As we’ve already discussed this week, it takes a lot more than mega-million contracts and star power to win a World Series. It takes a sudden resurgence from an injured Freddie Freeman, who was a non-factor earlier in the postseason. It takes major contributions from less heralded acquisitions farther down the roster, like Tommy Edman and Enrique Hernandez. And it takes every single hand remaining on deck from a broken-down pitching staff to record 27 outs in each of 11 October victories.
We also saw this with the 2023 Texas Rangers. They brought in a whole lot of pitching talent from both the free agent and trade markets in the years preceding their championship, and they needed every last one of them to eventually hoist the trophy. The likes of Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, Andrew Heaney, Martin Perez and Jordan Montgomery were all brought aboard, and every bit of each player’s contribution was necessary to meet their end goal. In fact, it might not have been enough if not for yeoman work from relative non-entity Josh Sborz, who was lights out in high leverage work throughout the 2023 postseason.
