For just the third time since 2012, the teams with each league's best regular-season record met in the World Series. What if that happened every year?
For decades, that was how Major League Baseball worked. The best players on the best teams went from the top of the standings on the final day of the regular season directly to a yearly opportunity to write the October narrative in the World Series. With every addition to the postseason since it expanded to four teams in 1969, the odds of the best teams being the last two standing have gotten a little longer.