For the fourth time in 10 years, Major League Baseball has a first-time champion. The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Tampa Bay Rays in this year's Fall Classic to clinch the franchise's first title. They join the 2017 Houston Astros, 2019 Washington Nationals, and 2023 Texas Rangers as first-time champions across the last decade.
That's a lot of new faces in the Fall Classic. Milwaukee's title leaves four teams without a World Series championship, including those same Rays. One team was guaranteed to come out of this World Series with its first title and the Brewers won out.
With the World Series complete, here is our authoritative ranking of the four ringless teams based on how close they are to winning their first-ever World Series. 2026 record: 58-104 (5th in NL West)2026 finish: Missed postseasonPennants: 2007 What do they have going for them? Coors Field is beautiful. In all seriousness, the Rockies' new front office is run by competent baseball people in president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta and general manager Josh Byrnes.
That's a pretty big step up from the friends-and-family crowd that ran the team previously. We saw some proof of concept too. A few pitchers on the staff, including Chase Dollander (who had UCL surgery in June), reshaped their arsenals this year in a way that suggests the Rockies are out of the Stone Age and getting caught up with modern analytics.
We're starting to see signs the franchise is moving in the right direction. What's holding them back? There just isn't enough talent throughout the organization.
Dollander, Cole Carrigg, Hunter Goodman, Kyle Karros, and TJ Rumfield are the only 2026 Rockies who wouldn't be out of place on a World Series contender, and Goodman will go into the offseason as a trade candidate. The farm system is ranked middle of the pack and then there's the whole Coors Field situation. The team's home environment is a competitive disadvantage.
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