The 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks were a team few predicted to make the playoffs, coming off an 88-loss season the previous year. They managed to squeeze into the 12-team postseason with an 84-78 record and rode that momentum all the way to the World Series.
They swept the 92-win Milwaukee Brewers in the wild-card series, swept the 100-win Los Angeles Dodgers in three games in the division series, and then beat the Philadelphia Phillies in seven games in the NLCS, becoming just the second team to reach the Fall Classic after posting a negative run differential during the regular season.
Were they the best team in the National League over 162 games? No, that would be the 104-win Atlanta Braves, who were knocked out in the division series by the Phillies for the second year in a row. But the D-backs were the best when it mattered most. That's why I call MLB's postseason the great equalizer. All the advantages that a large payroll might bring during the regular season are minimized in October, when it's all about winning short series and getting hot at the right time.
"The one thing I can say is there's a reason every team makes the playoffs," Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos said at spring training last week. "You're facing good teams. Whoever wins, deserves to win. ... If you make the playoffs after 162, you deserve to be there."
The postseason format creates opportunity for a surprise team like the Diamondbacks. After all, they were doing something right in order to make the playoffs and subsequently reach the World Series. It also points to the proposition that we might see another surprise team in 2024 -- somebody that nobody is forecasting right now as a World Series team.
So now it's time to have some fun trying to predict who that team could be, based on the recipe that led to Arizona's surprising success.
We should note that this exercise is not to ignore the Rangers, who went from 68-94 in 2022 to World Series champs the following year. They certainly qualify as a surprise winner, but they spent a lot of money in free agency in order to do so.