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With this epic showdown beginning with Game 1 on Friday in Los Angeles, we’ve identified the clashes that might just decide this world-class matchup in our World Series preview.
So much for the little guys ruling MLB’s postseason.
After upstarts soared in the early years of the 12-team MLB playoff format, the Goliaths have asserted themselves as the best teams in 2024.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees weren’t juggernauts by recent standards, but they had the top records in their respective league standings and ranked fourth and first, respectively, in overall raw value.
They employ the likely National League MVP and American League MVP, who also happen to be the recipients of the two largest free-agent deals in MLB. And they will now renew the most common World Series matchup in the sport’s history.
In a meta sense, this is strength on strength, titan vs. titan. Yet even matchups this galactic are ultimately decided not by an unstoppable force or an immovable object, but by an edge or two. A matchup here, a decision there.
With this showdown beginning with Game 1 on Friday at Dodger Stadium (on FOX), we’ve identified seven clashes that might just decide this world-class Yankees vs. Dodgers World Series.
1. Shohei Ohtani vs. Aaron Judge
Might as well start with the headliners right?
Dedicating himself to hitting while rehabbing an elbow injury, Ohtani’s first season with the Dodgers has turned into a landmark in virtually every way. He hit 54 homers. He stole 59 bases. He reached the postseason for the first time having shed the Los Angeles Angels uniform, and now he’ll make his mark on the Fall Classic.
Judge’s numbers, meanwhile, can only be described as Barry Bonds-adjacent. The Yankees’ gargantuan avatar tallied the first full-season slugging percentage over .700 since Bonds in 2004.
Superstars are neither a ticket to glory when successful nor a guaranteed exit when struggling. Still, all eyes will be on the game’s most ridiculous performers, each appearing in their first World Series. Thus far in the postseason, Ohtani wasn’t much of a factor until going 6 for 15 with two homers over the last four games against the New York Mets, while Judge has struggled to a .161/.317/.387 line.
Ohtani or Judge could take over the series with brute force, of course, but perhaps the only thing that is guaranteed in the last four to seven baseball games of 2024 is the gravitational pull their bats will exert on decision-making. No one in the game is more powerful when they connect – with Judge’s 292 BIP+ ranking first among qualified hitters and Ohtani’s 249 BIP+ ranking second.
What pitchers and their managers choose to do to mitigate or avoid the thunderous risks of Ohtani and Judge? Well, that might shape the series.
2. Protection (aka Mookie Betts) vs. Pressure (aka Juan Soto)
Oh right, the other MVP-caliber superstars.
Betts and Soto, who would be (and have been) the dominant offensive threats on other championship teams, draw contrasts to their taller talented teammates in some important ways.
Where Ohtani and Judge have each been striking out about 32% of the time in the postseason, Betts and Soto are running 15% and 17% rates, respectively.
This is well-known at this point, but Betts (eighth in MLB with a 109 contact+) is the toughest player in the series to strike out, while Soto (first in MLB with a 133 discipline+) is the toughest to keep off the bases. If you’re a pitcher trying to negotiate these lineups, these are the guys who are driving the hardest bargains.
Now consider that Betts steps up after Ohtani, while Soto precedes Judge. There’s not a wrong answer on how to arrange players this good, but there are serious reverberations to the arrangements. The NL pennant winners lean toward a parade of threats, while the Yankees dare you to make it through a critical mass of power bats without giving up the big swing.
Don’t be surprised to see one of these No. 2 hitters at the crux of some discussion-provoking managerial decisions that treat them like Public Enemy No. 1.
3. Gerrit Cole vs. the Times Through the Order Penalty
The only pitcher who might be used like an ace in this series is Cole, the 2023 AL Cy Young winner, and even the phrase “used like an ace” doesn’t mean what it meant a few years ago.
History and extensive research have repeatedly proven that pitchers get worse the more times they face a lineup in a game. So even though there’s also potentially a reliever-related penalty to worry about, managers tend to pull starters before they stare down the lineup for a third time.
Norms have shifted pretty dramatically in this arena. The Tampa Bay Rays shocked the world by pulling Blake Snell in 2020 (which went badly). And the Arizona Diamondbacks raised eyebrows by not pulling Zac Gallen in the clinching game of last year’s World Series (which also went badly).
