World Series
The 119th World Series begins Friday night when Arizona and Texas meet for baseball’s biggest prize in a matchup that seemed nearly impossible six weeks ago
Fri 27 Oct 2023, 09:00 BST
If you had bet in early September that the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks would be participants in the World Series, you could have gotten fantastic odds. As of September 8, according to FanGraphs, Arizona’s chance of reaching the postseason – not even the World Series, just the playoffs – was 46.2%. The chance for Texas was a low 38.6%. The D-Backs had cooled off significantly after a hot start and appeared to be overcoming the crisis in the National League wild card race. The Rangers would lose coveted trade deadline signing Max Scherzer to the injured list in a matter of days due to a shoulder injury and would not return until October. Both clubs were Fall Classics and were expected to miss the postseason or be eliminated early.
How drastically things have changed. The Rangers and Diamondbacks will indeed be playing for baseball’s ultimate prize after their parallel performances took a dramatic turn for the better in October. Both teams won their wild card series two games to nil and then defeated the 100-win juggernauts in a three-game divisional series. Both lost their respective championship series by three games to two and both won their last two road games to secure their tickets to the World Series. The Rangers defeated their rival Houston Astros; The Diamondbacks shocked the Philadelphia Phillies. And when the World Series begins Friday night in Arlington, Texas, the teams with a chance to win will be two underdogs that have won 84 and 90 regular-season games, respectively.
By increasing their turnarounds, the Rangers and Diamondbacks got a lot of the old-fashioned baseball luck that every team needs to succeed in the postseason. But both had squads that gave them a chance, and their pennant runs were also triumphs of precision.
The Rangers competed with a mix of old and young. They had one of the most productive lineups in the majors all season. Their adjusted on-base plus slugging percentage was 113, which is 13% above the MLB average and gives them the fourth most productive offense in the game. But the lineup received a huge boost when outfielder Evan Carter came to the major leagues on September 8th. Carter immediately caught fire, posting a 1.059 OPS in 75 plate appearances to finish the season.
Carter was worth 1.6 wins more than his replacement, according to Baseball-Reference.com, and the Rangers moved two games ahead of the Seattle Mariners in the postseason. Carter was a difference maker on the edge. Meanwhile, the Rangers got great work all season from their centerfield duo of second basemen Marcus Semien and Corey Seager, while catcher Jonah Heim and outfield Adolis García were dynamos in their own right. The Rangers lacked a frontline pitching staff, but they got enough offense that they didn’t need one. The franchise spent years developing offensive talent and signing more of it in free agency, particularly the high-priced additions of Seager and Semien, and then putting together complementary pieces. Scherzer’s return from injury, even in a weakened state, was a useful boost.
Rangers’ Robbie Grossman (center) talks to teammates during a World Series practice Thursday in Arlington, Texas. Photo: Godofredo A Vasquez/AP
The Diamondbacks are a different proposition. They had a relatively weak lineup, especially for a World Series team. (Their adjusted OPS of 99 was a touch worse than league average.) But they have four cornerstone players: outfielder Corbin Carroll, second baseman Ketel Marte, first baseman Christian Walker and catcher Gabriel Moreno. Carroll and Walker sputtered in the NLCS against Philadelphia, but Marte batted .387 and two of the team’s lighter hitters, center fielder Alek Thomas and shortstop Geraldo Perdomo, found uncommon home run power.
Arizona’s strength lay in its two strong starters: staff ace Zac Gallen, who posted a 3.47 earned-run average in 210 innings, and 35-year-old journeyman Merrill Kelly, who played in South Korea until 2019 and took his place as a starter has found a reliable Arizona starter over six seasons. Both struggled in the NLCS, but the Diamondbacks’ bullpen has gotten into shape to help them at the perfect time. In 49 postseason innings, Arizona relievers have posted a 2.94 ERA and have defended many a narrow lead in crucial spots. Ryan Thompson, Kevin Ginkel and Paul Sewald have allowed three runs in 27 and two-thirds of those innings, striking out 32 batters and walking six. In October, the relief corps was the difference between an OK ballclub and a legitimate championship contender.
This was the second year of MLB’s expanded postseason format, which welcomes six of the 15 clubs from each league. As was the case a year ago, when the Phillies made a Cinderella entry into the World Series, the success of the wild card teams sparked much debate about whether MLB has devalued its regular season and should shake up the playoffs again. Ultimately, the sport’s three 100-win teams all exited the tournament early. Neither Arizona nor Texas can make a credible claim to being the most complete team in baseball or to be the best team from April to October.
And if baseball were English soccer, proponents of limiting the postseason to a more exclusive group of teams (or no teams at all) would be right. But the playoffs-versus-regular-season ship left American port a long time ago. In their relentless pursuit of television and ticket money, the MLB and its fellow Americans have opted for big, splashy postseason tournaments that crown the game’s champions.
The pledge is about drama, not severity, and that seems to be what the American public likes. Even until 1968, when the World Series was the only postseason series, there was a chance for a weaker regular season club to beat a superior club. And the longer the postseason lasted, the greater the likelihood of a discrepancy. The 2006 St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series after posting just 83 wins in the regular season, five more than their losses. Only eight teams participated in these playoffs, a smaller percentage of the league than any other major American sport, and an intruder still caused chaos. With our TV remotes and eyeballs, we as sports watchers have voted for exactly this kind of possibility for decades.
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