Are Baseball Seasons A Failure If You Don’t Win A World Series?

Winning the World Series is widely viewed as the only successful outcome for Major League Baseball teams in a given season. But should it be?

It's a question that's even more relevant as the 2024 MLB season officially starts early Wednesday morning with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres playing in South Korea. Ahead of the first game of the year, The Athletic spoke to several key members of the Dodgers organization about the expectations after signing Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and acquiring Tyler Glasnow. And they made it clear that they view anything other than a title as a failure.

In fact, that was a key part of their presentation to Ohtani when trying to convince him to sign in Los Angeles. Despite a remarkable run of regular season success under Guggenheim ownership, there's just the 2020 World Series to show for It.  "We’ve only done it once," said team president Stan Kasten to The Athletic. "And we need to do it more often than that."

Is that really a realistic goal though, in the modern era of professional baseball?

Phoenix - Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani slaps hands with first baseman Freddie Freeman (5) after hitting a two-run home run during the fifth inning against the Chicago White Sox at Camelback Ranch-Glendale on Feb. 27. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

World Series Expectations Aren't Realistic In 2024

Sure, big teams with big payrolls like the Dodgers, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies or Atlanta Braves all expect to win the World Series. And in the bygone era of postseason baseball, that might have been more realistic.

Until 1969, MLB teams only had to finish with the best record in their respective league to go to the World Series. The New York Yankees won 20 championships in just more than 40 years with that format, because, in large part, they were often the best team in the American League. But after the advent of playoff series preceding the World Series, things changed. Quickly. 

The more small sample size series you introduce into a format, the more randomness you add, and the harder you make it to win. The Yankees since the 1970's have made the postseason 29 times and won seven championships. With none since 2009. From the 1920's to the 1970's, they won 29 AL Pennants, and won 20 championships. 

It's a lot easier to win a title when you only have to win one series. 

Those days though, are far behind us. Not only did MLB add Wild Card teams in the 1990's, but now there are technically three per league. Instead of winning just one series to secure a championship, now teams have to win at least three of them. The years of Yankees-esque domination are gone, forever. 

Dynasties Are A Thing Of The Past

It's simply too hard to win; there's too much randomness, too much small sample size variation for teams to dominate an entire decade the way New York used to. 

So if that's the case, how should fans view success? 

The difficult, frustrating answer is regular season wins. There's nothing that can be done about the postseason format; the league seems uninterested in changing, and TV revenue has skyrocketed with more playoff games. 

There's nothing that can change the inherent randomness of a best-of-5 or best-of-7 series, other than giving the "better" team an automatic series lead before it starts. The best measure we have of how good a team actually is, is how well it performs in the regular season. 

It's the truest test of roster construction, depth, talent, and some measure of luck. It's not every year that the "best" team with the most underlying talent wins the most games, but it's a better proxy than which team happened to get lucky at the right time of year.

Few fans would argue that the 84-win Arizona Diamondbacks were the best team in baseball last year. Yet they were a few breaks away from winning the World Series. The Texas Rangers didn't even win their division, meaning they'd have missed the playoffs in any season before 1995. 

The Atlanta Braves outscored opponents by 231 runs, won 104 games, and got bounced after one miraculous win against the Phillies in the Division Series. Was that season a failure? Under the World Series or bust model, yes. Under the actual reality we live in, no.

Fans, the media and sports commentators have been spoiled by the NFL and even some college sports, where the best team wins the championship 40 percent to 50+ percent of the time. In MLB, the best team in the sport has a 12 percent to 15 percent chance of winning the World Series. Even at the start of the postseason, that rises to roughly 15 percent to 20 percent. 

How can something be a failure when you're expected to lose 80 percent to 85 percent of the time? 

Perception is hard to change, but unfortunately it has to. The old saying, "it's better to be lucky than good," has never been more true than it is in the current era of professional baseball.