The World Series is where legends are made. Even the most dreadful season can be saved with one moment of magic in the Fall Classic, and for the last 25 years, the biggest stars in baseball have risen the occasion and cemented their names in baseball history forever. But what exactly makes a great World Series player beyond the big hits and clutch saves?
To answer that question, we put together our dream 21st century World Series roster, with 26 players across the American League and National League, and some of the names that made — and didn't make — it might surprise you. Starting Lineup "Señor Octubre" himself. Or, as Carlos Ruiz is more commonly known, Chooch.
Ruiz was the catcher on five-consecutive Phillies’ postseason teams, from 2007 through 2011, which included back-to-back World Series appearances in 2008 and 2009. While Philadelphia lost the ‘09 Fall Classic to the Yankees, you can’t blame Ruiz for any of it: he batted .353/.488/.707 with seven extra-base hits, five RBIs, six runs and a walk-off single in Game 3 of the ‘08 World Series against the Rays. Freddie Freeman helped the Braves win the 2021 World Series by batting .318/.360/.636, which is plenty impressive on his own.
The 2024 World Series with the Dodgers, though, that’s where Freeman made his mark on history: his 12 RBIs are tied for the most in a single Fall Classic, and he bashed the first-ever walk-off grand slam in World Series history in Game 1 against the Yankees — for the entire series, he slugged an even 1.000. Freeman then won Game 3 of the 2025 World Series against the Blue Jays with another home run, becoming the first-ever player with two World Series walk offs, and that shot also tied him for the 10th-most World Series dingers in history with seven. Chase Utley failed to record a single hit in the 2017 World Series while with the Dodgers, but that just reiterated how good he was in his two previous trips to the Fall Classic as a member of the Phillies.
Utley picked up three hits — two of them home runs — in the 2008 series, then added another five in the 2009 World Series. In 15 games, despite batting .200, Utley got on base at a .357 clip and slugged .689 with seven homers, tied for 10th among all players in World Series history and ranked first among second basemen. If it feels like, in 2011, David Freese had the most impactful World Series ever thanks to his Game 6 efforts — a two-out, two-strike, game-tying two-run triple in the bottom of the ninth for the Cardinals against the Rangers, followed by a walk-off solo homer to lead off the 11th and tie the series up 3-3 — then it’s not just you: the numbers back it up.
His 2011 Win Probability Added — which measures changes in win expectancy — is the highest-ever for a single Fall Classic. On top of that, Freese possesses a career .296/.406/.556 line in 64 World Series plate appearances across 2011, 2013 and 2018 — his stellar performance went beyond just one historic game. While Derek Jeter played on seven World Series teams in his career, he doesn’t get extra credit for that here.
He also doesn’t need it, though: four of those seven happened in the 21st century, in 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2009, and Jeter hit .324/.361/.510 over 109 plate appearances within them — all nine of his career World Series doubles, good for third all-time, came in those four years. That actually undersells it for the Yankees’ captain, as he had just a .438 OPS in the 2001 World Series: in the other three, Jeter managed OPS of 1.344, .854 and .947 respectively, with New York winning two of those three. Quantity and quality.
Few players in MLB history have had a better World Series career than George Springer. In 2017, 2019 and 2025, Springer dominated to the tune of a combined .351/.444/.727 over 19 games and 90 plate appearances. He’s tied for 10th in World Series home runs (7) and ninth in doubles (8), with 17 runs and 12 RBIs.
In the 2017 World Series, he hit .379/.471/1.000 with a record 29 total bases in a single World Series, while tying for the most homers with five — even with this performance, it took the Astros seven games to defeat the Dodgers. Unsurprisingly, Springer won World Series MVP honors. Here’s how you know Barry Bonds was feeling it in 2002: despite playing in just one World Series with the Giants — and San Francisco losing to the Angels — here he is on this list of the century’s best.
