Wait, are these teams even good?

Yes, they are! This isn’t a fluke matchup based on the randomness of the postseason, as the Brewers and the Rays finished at the top of their leagues during the regular season. And how both teams made it this far is a feat unto itself.

Every MLB team wants to scout prospects well, but doing it consistently is vital for penny-pinchers such as Milwaukee and Tampa Bay.

“They just don’t have a lot of margin for error,” said a senior executive who oversees scouting for an MLB team, who wasn’t permitted to speak publicly. “And yet, the $80 or $90 million payrolls are in the World Series, and the $400 million ones are on the sideline.”

That’s thanks to the ways Milwaukee and Tampa have compensated for their lack of spending power.

The Brewers and the Rays have strong Latin American scouting systems, but they rely on slightly different approaches to scouting.

“Tampa is more scout-friendly with an analytic backbone, while Milwaukee is very analytic-driven, more than a scout-driven process, in selecting their players,” the executive said.

Their limited budgets also have required both to identify which castoffs elsewhere could become valuable contributors. Milwaukee first baseman Andrew Vaughn is a 28-year-old former No. 3 overall pick, while 31-year-old Jake Bauers, who is on his fifth team, has driven in six runs this postseason.

The teams also have found a knack for knowing when to trade players to maximize their returns. (In one case, though, the Brewers traded pitcher Freddy Peralta to the Mets last offseason; Peralta was later traded to Tampa, where he was named MVP of the ALCS.)

Ultimately, whoever wins the World Series will merely be setting the stage for an offseason that could have massive ramifications for the sport. Expect both MLB and the players to use the result in some fashion. Enjoy the games while you can.