The stage has been set.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Tampa Bay Rays will meet in the World Series for the first time in MLB history, and if the preceding championship series were any indication of what to expect out of this World Series, we are in for a real treat.
Each was the No. 1 seed in its respective league, meaning the two best teams in baseball, at least based on the regular season, will be playing for the title in Arlington. Yes, you read that right. This will be the first year in which the series does not alternate between each team’s home ballpark. Instead, the MLB voted to play the entire postseason at neutral sites. In other words, the World Series will be contested in a bubble.
What interests me about these two ball clubs is the stark contrast in the way each organization built its 2020 team.
The Los Angeles Dodgers, with a payroll of $107,917,397, had the luxury of going out this offseason and acquiring its leadoff hitter, Mookie Betts, from the Red Sox in a trade deal that included starter David Price as well. The club also added another quality arm to the bullpen in Blake Treinen early in 2020, for a whopping one-year, 10 million dollar deal. That does not include the multiple other deals for prospects and bench players that Los Angeles made over this past offseason in an effort to build a team that could not only reach the World Series, but win it.
On the other hand, the Tampa Bay Rays built the 2020 squad from the ground up, anchored on good defense and pitching. In this summer’s 60 game season, Tampa Bay was second in the AL in team ERA (3.56), strikeouts (552), and third in the league in lowest runs allowed (229). One of the most exciting players to watch for Tampa Bay is starter Blake Snell, who will likely start either game two or three. His ability to hit the corners of the strike zone, and throw heat has made it hard for even the best hitters in the MLB to catch up to his pitches. Snell is a good example of how the Rays built “from the ground up” as the team took Snell in the 2011 MLB Draft and managed to hold onto him throughout his time in the minors, until he made his MLB debut in 2016. Since that point, he has been a fixture in Tampa Bay’s starting rotation.
Kevin Kiermaier has a similar story. Rated by many experts, such as ESPN’s Mark Simon, as one of the league’s 10 best center fielders, Kiermaier was recruited for football, not baseball, coming out of high school. Not giving up on his major league dreams, he enrolled at Parkland College, a junior college in Champaign, Illinois. After two years of receiving NJCAA All-American honors, Kiermaier was drafted by Tampa Bay, and since he made his debut in 2013 has remained the team’s everyday centerfielder. Here’s a stat; Kiermaier’s career wins above average (WAR) is a sky-high 27.2. Let that sink in. With his presence in the outfield, the Rays have won 25 more games over his career.
All in all, these are two ballclubs who have built their 2020 teams in extremely different ways, but both managed to endure hard-fought, seven-game championship series to make it to the final series of the season, the one each of the league’s 30 teams sets out to play in at the beginning of each season.
It should be an interesting conclusion to this not-so-normal 2020 season. Game 1 is set to be played on Tuesday at 7:09 pm CT on Fox.
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