Major League Baseball has worked very hard over the past few decades to make the outcome of a baseball game more predictable and more accurate. Wins vs opponent, batting average vs Pitcher, defensive WAR (wins against replacement), baserunning, win percentage on the road on a Saturday night. Instant replay, manager’s challenges, home run replay challenges. Cameras are everywhere, laptops are everywhere, if there is even a slight chance that a call is made on the field incorrectly, bells and whistles and chimes and rockets light up to get the call analyzed and potentially corrected. The human error in baseball, specifically in officiating, is all but extinct, in my opinion.

So, it has been really fun reading all of the prognosticators, experts, bloggers, former MLB players, journalists try to predict what will happen when the New York Yankees take on the Los Angeles Dodgers in what most are calling a historic matchup in the 2024 World Series. As info, this Yankee team has never faced this Dodger team in the World Series. These two franchises haven’t met in the World Series since 1981. None of the current LAD or NYY players were even born in 1981. And just some of the managers and coaches on the two benches are even old enough to remember that Series. So, other than creating drama, you can pretty much throw out the history of the two teams facing each other.

You have all the hitters vs pitchers matchup stats. You have the stars on both teams, ready to showcase why they are worth $900 billion a year. You have the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles, where I am sure 90% of the Dodger Stadium stands will be filled with Hollywood types just dying to be on camera with their new Dodgers hats. You have the New York faithful, who will show up with their obnoxious attitudes and tough guy personas in the new, Little League dimensional style Yankee Stadium. If you play this one on paper, it is a draw most of the time. The teams are stacked with talent and wildcards and aces and closers and so on. However, there are still some things you cannot predict about a baseball game. Things that I believe will tip the scale to the victor, the one who can control the unpredictable forces in baseball. Factors like these:

• Nerves – Stars like Mookie Betts, Juan Soto, and Freddie Freeman plus many of the current LAD players (2020 team) all have World Series experience, and wins I might add. Stars like Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge plus most of the NY Yankee roster have no experience in the World Series. How will nerves affect performance? Will the heat of the moment and the chance to be a hero impair the JUDGEment of a player? Will the pressure to perform at a historic level cause a player to swing at a lousy pitch out of the strike zone? Maybe get a little too aggressive at the plate looking for that signature World Series moment? Or drop an easy fly ball in center field that will be costly. One cannot predict the nervousness of a player days before a game. This one will have to be resolved as play commences.
• Bad Hops – the expert grounds crew of each team will be extra diligent in their work around the mound, in the infield dirt, in front of home plate, in the outfield grass, in the foul territory areas, and probably every other square inch of each ballfield. The game is funny sometimes, a bad hop can come out of nowhere to change the outcome of a game. A tiny pebble placed in an inconvenient spot by Mother Nature could cause a baseball to shift one inch up or to the right, causing an error in the field. A tiny divot from a game several weeks ago could cause a routine ground ball to the outfield to somehow skip passed the outfielder, turning a single into a double, or worse. A 55 foot curveball, normally handled by an skilled catcher, hits a sour patch in the dirt and stays down instead of popping up to the glove, resulting in a passed ball, and perhaps a game altering shift on the bases, maybe even a run. We cannot predict bad hops, they happen during the randomness that is the baseball universe.
• Non-contact injuries – this one is the hardest to predict unless you know the player’s weaknesses ahead of the games. If a player has been limping up to and into the Series, perhaps that player will fall to an injury because of the additional strain of running hard to beat an infield hit out. Or, if a pitcher has had a tired arm and has been skipped in the rotation a few times recently, including the playoffs, perhaps the stress of trying to get outs may push a rotator cuff tendon to finally snap. How about those that are apparently healthy? No bumps or bruises to speak of. They have played a majority of the games in the regular season, and haven’t missed a game in the playoffs. Their swing looks good, their arm looks good, their baserunning has been spot on. You have to remember, these players have been playing baseball since March. That is 8 months of physical activity on a professional level, not to mention all the travel, pre-game activities, warm-ups, etc. Non-contact injuries are nearly impossible to predict, but one injury to a key member of either team could be a deciding force in the outcome of the Series.

There are many other non-predictable factors that can push the needle one way or another. The wind in Southern California blows differently than the wind in the Bronx. How will outfielders adjust to the swirling vs driving winds to catch important fly balls. What about the strike zone of each home plate umpire? Sure, we can look at the tendencies of the assigned ump – he calls the high strike, he calls the outside strike, he calls the most accurate games – but when it comes down to the actual game, who knows. At this moment, that is one of the few human elements left without a replay challenge. Oh, don’t worry, that’s coming shortly. How about recent news of the passing of a legend, speaking here of LAD great Fernando Valenzuela? Will the LAD play harder to cherish his memory? Teams have rallied before on causes, a member of the team getting sick, etc. These forces cannot be predicted, but somehow could shift the balance to crown a victor.

If we are lucky, it will be a clean series with great pitching, timely hitting, stars shining on the field, very few replays to slow the pace of play down, stars caught on camera in the stands, great weather for both LA and NY, and a handful of baseball stories to tell this and the next generation of baseball fans. If you want my prediction on who will actually win the Series, I am taking the Los Angeles fans. They get to see every game at or around 5pm PST, live or on their TV/Mobile Device/Computer and will most likely watch every inning of every game. Those of us in the Eastern Time Zone will have to wait until at least 8:08 every night to start watching. And for some of us, bedtime comes well before the final out. So, Dodger fans, living in Southern California or those watching the games on Pacific Coast Time, you are the real winners.