A worldwide pandemic, labor struggle, expanded playoffs, and two Game 7s later, and baseball has its two pennant winners in the Los Angeles Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays. In the end, what happened was perhaps the least expected outcome of all: the two best regular season teams actually got to the World Series. That hasn’t happened since the 2013 World Series, which I will mention no more.
I thought an interesting exercise would be to look at both teams and see how the players that got them there were acquired. Yes, we all know the obvious one, but my purpose is not at all intended as a workaround to criticize the Cardinals.