The 2023 MLB World Series Champions have been crowned, for close to 48 hours as of writing; the Texas Rangers have officially won their first Championship in Franchise history. They beat the 99-game winning Tampa Bay Rays in the Wild Card Series, moving on to the 101-game winning Baltimore Orioles, then met their cross town rivals in the 90-game winning and AL West Champions in the Houston Astros, before finally beating the 84-game winning team in the Arizona Diamondbacks. This wasn’t supposed to happen; going into the 2023 MLB Season, the Texas Rangers had less than a 40% chance of even making the Postseason to begin with. Winning the World Series? They were sitting at around a 2.0% chance for that to even happen. Of course, these odds went up when they were able to obtain Starting Pitchers in Max Scherzer, Jordan Montgomery, and Relief Pitching in Christ Stratton who came alongside Montgomery, as well as Aroldis Chapman back in June. All four Pitchers made appearances in the Postseason for Texas.
As we all know fairly well by now, Pitching and Defense wins games. But Corey Seager showed that offense wins you a World Series MVP, twice. The first time happened in 2020 with the Dodgers where he batted .400 in six games with 2 Homeruns and 5 RBIs. This time he batted only .286 but swatted 3 Homers and drove in 6 Runs, so his hits came when they counted. He joined Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, and Reggie Jackson, in the history books as only the fourth man to take home two World Series MVP awards in their career. He is, however, the only player to do it for teams in both the American and National Leagues.
Among all of the mind-boggling stats and trivia to throw around this World Series, there’s one that stands out to me, although most will gloss over it. 34-year old Relief Pitcher Will Smith (Not the actor, and not the Dodgers Catcher), is officially the first person to win three consecutive championships with three different teams in the MLB as well as the NFL, NBA, and NHL. He won his first ring with the 2021 Braves, then the following year with the 2022 Astros, and now the 2023 Rangers. As such, he also has become a one-player dynasty, winning three championships in the same decade.