In 30 plate appearances, Bonds posted the highest career slugging (1.294), on-base percentage (.471) and OPS (1.994), and is first in walks in a single World Series with 13. He hit .471 in the at-bats where he wasn’t walked, with four homers, two doubles and 22 total bases. The only thing that kept him from winning series MVP was the Angels, which beat the Giants in seven.
Hideki Matsui was merely pretty good in his initial World Series action in 2003. The Yankees DH was historic in his second go of things in 2009, though: the 35-year-old hit .615/.643/1.385, earning a 2.027 OPS that ranks third all-time. He hit three home runs, including a two-run home run in a decisive Game 6 to give the Yankees a lead they would not give up.
Matsui drove in six of New York’s seven runs in Game 6, tying Bobby Richardon’s record for a single game, and put up all those numbers despite playing only in New York’s home games — in 2009, the DH rule was only active in AL parks. Where to start with David Ortiz. He’s sixth in career average thanks to batting .455 across 14 games and three World Series — his .688 mark in the 2013 Fall Classic is No.
2 all-time. He ranks second in on-base percentage both for a career (.576) and season (.760 in 2013), fifth in slugging (.795) for his career and eighth for a single season (1.188, 2013) and fourth in career World Series OPS, at 1.372. For all the huge hits in the ALDS and ALCS in Ortiz’s career, the World Series is actually where he’s shined the brightest, and it led the Red Sox to three world championships in three tries in his career.
Madison Bumgarner isn’t just the best starting pitcher of the 21st-century World Series — he might be the best the league has ever seen in that setting. Bumgarner allowed the fewest hits per nine (3.5), is tied for ninth in lowest walk rate — a combination that earned him the lowest WHIP in a World Series career, at 0.528 — is on the short list of pitchers with a shutout in the World Series, and has the highest championship win probability added in World Series history. His 0.25 ERA across 36 innings is the lowest for a career, and he never lost a World Series game in five chances.
Hitting isn’t what won the World Series three times in five years for the Giants — Madison Bumgarner was. Bench Juan Soto will turn 28 during the 2026 World Series, and yet, he’s already made a name for himself in the Fall Classic. As a 20-year-old in 2019 with the Nationals, he hit .333/.438/.741 with three homers, 6 runs and 7 RBIs in seven games against the Astros, helping Washington to the franchise’s first-ever World Series championship.
Then, with the Yankees in 2024, Soto slugged .563 with a .522 on-base percentage. You can’t blame Soto for New York losing to the Dodgers: The Phillies won the 2008 World Series with more than a little help from Jayson Werth, who hit .444/.583/.778 with three doubles, a homer and three steals in five games. He wasn’t quite as good in the 2009 championship round, but that’s all relative: Werth still batted .263/.417/.579 against the Yankees, bashing a pair of homers, drawing five walks, and driving in and scoring three runs a piece in those six contests.
Yadier Molina wasn’t a bad hitter in his career by any means: across 8,554 regular-season plate appearances, he hit .277/.327/.399, which had him a little below-average overall but better than that for a catcher — and he was a fantastic backstop. In the World Series, however, Molina’s bat usually rose to the occasion: he’s a career .328/.395/.403 hitter across 21 World Series games, and that’s despite going hitless in his first effort as a 21-year-old against the Red Sox in 2004. Corey Seager’s World Series debut in 2017 didn’t go all that well, with the 23-year-old shortstop batting just .222/.290/.370 in seven games against the Astros — that’s the kind of performance that helped Houston sneak by Los Angeles.
He more than made up for it the next two times out, however. In 2020, still with L.A., Seager hit .400/.556/.700 with two homers, seven runs and five RBIs against the Rays, and in 2023 with the Rangers hit .286/.375/.762 with another three long balls; his career World Series line is now .294/.402/.588. Most San Francisco Giants didn’t hit in the World Series, even as the team won three of them in a span of five seasons.