Two lessons here: There’s still not an exact science between when to turn the page on a starter pitching well in a high-intensity moment, and no one remembers any pitching decision unless the result is bad. (The Texas Rangers’ Nathan Eovaldi struggled throughout that same game, but wound up facing the order three times and allowing no runs.)
The Dodgers are avoiding this conundrum by having next to no one who is simultaneously healthy enough and trustworthy enough to press the issue, but Aaron Boone and the Yankees are candidates for this year’s pitching discourse.
Pressing the issue? The fact that Ohtani, who will be the tip of that third-time spear from his leadoff perch, has been the best hitter in baseball seeing pitchers for a third time over the past three seasons, notching a 1.187 OPS across 351 plate appearances.
4. Yoshinobu Yamamoto vs. Carlos Rodon
You want wild cards? We’ve got wild cards. It’s not the teams playing in the World Series, but their No. 2 starters.
Yamamoto, historically good in Japan before joining the Dodgers on a massive deal this offseason, fired up a 3.00 ERA during the regular season.
Yet that was interrupted by injury, and his return in mid-September means he hasn’t been pushed for length the way an arm of his abilities might be in other circumstances. If he were able to muster a deep outing, it could change the course of the series for the pitching-strapped Dodgers.
Rodon, whose 2023 Yankees debut was an utter disaster, rebounded into something tantalizing but a touch stressful. This version of Rodon has the nastiest stuff of any starter in this series (eight in MLB with a 121 whiff+), but runs into rough patches that leave him prone to home runs.
These likely Game 2 starters both carry enough talent to dominate a game and enough latent inconsistency to obliterate their managers’ plans between commercial breaks.
5. Kike Hernandez vs. Jazz Chisholm Jr.
The Dodgers’ Hernandez: .863 postseason OPS, 95 full-season raw value+
The Yankees’ Chisholm: .481 postseason OPS, 95 full-season RV+
These two spark plugs, who bring personality and fire to their clubhouses, are essentially matching up against gravity.
Hernandez, a frequent postseason hero who mashes left-handed pitching, is probably not a star activated only by the leaves turning in October. Chisholm, a trade deadline acquisition whose bat could play a crucial role in lengthening the Yankees’ lineup, is not a .147 hitter.
Something will give in this and other tugs of war against regression.
6. Michael Kopech vs. Giancarlo Stanton
You want strength on strength? There’s no better proxy for arm wrestling between the world’s strongest men than Kopech vs. Stanton, which is a matchup likely to be meaningful at some point in this series.
Kopech, the former top prospect rescued from the sinking Chicago White Sox by a deadline deal that also brought NLCS MVP Tommy Edman to LA, has been untouchable since joining Dave Roberts’ club. Sizzling fastballs and tight sliders earned him a 1.13 ERA across 24 regular-season innings in blue, and he has struck out seven in 5.1 innings in October so far, including as the starter in one of the bullpen games they will likely employ once again.
His 98.6 mph four-seamer is the hardest pitch you’ll be seeing in this World Series.
Which brings us to Stanton, whose sneaky good Hall of Fame case is getting some shine thanks to his mammoth postseason performances. Now sporting a 1.019 career postseason OPS, Stanton is locked in after earning ALCS MVP honors against the Cleveland Guardians.
Out of his five homers this month, Stanton sent three sliders and two four-seam fastballs into the seats. But Kopech would present a new challenge: None of those homers have come on pitches over 94 mph.
7. Blake Treinen vs. Luke Weaver
They aren’t the closers who were promised, but they are the closers who have been delivering. Treinen (68 raw value- this season) and Weaver (67 RV-) are going to be asked for a lot.
Weaver, a starter until this season, has already gone beyond an inning in five different outings this postseason. Treinen, 36 years old and coming off two seasons lost almost entirely to injury, has done it four times.
There are reinforcements in both bullpens, but the most trusted members of the pitching staffs are going to have their durability put to the test. Whose stuff stays crisp as the pressure rises? Among a lot of matchups foretold and surrounded by hype, this unexpected duo might have just as much to say about the outcome.
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