Could the Guardians be part of a small-market uprising in 2026?

Baseball in the modern age is a clear hierarchy of financial ‘haves’ and ‘have nots.’ For every big spender like the Dodgers, Mets and Yankees (all of whom had payrolls of $290+ million in 2025), there're multiple low-budget teams like the Pirates, Rockies and the Guardians with payrolls that are less than half of the teams at the top of the list. 

But the beauty of baseball is the fact that a lack of spending doesn’t mean that a team can’t win — despite what anyone says. While the Dodgers have won back-to-back World Series, the Guardians made the postseason in both of those seasons despite finishing near the bottom of the league in payroll. 

The same can be said for the frugal Tampa Bay Rays (who are among baseball’s best at getting the most out of a slim payroll) and Milwaukee Brewers, who in many ways are the central time zone’s version of the Guardians. 

And while those payroll discrepancies may result in a CBA-related lockout after the end of the 2026 season, at least one national MLB writer thinks that the 2026 season could be defined by success from some of lower-spending teams in baseball. 

On Friday, ESPN’s panel of baseball writers published a story about their bold predictions for the 2026 season, where Bradford Doolittle wrote that 2026 will be a “breakthrough year for small-market clubs” while predicting that half of the 12-team playoff field will be made up of teams from the bottom half of payroll rankings. 

“The leading bottom-10 low-payroll contenders: Pittsburgh Pirates, Miami Marlins, Cleveland Guardians, Cincinnati Reds and Athletics, though the actual payroll hierarchy remains to be seen. But there are a lot of smaller-market teams that seem to be trying, and it would be great to see a surge of such teams next October. And it would be really interesting to see what kind of effect a large-scale crashing of the postseason by revenue-sharing recipients were to have on the gloomy labor negotiations,” Doolittle wrote. 

The Guardians could be a small-market team who could make some noise this season 

As of now, the Guardians would fall into both of those categories, as they’re projected to have a payroll of just $79 million in 2026, which is ahead of just the Rays ($78 million) and Marlins ($73 million). 

As of now, the Guardians have spent just $7.9 million in free agency on four relievers. After José Ramírez’s contract (which will pay him $21 million next season), the next highest-paid Guardians are Steven Kwan (who is projected to make $8.5 million in arbitration), Tanner Bibee (who signed a five-year, $48 million contract last spring) and Austin Hedges, who is on a one-year, $4 million contract.

And, as Doolittle mentioned, the Guardians aren’t the only small-market team looking to make some noise in 2026.

The Pirates are spending for seemingly the first time in forever as they look to build a contender around Paul Skenes, Terry Francona and the Reds are looking to go back to the postseason for a second-straight season despite having a shoestring budget and The Athletics are building for the future despite the fact they’re playing their games in a minor league ballpark.  

While the big spenders like the Dodgers, Yankees and Mets are likely locks to make the postseason, the amount of action being made by teams near the bottom of the payroll standings is great for the sport. 

While spending obviously helps since it allows teams to be able to get the best (and thus most expensive) players, lower payroll teams are able to compete so long as they’ve able to think outside the box and put smart people in positions to succeed. 

Even though that doesn’t mean that every small market team makes the postseason (the Pirates haven’t made the postseason since 2015, as an example), the uniqueness of baseball allows for smart teams to win without spending money. 

That sentiment has been on full display with the Guardians across the past two seasons, and it looks like there’s a good chance it could be on display again in 2026.