Third baseman Pablo Sandoval did hit, though, and he hit a lot. Panda bashed the ball to the tune of .426/.460/.702, with three homers, four doubles, nine runs and eight RBIs across 50 plate appearances, helping the Giants to two of those three rings. Thanks to picking up nine hits in the 2014 series, Sandoval is tied for the ninth-most hits in a single World Series, and that was technically the lesser of two performances: Sandoval hit .500/.529/1.125 in 2012, but that was a four-game sweep of the Tigers, so he had "just" eight hits.
A .270/.349/.500 line across three World Series is excellent, and thanks to logging eight doubles in 18 games and 83 plate appearances, Justin Turner is tied for ninth all-time in World Series two-baggers. The only knock against Turner is that the bulk of this production came in 2020 — he was a relative no-show in 2017 against the Astros, and had a very good, but not standout .801 OPS against the Red Sox in 2018, but in 2020 he hit .320/.346/.720 with eight hits, four of them doubles and two others homers to help lead the Dodgers to their first World Series title since 1988. Alex Rodriguez played in 76 postseason games over the years, with the Mariners at the start of his career and then with the team he helped sink in the postseason as a rookie, the Yankees.
New York reached just one World Series with A-Rod around, however, but he delivered whenever given the opportunity. Rodriguez batted .250/.423/.550 with a .973 OPS, three doubles and a home run — four of his five hits in six games were for extra bases, and he drove in six runs, stole a base and drew three walks, too. Rodriguez was also responsible for two of the biggest plays of the entire series, per win probability added: in Game 3, with the Yankees down 3-0, Rodriguez hit a two-run homer off Cole Hamels in what eventually became an 8-5 victory, and in Game 4, tied 4-4, A-Rod hit one of those two-baggers to drive in the game-winning run against closer Brad Lidge.
Pitchers Curt Schilling’s worst World Series performance this century came in 2007, when he allowed one earned run over 5 ⅓ innings to the Rockies while picking up the W. That was inferior to his 2004 start in a different Red Sox sweep, in which Schilling went six innings only allowing an unearned run to the Cardinals. Since the Diamondbacks had to work a little harder than that to win the World Series in 2001, Schilling had more chances to flex in his finest hours: three starts totaling 21 ⅓ innings, with 26 strikeouts — the fifth-most in a single World Series — and just four runs allowed, a 1.69 ERA.
It’s incredible that Schilling was so good in the 2000s that he allowed fewer runs over five starts and 32 ⅔ innings than he did in his first World Series appearance in 1993 with the Phillies. Not that it counts for our purposes here, but just for posterity: that one poor start was followed up with a complete-game shutout. There’s the narrative, of course.
Jon Lester missed the end of his rookie 2006 season after it was discovered he had cancer, returned halfway through the 2007 season, then was the winning pitcher in the deciding game of the World Series for the Red Sox. There are also the numbers: this was Boston’s second World Series championship of the decade — the one that proved there wouldn’t be another 86-year wait in between titles — and he’d get them a third in 10 seasons with two starts and a 0.59 ERA in the 2013 Fall Classic. Lester would end up on the 2016 Cubs, too, and posted a 3.68 ERA over two starts and three appearances, helping Chicago to its first championship since 1908 — narrative and numbers.
All told, Lester produced a 1.77 ERA over 35 ⅔ World Series innings, and was part of three winning teams in three tries. Admittedly, Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s first World Series experience doesn’t jump off the page. It was a great start, but it was just one of them, with one run allowed in 6 ⅓ innings.
In the 2025 sequel, though, Yamamoto was the clear star for Los Angeles: he started two games and relieved in another, with the relief appearance 2 ⅔ scoreless, one-hit innings in Game 7 to help bring back-to-back titles to the Dodgers. Before Game 7? Yamamoto threw a complete-game in his first start in Game 2, allowing only one run, then managed another six one-run innings in Game 6.
That’s right: one day after throwing six innings, Yamamoto came back for 2 ⅔ more. He won three of L.A.’s four games and was, understandably, named MVP for his efforts: he’s now thrown 24 World Series innings with a 1.13 ERA. The most significant knock you can make against Gerrit Cole is that his teams haven’t won the World Series.
