What Does a World Series Contender Look Like?
Not what you might think
The best team in baseball is a World Series contender, but the best team in baseball usually does not win the World Series.
How should these two facts inform strategy?
This is the fourth letter to A.J
“World Series Contender” invokes images of powerhouse teams like the 2004 Red Sox, 1927 Yankees, and the 1998 Padres. But since the turn of the century only six teams have accomplished the feat of being the best regular season team in baseball and winning the World Series. Well, five. Since there was no World Series in 2020 the world will never know who would’ve won, but the Dodgers were the best team during the shortened regular season and the postseason scrimmages that were played so we’ll assume it would have been them. We’ve used the Dodgers as a placeholder for 2020 and compiled the statistical performances of each of the World Series winning teams since the 1998 season. We chose categories of Runs Scored per Game, Runs Allowed per Game, and Defensive Efficiency to analyze the performance of the last 23 World Series winners since the Padres were there.
The fact is that since the turn of the century the average ranking for the World Series winning team is ~7th in offense, ~8th in pitching, and ~8th in defense. This fact defies belief which is why we’ve shown our work above.
Why use rank?
Baseball is subject to wide variance in year to year scoring:
The Angels’ league leading 4.77 R/G in 2014 would have been in the bottom half of the MLB in 2019. Comparisons using purely the numerical values between years can be misleading for this reason. Rank accounts for how good a team was when compared to its peers in any given year. To win a World Series you don’t always have to beat the 1998 Yankees, you have to beat the teams of that season. History shows that teams that rank among the top ~8 in offense, pitching, and defense should be considered real World Series Contenders.
Where are we now?
The Padres are 9th in baseball in Runs Allowed per game but only 0.09 RA/G behind the 5th place Mariners. The Padres play excellent defense despite a few subpar individual positions. The Padres starting pitching rotation is elite at the top with 2 aces in Musgrove and Darvish, and deep with Snell, Manaea, and Clevinger. One of the current starters is likely to move to the bullpen as a plus reliever for the playoffs. This is a rotation that can be better in a short series. This pitching staff meets the requirements of a World Series contender. Anything the Padres get from the return of Pierce Johnson and Drew Pomeranz, or trade acquisitions furthers the case. The deficit is offense where the Padres are a listless 17th in Runs per Game. That’s about to change. Fernando Tatis is due back after putting on a show in batting practice all week.
It’s not unreasonable to think Tatis’ return is going to have enough of an impact to make the Padres an above average offense. That’s going to put the Padres closer to being a contender.
What Else Can We Do?
Players returning from injury are one way a team can improve as the season goes on. Trades are another. Since 1998 the World Series winning teams made the following trades:
Most World Series winners make significant additions at the trade deadline, but they almost never get a superstar in their prime. The only team in the last 23 seasons to pull this off was the 2017 Astros with their, almost literally, last second deadline acquisition of Justin Verlander. Verlander bolstered the Astros’ mediocre pitching staff, and was almost unhittable when it mattered most. He would go on to become the ALCS MVP. This should not be taken as a guarantee of anything. Rather, it should just drive home how rare it is for teams to add superstars at the deadline and what can happen when those players show why they’re superstars.
No team since 1998 has had a midseason acquisition of two MVP level players. The Padres are the only team in recent memory with an opportunity to achieve such a feat. We’ve covered what A.J. should pay for a talent like Soto. We also covered why that price is cheaper than you might realize. The key question A.J. should be asking at the trade deadline: Are the Padres two MVP candidates away from being World Series contenders?
2022 Trade Deadline Strategy
The Padres should consider themselves near World Series contention with the return of Tatis, but still a little ways away on offense. There are two viable strategies to closing that gap:
Pursuing marginal upgrades at a couple positions might be good enough to push the Padres, with Tatis, into the top 8 offense territory. This would be the Happ/Contreras strategy. There are plenty of examples of these types of deals working out. Sometimes you claim Cody Ross off waivers and he becomes the NLCS MVP. Sometimes you add Geoff Blum and he hits a dramatic 14th inning go-ahead home run in Game 3 of the World Series. Getting back Tatis and making a few marginal upgrades does very likely put the Padres in the contender category.
Now imagine this: a team that is top 10 in pitching and defense, and despite struggling offensively all year, still finds themselves very much in the playoff picture. Then add two generational superstars and maybe a few other marginal upgrades. That is exactly what a World Series contender looks like.
Which of the above strategies you prefer depends on how much you value future production from prospects. But the correct trade deadline strategy should include an understanding that the Padres are a possible World Series contender with the right moves.
The Wrong Argument
Trading for Juan Soto will be expensive. Some fans have felt the asking price is too high given the future value of the prospects involved. Such an argument can be considered rational. But to those fans arguing that trading for Juan Soto is the wrong move because this Padres team would not be a World Series contender even with him: history does not agree. Fans that don’t believe the Padres are a World Series contender with Soto are ignoring the evidence. If the price for Soto is felt to be too high, then the push should be for marginal upgrades a la Happ/Contreras, and keep most of the prospect powder dry. But there should be no serious consideration of punting on this season and this team. Teams of this caliber have won the World Series.
A Last Look at the Statistics
The single best statistic to evaluate the performance of a team across a season may be Run Differential
(Runs Scored - Runs Allowed) / Games
What we can see using Run Differential is that since the turn of the century only 6 teams have been both the best team in baseball during the regular season and gone on to win the World Series (or the postseason scrimmages of 2020).
The Padres have amassed a 0.34 Run Differential on the season despite a miserable offense. Take a long look at that list. There are several teams that did not perform much better than the current Padres, and would be outclassed by the version with Tatis and Soto. Probably even by a team with Tatis plus Happ/Contreras or comparable marginal upgrades.
This Padres team is very close to being a World Series contender. Maybe not World Series favorites, but you do not need to be the favorites to win.
Whether it’s through marginal upgrades of the Happ/Contreras variety, or the once in a lifetime acquisition of a second generational talent in Soto, the Padres can be a World Series contender if A.J. plays the next 24 hours well.
To win a World Series you have to keep the faith
It’s easy to give up on a season when it’s clear your team isn’t the best in baseball. But it’s a mistake to assume that not being the best means they’re not a contender.
No team, no matter how good, is a preordained champion. The best team in baseball has the best individual odds to win the World Series. But most of the time it’s not the best team in baseball that wins the World Series, it’s one of the teams that lands solidly in the top 10 of offense, pitching, and defense.
Each team that eventually wins the World Series, enters the postseason pursuing a destiny they cannot fully control, and hoping for an outcome that is very unlikely. A pursuit in the face of such odds is not so much a matter of belief as a matter of faith. To win a World Series you have to keep the faith.
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TL;DR: The best team in baseball has the best individual odds to win the World Series. But most of the time it’s not the best team in baseball that wins the World Series, it’s one of the teams that lands solidly in the top 10 of offense, pitching, and defense. The Padres are very likely already in this category once Tatis returns. Pursuing either marginal upgrades (Happ, Contreras), or the once in a lifetime opportunity to get a generational star at the deadline in Soto, are reasonable strategies since this Padres team can be a World Series contender. Forgoing pursuit of either strategy because of the belief this Padres team is not a contender is a faulty strategy unsupported by evidence. History suggests teams as good as this year’s Padres have a chance to win it all. Keep the faith.