Hunt and Peck

Predicting which team will win the World Series - A Hunt and Peck

Who will win?

By lil_scooter93 Oct 19, 2020, 2:00pm EDT

National League Championship Series Game 7: Atlanta Braves v. Los Angeles Dodgers

The 2020 MLB has been weird. Through the weirdness, though, baseball has prevailed and on Tuesday evening the World Series begins. The final teams this year are the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Dodgers have no won the World Series since 1988, but have been building a dynasty in recent years. They have won the National League West every year since 2013 and have made their third World Series birth since then. In 2017 they lost to The Houston Astros in seven games. The Astros would then be involved in a huge cheating scandal after the 2019 season ended. The following year the Dodgers made the World Series again, losing to the Red Sox in five games. The Dodgers have once again blew past the rest of the league with the best record in baseball at 43-17. Will they finally win it all?

Close behind the Dodgers with second best record in the league was the Tampa Bay Rays at 40-20. Unlike the Dodgers, the Rays have a less storied franchise. The team was formed in 1998 as the Devil Rays and since then have yet to win a World Series. They have won the AL East three times since 1998 (2008, 2010, 2020) and have made the playoffs six times. This will be their second World Series appearance and their first since 2008. The Rays lost that series to the Philadelphia Phillies in five games.

By wRC+ the Dodgers have the edge in hitting according to Fangraphs at 122 to 109. The Dodgers have the hitting advantage too according Fangraphs FIP calculation at 3.79 to 3.97 and ERA at 3.02 to 3.56. Among all the teams, these two have been the best, though and when the best goes up against the best, it seems like anything can happen.