That hasn’t really been his fault, though. While with the Astros and against the Nationals in 2019, Cole started Game 1 and lost while allowing five runs, but he bounced back in Game 5 with one run in seven innings. In 2024 against the Dodgers — now with the Yankees — Cole shoved in two starts.
He allowed one run in six frames in Game 1 without issuing a walk only for New York to lose in extras. In a decisive Game 5 the Yankees’ defense faltered, and he allowed five unearned runs in the fifth inning thanks in part to two errors. For his part, he has a 2.36 ERA in 26 ⅔ innings, with 25 strikeouts against seven walks and just 19 hits allowed.
Four World Series starts and three wins — earned wins, too. Chris Carpenter took the mound for the Cardinals in 2004 following six middling, injury-filled years with the Blue Jays, and almost instantaneously transformed into a top-of-the-rotation arm in St. Louis.
It wasn’t actually instant, though: the Cardinals signed him in December 2002, but he didn’t make it back to the majors in 2003 thanks to more arm trouble. He missed pitching in the 2004 World Series against the Red Sox, but was there for 2006 against the Tigers with a scoreless eight-inning gem, then in 2011 made three starts against the Rangers, in which he logged 19 innings and allowed just six runs. Carpenter wrapped his career with a 2.00 ERA in 27 innings and four World Series starts, as well as two rings.
At just 23 years old, Josh Beckett had already made a name for himself on baseball’s biggest stage. The wild-card-winning Marlins, in their second-ever World Series, took on the juggernaut Yankees and won. And they did so in no small part because of Beckett, who made two starts totaling 16 ⅓ innings with 19 strikeouts against five walks, and just eight hits and two total runs allowed.
He won World Series MVP for his efforts, then ended up back there again in 2007 with the Red Sox, where he made one start in the four-game series, giving up a single run in seven dominant frames. Across two World Series, Beckett managed a 1.16 ERA and more strikeouts (28) than innings (23 ⅓.) His 10.8 strikeouts per nine is the third-best in World Series history. Maybe an unlikely name compared to some of these other heavyweights, but Walker Buehler has been as good as almost anyone else come World Series time.
With the Dodgers, he threw seven scoreless in the 2018 World Series against the Red Sox, then followed that up with a 10-strikeout, one-run start against the Rays in 2020’s Game 3. Buehler would pitch in two games in 2024’s World Series — one start, one relief appearance — picking up the dub in Game 3 against the Yankees and then the save in the clinching Game 5: across six combined frames, he didn’t allow a run and limited the Yankees to four total baserunners. The only thing keeping Buehler from the third-best World Series ERA ever is falling one inning short of qualifying for that list.
Tim Lincecum was a key starter for the 2010 Giants, winning both of his starts in that World Series against the Rangers while allowing five runs in 13 ⅔ innings. He would not make another World Series start despite the Giants getting there on two more occasions, but instead shifted to the bullpen for both of those series. He had loads of success in extended relief, too: in 2012, he threw 4 ⅔ innings out of the pen in two appearances without allowing a run, then extended that streak into 2014, with another 1 ⅔ scoreless frames.
Across three World Series, 20 innings and five appearances, Lincecum’s ERA sits at 2.25 with 23 strikeouts against five walks and 11 mostly scattered hits. Closers, as far as World Series success goes, tend to be fleeting. A World Series here or there, rarely a return appearance, and even rarer that more than one goes well.
Mariano Rivera, unsurprisingly, is the major exception of the century. His career 0.99 ERA over 36 ⅓ innings — more than plenty of starters managed in their own World Series careers — ranks ninth all-time, and while three of those World Series occurred in the 90s, there was plenty leftover for the aughts. Of those 36 ⅓ total innings, 20 ⅓ came in 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2009, with Rivera producing a 1.33 ERA and six saves in that decade-spanning stretch.
Even a diminished version of Rivera is a very obviously comparative thing, and one that dominated.
