2023 Baseball World Series Preview: Texas Rangers to come out on top

The 2023 World Series gets underway on Friday night. It’s a matchup few would have predicted at the start of the Playoffs, let alone the beginning of the regular season, with the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks overcoming poor second halves and battling through three rounds of postseason action. 

Texas are priced as the 1.60 favourites to lift the Commissioner’s Trophy after overcoming the Houston Astros in the American League Championship Series. It would, however, be foolish to write off a Diamondbacks team which has defied expectations all season long and won games six and seven in Philadelphia to book their Fall Classic spot.

Pitching Unknowns

For Arizona, Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly are two starters they can trust. For Texas, it’s Nathan Eovaldi and Jordan Montgomery. Both managers have had tough decisions to make with taking pitchers out, and that’s not going to change in the World Series.

Max Scherzer’s health is unclear -- he only threw 44 pitches in Game Seven of the ALCS. Torey Lovullo was cautious about letting Kelly go through the Phillies’ order a third time, and he was even more hardline with Brandon Pfaadt, who had an up-and-down regular season, but has shown flashes of brilliance in the Playoffs. 

The two bullpens were below-average in the 162-game slog. Arizona looks to have the advantage here, with a sub-3.00 reliever ERA in the postseason. Texas has big names at the back end of their bullpen, but how much can you rely on them even with the ultra-experienced Bruce Bochy pulling the strings? 

With so much up in the air behind the front two arms for each team, starting the series strongly will be massive.

Texas Edges The Offence

Arizona’s offence was scorching hot through the first two rounds. They then scored just 21 runs across seven games in the NLCS. Texas scored more than half that total in Game Seven alone. 

Led by Corey Seager in earlier rounds and the entertaining Adolis Garcia in the ALCS, Texas boasts the best wRC+ this postseason. Arizona’s wRC+ is down to 99 after struggling for much of the series against the Phillies, though they can take hope from Ketel Marte’s exceptional Playoffs and Corbin Carroll’s return to form in Game Seven.

Arizona cannot match Texas’ power, but they can certainly run. Only the Reds had more stolen bases than the Diamondbacks in the regular season. The Rangers aren’t a running team – they were 27th in stolen bases, and have stolen seven fewer bags than the Dbacks in the Playoffs.

Verdict

The starting pitching is pretty much a dead heat. Perhaps the Rangers have a slight advantage if Scherzer can pitch three or four innings in a couple of games. Trying to predict these two groups of relievers is almost impossible – if this series goes deep, there’s a good chance both blow a lead. 

Texas has a clear advantage when it comes to the offences, however. Their line up is more powerful and deeper. Their pitching staff also excel at controlling the running game, which could nullify part of Arizona’s threat. 

It should be a fun series for the neutral, which may well go the distance, but we expect the Rangers to come out on top. 

Prediction: Texas Rangers to win the World Series @ 1.60