There is no blueprint for winning, or even reaching, the World Series

The Yankees and Dodgers are in the World Series. 

Yes, these two little-known upstarts managed to defy the odds and earn a spot in the Fall Classic. Don’t you just love a good underdog story?

By beating the Cleveland Guardians in five extremely exciting games in the American League Championship Series, New York is back in the Fall Classic for the first time since 2009. You may remember how that one went down. The Dodgers handled the previously red-hot Mets in six games of the National League Championship Series, punching their ticket back to the World Series for the first time since winning it all in the pandemic-shortened, oddball season of 2020. 

The Yankees and Dodgers bucked a trend that had dominated much of the postseason discussion since MLB introduced a third wild-card team in each league and ushered in the era of the wild-card round and a five-day layoff for the top two seeds in the National League and American League three seasons ago.

In 2022, the No. 6 seed Phillies surprised the baseball world by reaching the World Series against the top-seeded Astros, falling two wins shy of a title. Last year, the No. 6 seed Diamondbacks shocked the Phils in seven games in the NLCS and got to the Fall Classic. In 2023, three of the top four seeds (Orioles, Braves and Dodgers) all failed to win a single round of the playoffs, and for the Braves and Dodgers, they failed to win a postseason series two seasons in a row despite earning a bye past the wild-card round each year.

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Folks, there is no magic formula for getting to and, ultimately, winning a World Series. If there were, the Mets or Padres would be playing the Tigers right now.

In the previous two postseasons, it was the upstarts who did most of the dancing. Outside of the Mets’ upset of the Phils in the NLDS this year, the rest of the bracket went according to the script, as the Dodgers, Yankees and Guardians all earned trips to their respective LCS.

All that talk about needing to be the “hot” wild-card team, that the first-round bye and layoff was bad for the teams forced to endure it, turned out to be hogwash this season. And you can hand waive the Phillies’ loss due to the fact they played .500 baseball over the final half of the season. They were not as good as the Mets, unfortunately.

Here’s the deal. All you can do is try to win as many games as possible during the regular season and hope your lineup is disciplined and relaxed, you have a couple starting pitchers get hot, and that your bullpen does its job. 

Unfortunately, there’s no way to ensure all of those things are going to happen.

Take the Phillies, for instance. The disappearance of the offense was not unexpected. They are a free-swinging team that chases a lot. Mets’ pitchers made them chase, and that was that. The Dodgers, as a lineup, were very patient. They don’t chase balls out of the strike zone. As a result, they walked a lot and made New York’s arms throw balls over the plate. They did damage. 

But there was no way to know the Phils’ bullpen was going to collapse. There was just no predicting it. Dave Dombrowski assembled a fantastic group of relievers, all of whom just fell apart at the worst time imaginable.

There’s no firestop against that. 

Bear in mind too that, for the Yankees and Dodgers, this hasn’t been an easy road. They have had numerous bites at the apple over the years and only one combined World Series victory to show for it. 

New York has reached the playoffs in seven out of the last eight years. This is the first time they’ve even been to a World Series during that stretch. They are a big-spending team with lots of stars, but it wasn’t until now that they finally broke through.

Eight tries. One World Series appearance.

The Dodgers have been to the playoffs each of the last 12 years. The only other time they won a title was in the pandemic-shortened year, which will always have an asterisk next to it. They lost twice in the Fall Classic, to Boston and Houston in 2016 and ‘17, and haven’t won a title in a full season since the 1988 Kirk Gibson/Orel Hershisher Dodgers. 

They have been one of the most disappointing teams in the game over the last three years, hence spending a jillion dollars last offseason on Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobo Yamamoto. And now, they’re in.

And lest you think the Phils don’t spend money, they actually had a higher payroll this year ($247.1 million, per Spotrac), No. 4 overall, than L.A. ($241.0 million), No. 5. 

One other note: Success isn’t linear. There are steps backwards and forwards. Today in 1980, the Phillies won their first World Series ever after 98 years of waiting.

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But they lost three straight seasons in the playoffs from 1976 to ‘78. They failed to even reach the postseason in 1979. Had the ‘80 team not won it, they would have been broken up. We all hope the 2025 Phillies don’t suffer the same fate as the ‘79 team, but it could happen. Injuries and bad luck are unpredictable. 

The bottom line is all the Phillies can do is try to keep the window open. Trade away a couple players and bring in new ones to alter the lineup a bit. Keep that starting pitching healthy. Retool the bullpen and try again. Develop young players and add them to the mix, too. Spend some more money. Keep the wheel turning.

The Phillies may win fewer games next year and go further in the playoffs. Maybe they’re just a wild card again. Maybe they’re the best team in baseball.

All you can do is take as many swings at the pinata as possible and hope, at some point, you hit the sweet spot and it all comes together like it finally did for the Dodgers and Yankees this October.

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