What makes the Rays accomplishment impressive is that most of the team's roster aren't household names and the team's overall salary was $28,000, 000 compared to 9-figured Yankees, Red Sox, or Dodgers payrolls by comparison. And I'm not knocking the Dodgers extremely high team payroll, they've invested wisely for the most part in signing great FA's, developing a dominant trio of All-Star pitchers, the most notable being future HOF P Clayton Kershaw. They were one of the winniest, most successful MLB teams of the 2010's, owned the NL West, appeared in consecutive World Series in 2017 and 2018.
That said, still more impressive is that compared to the 2002 "Moneyball" Oakland A's built by GM Billy Beane who's overall team payroll was $41 million and way over-achieved, they still lost a close 5-game ALDS series to Minnesota while Rays are advancing to their second WS in franchise history $13 million dollars less than what Beane's A's had to spend.