Series since 1980 — are both playing for their first title in franchise history. It may not be your casual sports viewer’s cup of tea, but it’s a baseball purist’s dream: In an era where front offices spend exorbitant sums of money on power hitters, the two best clubs came to be through speed and smarts. Both the Brewers and Rays finished with the best records of their respective leagues by relying on contact hitting, base running and situational execution without waiting for the long ball.  These are two teams that finished within the top five in stolen bases and bottom 10 in home runs.Although the Dodgers have empirically won with their gauntlet of bats, this could signal time for a new approach to success. In Game 1, players are priced accordingly to hit a home run, with only three names carrying a tag under +500 odds at DraftKings.

With that said, there were nine home runs hit across the three-game series these two played at the very beginning of the season. Two of Diaz’s 22 home runs came against the Brewers in the second series of the season — and one came off of Jacob Misiorowski. Besting the likely NL Cy Young’s 100 mph-average fast ball has looked about as easy as catching a bullet with chopsticks, but Diaz has at least experienced success against them this season, hitting .267 and 10 home runs. His two home runs in the post season leads a Rays lineup that’s found its offense through low strikeout rates and leading the game in bunts. Díaz has recorded a hit in eight of Tampa Bay’s nine postseason games, combining an 85th-percentile squared-up rate with an ability to drive the ball to all fields.Nearly 30 percent of his balls in play go to the opposite field, per FanGraphs, making him a particularly difficult hitter to attack despite his imposing, power-hitter physique.Contreras also h...