World Series

Game one of the 2023 World Series starts tonight with the Texas Rangers hosting the Arizona Diamondbacks. This is a matchup no one saw coming at the start of the season.

MoneyBall

Money can’t always buy championships. For 2023, the teams with the top three payrolls in MLB (Mets, Yankees, and Padres) all missed the playoffs. This has only happened twice since the Wild Card era (1995).

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For the first time in 30 years, the MLB postseason did not include the Yankees, the Red Sox or the Cardinals. But let’s be honest, we are all just glad that the Houston Astros were eliminated by the Rangers in the league championship. #Bang (If you don’t know the meaning of #Bang please read my post from July 29th 2020: American Hero https://alisonstclair.com/an-american-hero/ ) Money may buy you wins, but watching the Astros lose is still priceless.

The Los Angeles Dodgers won 100+ games in three consecutive seasons and became the first team in MLB history to win 100 games in four consecutive full seasons. However, the postseason Dodgers have been nothing short of a down right disappointment. The Dodgers were swept by the Diamondbacks in the Division series this year and lost to the Padres in 2022. The postseason Dodgers can’t buy a hit (they had no pitching all year). Postseason Clayton Kershaw will make you forget he is one of the greatest pitchers to play the game when he steps on the mound in the postseason. And then there’s postseason Dave Roberts and all Dodgers fans can do is yell bleeeeeeeep. Basically, moneyball analytics is nothing short of postseason failure for the Dodgers.

Trophy’s

Six teams in MLB have never held a Commissioner’s Trophy (the name of the World Series trophy); San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners, Colorado Rockies, Texas Rangers, Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays. Seattle is the only team in MLB that has never made it to the World Series. The Rangers lost back-to-back World Series in 2010 and 2011. I’m still shocked the 2011 series hasn’t been turned into a movie. It’s one of the greatest World Series of all time. My heart still hurts for my friend and former Texas SS, Elvis Andrus.

Underdogs

Both the Diamondbacks and the Rangers were underdogs in the postseason. Both teams had to win both game 6 and game 7, on the road to win their league championships. The bigger story with these teams has been the turnaround from the last two seasons.

The Diamondbacks lost 110 games two seasons ago and lost 88 games last year. Corbin Carroll, the NL Rookie of the Year frontrunner, played a huge role in the Diamondbacks success. Carroll leads all MLB rookies in hits, triples, and total bases. He is in the top-five in doubles, home runs, RBI’s, batting average, slugging percentage, OPS and strikeout percentage. When Ketel Marte is healthy, he can hit. Marte was the NLCS MVP.

The Rangers lost 102 games two season ago and lost 94 games last year. Thank goodness for the retractable stadium because that Texas sun is too hot to sit in for embarrassing baseball. But Texas cashed in and added former Dodger, Corey Seager, former Blue Jay, Marcus Semien and former Rockie Jon Gray in 2022 and added Nathan Eovaldi in 2023. In 2023, it all just clicked for the Rangers and they won 90 games and are now back to their third World Series appearance.

I just hope that Ranger fans don’t have to relive the blood pressure spikes of being one strike away from winning it all, TWICE, and then lose another World Series.

Will Corey Seager join Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson and Reggie Jackson as the only two-time World Series MVPs? We will find out soon. Game one of the best of seven series starts tonight. First pitch is at 8:03PM EST on FOX.

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