MLB playoffs 2023 - Passan's team breakdowns, World Series pick - ESPN

In baseball, the best team doesn't always win the championship. In fact, it rarely does. Over the 54 seasons since MLB went to divisions, only 14 times has the team with the top record won the World Series.

Baseball is egalitarian enough that World Series winners from the wild-card round are no longer an anomaly, and the knowledge of this gives hope to each of the dozen teams that earned a playoff berth. They want to believe they can be the next 2006 St. Louis Cardinals, championship winners at 83-78.

Every team can proffer a good argument on why it's going to win this season. And in that spirit, we've made that case for all 12 teams, listed in ascending order of regular-season wins. This is Why Your Team Can Win the World Series, In 200 Words or Less — followed by my round-by-round predictions of the entire 2023 MLB playoff bracket to prognosticate which of the dozen actually will win it.

Why the Arizona Diamondbacks can win the World Series:

Lest you think an 84-win team couldn't possibly run through a National League filled with powerhouses built to succeed in October, consider all of the things that Arizona does well. The Diamondbacks are elite defensively. They're the best base-stealing team among the postseason field. Thanks to Corbin Carroll, Christian Walker, Ketel Marte and Lourdes Gurriel Jr., they feature enough power to score in a homer-heavy October.

The two-headed starting-pitching monster of Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly kept the D-backs afloat during an up-and-down season, and if they can survive the wild-card round, Gallen will be lined up to go twicein the division series. Before those two get their chance to pitch, highly touted rookie Brandon Pfaadt — who had three scoreless outings among his final