The Angels, who are mired in the longest playoff drought in MLB, have hired former catcher Kurt Suzuki as manager. He had most recently been a special assistant to Angels general manager Perry Minasian, but he does not have any coaching experience after retiring from playing just a few years ago. For many people, the news was met with remembering one particular moment from Suzuki’s career. Sort of peculiar: The Angels gave him just a one-year deal.
Japanese slugger Kazuma Okamoto will be posted this offseason, making him available to MLB teams to sign. The 29-year-old infielder was limited by injury this season in NPB, but hit 30+ home runs every year from 2018-2023. As with many Japanese hitters looking to make the leap to MLB, there is some concern about his ability to hit high-octane fastballs.
This postseason has been a ratings bonanza thus far. In short: “Major League Baseball is having its most-viewed postseason in the U.S. since 2017 through the League Championship Series.” More specifically, Game 7 of the ALCS between the Blue Jays and the Mariners averaged 9.03 million in the U.S. and 6 million in Canada (nearly ⅙ of the country’s population). Meanwhile, the NLCS — with Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki — averaged an LCS record 7.34 million in Japan, significantly higher even than when the Dodgers were in it last year. With both Japan and Canada still engaged for the World Series, the overall postseason ratings should be rather encouraging about the state of the sport.
The World Series starts tonight!
not intended to be prophetic, just a photo I have from last WS
This is both very exciting and, personally, not my favorite fodder for writing about. You can find any number of predictions on sports sites and some of them will be correct and most of them will not. And even the correct ones will not tell you what you want to know: Who will be the hero? What will be the signature moment? Will it be hard-won or a steamroll display of dominance? How will it feel?
We’re going to do some mix of instant-react videos and/or frequent bits-and-bobs newsletters. We’ll try to be responsive to the games themselves, as content this time of year should be. For now, though, rather than preview or predict, we’re going to do a Rooters Guide to the World Series.
First, a couple quick hits from around the baseball interwebs:
⚾ Zach does not share my disdain for predictions (or else was forced to make a pick anyway) and, over at Opta, he says Dodgers in 6.
⚾ Baseball has the longest repeat champion drought in major men’s American sports history. The Dodgers are trying to become the first team to go back-to-back since 1998-2000 Yankees. Their opponents this year, ironically, haven’t been to the Fall Classic since they won consecutive World Series. I found that commonality interesting, especially given the discourse about the danger in the Dodgers repeating. Over at The Athletic, Tim Britton draws even more substantive parallels between the actual teams themselves: the 1992/’93 Blue Jays and the 2024/’25 Dodgers.
⚾ When he steps on the mound tonight, Trey Yesavage will have made more major league starts in the postseason than in the regular season. I can’t get over this story. He opened the season in Single-A and now he’s starting Game 1 of the World Series. Last time there was a pitcher this young getting that kind of honor, young people were named Ralph:
I’m sure we’ll talk or write about Yesavage’s performance, but I just wanted to call out how cool it is before we know how it goes. Despite ample material to work with, Yesavage hasn’t been the most emotive guy in press conferences this postseason. The reporters on site did some yeoman’s work trying to dredge up how this experience has felt for him. In the end they got one pretty great detail:
⚾ And now a sad note: Alex Vesia will not be with the Dodgers, at least for now. The team shared on Instagram that he is “away from the team as he and his wife Kayla navigate a deeply personal family matter.”
We are obviously not going to speculate on what happened, but the Vesias were expecting a baby imminently and we’re hoping for the best for the whole family.
On to…
Naturally, the storyline around the Dodgers in the World Series is didn’t we just see this? But two-way Shohei Ohtani on baseball’s biggest stage is almost enough to make the entire Dodgers’ efforts feel novel.
Truly.
Let’s take a moment now to appreciate in advance the possibility that we’ll see a Game Unlike Any Other. How can such a thing be predictable? Well, because we just did. The Ohtani Game to clinch the Dodgers’ sweep in the NLCS deserves all the superlative accolades that have been heaped on it in the week since. Probably, even Ohtani will not be able to repeat that level of instant legendary. But that’s only probably.
Sam Miller’s newsletter takes a rigorous look at whether it really was the best game you could have ever been at in baseball’s entire history. He quotes Joe Sheehan’s newsletter, which is also worth reading, so I’ll quote Sam’s:
Since virtually nobody else pitches and hits, it’s extremely likely that nobody will do this—or anything like this—ever again. Roger Maris and Mark McGwire and eventually Barry Bonds could all be replaced, but the Shohei Ohtani will still be standing 100 years from now.
That on the biggest stage? This could be something really really special. –HK
The Blue Jays are getting the underdog edit this World Series even though they had the best record in the AL, they’re a major market club, and will have homefield advantage in this matchup. They might not be able to match the Dodgers dollar-for-dollar, but they’re a top-five payroll in baseball, anchored by a $500-million man.
And yet, as mentioned above, they haven’t been back to the World Series since winning in consecutive seasons in 1992 and ‘93, after which they went over two decades without making the postseason. Their 32-year championship qualifies them for Sympathetic Fanbase status and the role of David to the Dodgers’ Goliath.
Speaking of, Ernie Clement takes an early lead for best quote of the series:
–HK