Come hang out with Nick Swisher, Tino Martinez, Rick Ankiel & Ben Verlander as they react to all the action & answer your questions while the Rays & Dodgers begin their battle to be crowned World Series champion. Plus, you never know who else will stop by for the party.
These are legitimately the two best teams in baseball …
Sorry to burst anyone’s bubble, but the World Series doesn’t always feature MLB’s two best teams. (Scandalous, I know.) In this case, though, it’s hard to argue that we aren’t seeing the true cream of baseball’s crop on the game’s biggest stage. During the regular season, Tampa Bay and Los Angeles each had the best records in their respective leagues, which is only the fourth time that has happened in a World Series matchup since the wild-card era began in 1994. (The other series that fit the description came in 2013, 1999 and 1995.) That used to occur every year, of course — by definition — but it’s only happened a little over 25 percent of the time since the League Championship Series was introduced in 1969.
According to our team rankings, the Dodgers and Rays also rank first and second in Elo rating, respectively. That makes this only the ninth time that baseball has seen a college-football-esque No. 1-vs.-2 championship matchup in the past 35 years:
World Series Game 1 | October 20, 2020 | Talkin' Baseball Pre-Game Show
No. 1-vs.-2 World Series matchups like this are rare
World Series matchups since 1985 featuring MLB’s Nos. 1 and 2 teams in our pre-series Elo ratings
YEAR NO. 1 TEAM NO. 2 TEAM WINNER (SERIES RECORD)
2020 Dodgers Rays
2016 Cubs Indians No. 1 (4-3)
2013 Red Sox Cardinals No. 1 (4-2)
2007 Red Sox Rockies No. 1 (4-0)
2004 Cardinals Red Sox No. 2 (4-0)
1999 Braves Yankees No. 2 (4-0)
1995 Indians Braves No. 2 (4-2)
1991 Braves Twins No. 2 (4-3)
1989 Athletics Giants No. 1 (4-0)
… but the Dodgers are pretty sizable favorites.
In the list above, the No. 1 team actually lost just as often as it won — sometimes in an unexpected sweep, even. Weird things can happen in baseball’s postseason … but don’t necessarily count on that this time around. With a gap of 45 Elo points separating them from the Rays, the Dodgers are the 15th-biggest favorite in World Series history and are tied for the fifth-biggest since 1969: