ARLINGTON, Texas — This is the 24th season in a row that there will not be a repeat World Series champion, and Bruce Bochy knows firsthand how hard it is trying to win back-to-back titles — or even getting back to the playoffs the following season.
“I should know because I’m 0 for 4,” said Bochy, who is wrapping up his 27th season as a big league manager. “I’ll say it again, you start with how difficult it is to win a world championship. It’s really hard to do. To repeat that, a lot has to happen.”
Bochy and the reigning champion Texas Rangers won’t even be in the playoffs. They will finish with a losing record a year after the franchise’s first World Series title.
The New York Yankees were the last team to win consecutive championships, three in a row from 1998-2000. Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and the Bronx Bombers even made it back to the Fall Classic in 2001 when Arizona had a walk-off win in the deciding Game 7.
Only five teams have played in back-to-back World Series since then. The best championship run was that of the San Francisco Giants, who won three titles over five seasons (2010, 2012 and 2014) when Bochy was their manager. They also missed the postseason the following year each time.
Bochy had been retired for three years when the Rangers hired him and immediately won the World Series following six consecutive losing seasons.
After making the World Series in 2017 and 2018, the Los Angeles Dodgers finally ended a 32-year title drought by winning in it all during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
“Baseball is the most random championship to capture,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It is not always about the best roster, it is about the team that gets the hottest, clearly. … The best teams, in theory, aren’t always hoisting that trophy. That’s by design, as far as the playoff format.”
Only 12 of 30 teams make the playoffs since the field was expanded from 10 in 2022 with the addition of a third wild card in each league. The wild card became a best-of-three series instead of a single game, and the two top-seeded teams get a bye with a nearly week-long gap between games — not necessarily an advantage after the daily routine of a 162-game regular season.
Atlanta won the World Series in 2021, a year after losing to Los Angeles in Game 7 of the NL Championship Series. The Braves and the Dodgers were the National League’s top two seeds with byes the past two seasons — and both lost in the division series each time.
“The five days off we’ve had the last two years is not conducive to keeping things going,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “It is a tough thing to do. It is hard to win one obviously, but to back it up … I looked at ’20 and how close we were to having an opportunity to play in the World Series because I really liked our club then. We were a homer away from pulling that off.”
There have been multiple repeat champions in the NFL, NBA and NHL since that run by the Yankees nearly a quarter-century ago.
The Kansas City Chiefs are trying this season to be the first to win three consecutive Super Bowls. New England went back-to-back in 2004-05. The NFL sends 14 of its 32 teams to the playoffs, 44% of the total and more than than MLB (40%).
Half the NHL’s 32 teams make the playoffs, a two-month grind to determine the Stanley Cup champion. Including the NBA’s play-in tournament, two-thirds of those teams (20 of 30) are involved in a postseason that is essentially the same length as hockey.
There have been 16 different teams win titles since the Yankees’ dominating stretch, and five others have played in the Fall Classic.
The only managers other Bochy with multiple titles since 2001 are Tony La Russa (St. Louis in 2006 and 2011) and Terry Francona (Boston in 2004 and 2007). Houston is the only other team to win more than once, with A.J. Hinch in 2017 and Dusty Baker two years ago.
The Rangers are the 12th team since 2003 to miss the playoffs the year after being World Series champs. Texas has been in third place in the AL West since June 21, and below .500 a month longer than that in a season filled with injuries to the likes of Josh Jung, Evan Carter and World Series MVP shortstop Corey Seager and offensive struggles.
Texas is scoring about 4.2 runs a game after averaging nearly 5 1/2 last season. ALCS MVP Adolis García isn’t close to the 39 homers and 107 RBIs he had last year, leadoff hitter Marcus Semien is about 40 points below the .276 batting average he had and switch-hitting catcher Jonah Heim didn’t repeat his impressive offensive production.
“We just had to deal with some things this year that we couldn’t quite overcome,” Bochy said. “Every season takes a life of its own. We got the injuries (and) just our play too wasn’t quite as good, and we have to be honest about that.”
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AP Sports Writer Schuyler Dixon and AP freelance writer Bill Trocchi in Atlanta contributed to this report.
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