Another Major League Baseball season has come and gone, and although it took some twists and turns along the way it ended with an outcome that was not unexpected when it began: the Houston Astros are World Series champions. The Astros came up 2 wins short of the trophy in 2021, losing to the Atlanta Braves in the Fall Classic, but this time they got over the hump and Game 6 in Houston went their way against the Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday night.
Now it's time to turn our (very early) attention to the 2023 season. Will the Astros and Phillies make it back to the World Series? Can the perennially favored Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves restore order to the National League, or do the New York Mets have some playoff success up their sleeve?
We won't definitively know the answer to those questions for a long time, but with the 2022 campaign now in the rearview there is no reason why we can't start the discussion now.