Top of the Order: A World Series Rematch Looks Unlikely

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

It’s not exactly uncommon for league champions to struggle the following year. The most extreme versions of this are the Marlins, who sold off just about all of their good players after winning the World Series in 1997 and in 2003. The Nationals, who still haven’t had a winning season since their World Series title in 2019, are a more recent example. But, usually, at least one of the two teams to play in the previous World Series has a strong follow-up season. In fact, over the first 29 seasons of the Wild Card era, only twice have both league champs from the same year missed the playoffs the next season; interestingly, those two years came back to back, in 2006 (White Sox and Astros) and 2007 (Cardinals and Tigers). That’s why it’s quite jarring to see both the Rangers and Diamondbacks under .500 entering play this weekend.

While both teams won on Thursday, they’re not in great position right now. The Diamondbacks are 8.5 games out of first place with a 33-36 record (though they’re just a game out of the final NL Wild Card spot); the Rangers’ 33-35 record has them five games behind the first place Mariners and 3.5 games away from a wild card berth. The sluggish start gave the reigning world champs just a 19.2% chance of making the playoffs entering Thursday; Arizona’s odds weren’t that much better, at 27.9%.

Considering this, let’s look at what has gone wrong for each team and determine how they can avoid becoming the third pair of league champions in three decades to each fall short of returning to the postseason in their follow-up campaigns.

Rangers

The injury bug has bit the Rangers badly: Max Scherzer underwent back surgery in December and then had a setback due to lingering nerve damage (though he should be back soon), and fellow starters Cody Bradford, Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, and Michael Lorenzen have all missed time at various points this year. (Not to mention Jacob deGrom and Tyler Mahle, who will be out for much of the season as they recover from Tommy John surgeries.)

Meanwhile, on the position player front, third baseman Josh Jung has missed all but four games with a fractured wrist, first baseman Nathaniel Lowe opened the season on the IL with an oblique strain, and shortstop Corey Seager played in just three spring training games after his January surgery to repair a sports hernia, and though he made it back for Opening Day, he struggled for most of April as he got back in the swing of things. Top prospect Wyatt Langford was out most of May with a hamstring strain, and left fielder Evan Carter, their no. 2 prospect and a breakout star of last postseason, is currently on the shelf with a lumbar sprain. So, yeah, for those of you keeping score at home, that adds up to seven starting pitchers and five key parts of the lineup.

Unlike last year, when they acquired Jordan Montgomery, Scherzer, Aroldis Chapman, Chris Stratton, and Austin Hedges before the deadline, I don’t see a litany of trades coming for the Rangers this July. Those previous trades dried up the pipeline of promising minor leaguers they could deal this year, especially because their top prospect not yet in the majors, 18-year-old shortstop Sebastian Walcott, is probably untouchable.

The good news is that, except for the most elite arms, rental relievers usually come pretty cheap at the deadline. That bodes well for the Rangers because they already have strong high-leverage guys; instead, they’re in need of decent middle relievers to bridge the gap from their starters to David Robertson and Kirby Yates. They also have José Leclerc, but he has been maddeningly inconsistent this year. A reunion with Chapman might make sense (though he’s even more erratic than Leclerc), but Texas would be better off targeting a higher-floor pitcher like Matt Moore, Luis García, Scott Alexander, or Dylan Floro. Being able to bump someone like Dane Dunning and/or Andrew Heaney to the bullpen when Scherzer and Mahle return should help matters there, too.

I doubt the Rangers will do much with their offense other than perhaps make a relatively insignificant bench move or two. They currently have the right pieces on their roster, even if everyone except for Seager and Marcus Semien is underperforming.

Diamondbacks

On the other side of the most recent World Series, the Arizona’s offseason has looked like a mixed bag at best and somewhat disastrous at worst. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (94 wRC+) has been more or less the same guy he was last year (106 wRC+) with improved defense, and the Joc Pederson (153 wRC+)/Randal Grichuk (137 wRC+) DH platoon has been excellent. But the other additions have been awful. Third baseman Eugenio Suárez (66 wRC+) is having by far the worst season of his career, Jordan Montgomery (6.58 ERA/4.76 FIP) has been one of the worst starters in the league, and Eduardo Rodriguez has yet to pitch because of a shoulder injury.

Beyond that, two of the most important Diamondbacks hitters, last season’s NL Rookie of the Year Corbin Carroll and catcher Gabriel Moreno, have floundered at the plate, and two of their top starters, Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly, are out with injuries.

The Diamondbacks are in a dicey situation; they clearly need to upgrade their roster, but it’s unclear which areas they should prioritize. Three of their starting pitchers are hurt, but Gallen could be back before the end of the month, Kelly possibly before the All-Star break, and Rodriguez not too long after Kelly. That all but locks in their rotation because Montgomery and Brandon Pfaadt aren’t going anywhere. Moreno and Carroll obviously aren’t getting supplanted, and if Jordan Lawlar pushes Geraldo Perdomo off of shortstop, it’ll probably just slide Perdomo over to third.

Like the Rangers, Arizona’s bullpen is mostly set for high-leverage spots, with Paul Sewald and Justin Martinez pitching well, but the team’s bullpen needs more depth. The names listed above for Texas also would make sense for the Snakes. Otherwise, the easiest way to improve the roster might actually be to make some tough decisions: cutting Suárez, making Blaze Alexander and Jake McCarthy premier bench players, and going all-in on a third baseman or corner outfielder who could transform the offense. The Diamondbacks might not want to go that far, but now might be the perfect time to strike because they have a deep farm system from which to trade. They’d come at a fairly steep price, but imagine how someone like Taylor Ward, Brent Rooker, or Ryan McMahon would reshape the Arizona lineup.

Ultimately, neither team may feel the juice for major additions is worth the squeeze, and I’d be especially surprised if the Rangers did anything of significance. But as both teams proved last year, all they need to do is get into the playoffs to make a run for the World Series — and to keep from joining that dubious quartet of clubs.