Here’s a little World Series secret: Neither the 98-win Los Angeles Dodgers nor the 94-win New York Yankees is a truly great team. Both rosters, which will square off when the Fall Classic starts on Friday, have holes bigger than the one in the webbing that led to the Dodgers’ first win of the season . And both franchises have fielded stronger units in recent years.
The 2024 Yankees won five fewer games during the regular season than the 2022 model, which lost to the eventual champion Astros in the AL championship series, and this year’s team has a run differential nearly 100 runs worse. This edition of the Dodgers, diminished by more than the usual complement of pitching injuries, is probably the weakest incarnation since 2018. Yet in October baseball, it’s better to be lucky than great—and luck is largely about timing.
In this MLB season sans superteams , the Dodgers and Yankees are as great as it gets: the winningest clubs in their respective leagues, both in practice and, per Pythagorean record, on paper. As befits the best teams, they also boast the best players, sporting a constellation of stars the likes of which haven’t shined on the World Series stage in decades. All of which reinforces a lesson last imparted almost half a century ago: There’s no World Series as star-studded as a Dodgers-Yankees World Series.
“This is exciting for baseball,” said the Dodgers’ manager about the meeting between the Bombers and Bums. “Here we have the two great tea.