The two biggest markets in baseball have been on a collision course all season and are now meeting in the world series. The Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers are meeting in the 2024 world series for the 12th time. The Dodgers last won the world series in 2020 during the COVID season. The Yankees franchise have won the most world series titles with 27 but haven’t won it all since 2009 and missed the postseason last year and fans have been advocating for manager Aaron Boone to be fired. But owner Brian Cashman refused and made a major key pickup in free agency picking up one of the best hitters in the MLB and he would be the best if it wasn’t for one of his teammates and a player on the Dodgers we will talk about later. The Yankees signed Juan Soto from the San Diego Padres for a one year 31 million dollar deal and has had a career year and has been one of the best on his team and one of the top three hitters in all of baseball. But he might not even be the best hitter on his team because his teammate Aaron Judge has had a historical season putting up a .322 average and 58 home runs with 144 RBIs both helping the Yankees earn a 94 and 68 record and becoming the American league champions.
The Dodgers are star studded with their lineup headed by Shohei Ohtani who is putting up ridiculous numbers at the plate and might be the best hitter in all of baseball. He was the first player ever to have a 50/50 season which is when a player hits for 50 or more home runs and 50 or more stolen bases. The Dodgers also have two other former MVPs in first baseman Freddie Freeman and outfielder Mookie Betts making the first three hitters in their lineup three of the top hitters in the league the fire power in both lineups might be one of the best we have seen in recent memory in a world series, but the series won’t be high scoring affairs necessarily both the Yankees and Dodgers have some of the best pitching in the league. The Yankees game one starter is set to be former Cy Young award winner Gerrit Cole who has been disappointing this season but still gives the Yankees 5 good innings and gives them a chance to win, and gives way to their bullpen that is also very deep. Led by Luke Weaver with a 2.61 ERA,and Clay Holmes with a 3.52 ERA . The Yankees bullpen as a whole has posted a 3.27 ERA in the postseason performing their regular season 3.74 ERA. The Dodgers have a very limited starting rotation with only two starters that can go deep into games in Jack Flaherty, the game one starter, and Yoshinobu Yamamotto. They do have a third starter with Walker Buehler, but Buehler has Missed the last season and a half and has been limited in his innings this year. He started a game in the NLCS against the Mets and looked like his old self, setting his season high with 15 total swings and misses. Buehler will be a big part of whether or not the Dodgers will win the series since he will be able to provide a lift to the rotation and keep the bullpen arms fresh throughout the series.
My keys for each team’s success in this series, for the Dodgers, is their lineup and bullpen. The Dodgers have a much deeper bullpen compared to the Yankees and has been a strength for them all year and will be the separator between the two teams. The Dodgers lineup this postseason has been very streaky depending on how they start the game the games the offense was the best was when they put up multiple runs before the 3rd inning and when they don’t their offense has looked sluggish the whole game.
` The keys for the Yankees will be the line-up and how their starters Carlos Rodon and Gerrit Cole perform. If they are able to go deep into games they can save their bullpen arms and try to avoid using high leverage guys for multiple innings. For the Yankees lineup the whole year they have relied on the long ball and as we have seen in the past it’s hard to win a world series with a boom or bust line up like the Yankees. As we saw in the ALCS they would fall behind and in the late innings would come through with big home runs but relying on late inning long ball heroics isn’t conducive to consistency but if they are able to keep up that style of offense for one more series then they could be crown the world series champs. 
My pick for the 2024 World Series champion in the Los Angeles Dodgers, in 6 games. In my opinion I trust the Dodgers pitching a little more because both the starters for the Yankees in Carlos Rodon and Gerrit Cole have been disappointing this year. While they have both been Cy Young caliber pitchers in the last few years they have consistently shown it. The Dodgers lineup in my opinion is a little bit deeper and isn’t any good match-upsfor any pitcher.
