World Series 2024: Surprise stars who drove Dodgers, Yankees - ESPN

The 2024 World Series might just be the red carpet edition: from Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts to Aaron Judge and Juan Soto. Heck, even Giancarlo Stanton is back, like John Travolta in «Pulp Fiction.»

But we've all watched enough postseason baseball to know that it's not always the stars who will determine the winner of the Fall Classic. World Series MVPs over the past decade include Jeremy Pena, Jorge Soler and Steve Pearce. As much as we hope Ohtani and Judge step up now that they're finally on the biggest stage, the supporting characters will be just as important in deciding this matchup between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees. That's part of the beauty of baseball.

Let's look at some of the surprise stars this October and how they helped the Dodgers and Yankees get here.

Key moment: Combined for 4⅔ scoreless innings in the clinching Game 5 win over the Cleveland Guardians in the ALCS

How do you build the back end of a bullpen from scratch? Incredibly, here's how the Yankees did it:

• Since the end of the 2022 season, Weaver has been: put on waivers by the Kansas City Royals, signed by the Seattle Mariners, let go by the Mariners, signed with the Cincinnati Reds, released by the Reds, signed by the Mariners, selected by the Yankees off waivers from the Mariners, re-signed by the Yankees as a free agent. That seems like the standard definition of a journeyman right-hander.

• The Yankees acquired Cousins, who earlier in his career had been released and waived by the Washington Nationals and Milwaukee Brewers, from the Chicago White Sox for cash at the end of March.

• The Yankees signed Hill on June 20, after the White Sox released him.

Yes, to make things clear, the worst team in modern MLB history, with a