In baseball, no one player can win or lose a championship: This isn’t the NBA. Every roster spot is its own cog, every matchup is just one man against another man — you can’t hit a six-run homer. Neither Ted Williams nor Barry Bonds, we remind you, won a World Series.
But one player still can make a huge difference in a series, which we have seen throughout this postseason. The same will be true in the World Series, which starts Friday night in Toronto, with the Blue Jays hosting the defending champion Dodgers.
Here’s a look at four players on each team who could prove the most important in this Series, and we’ve broken them down into four categories:
Dodgers: DH/SP Shohei Ohtani
Is it possible to say anything about Ohtani that hasn’t been said? I don’t know, but you can be certain that over the next fortnight, every baseball writer and commentator on the planet is going to try to find out. It’s actually sort of amusing that heading into Ohtani’s otherworldly performance in the NLCS Game 4 clincher, one of the primary Dodgers narratives of the offseason was that he had been slumping at the plate. (He really did look more out of sorts than he had all year.)
It’s fair to say Ohtani has busted out of that slump. When we write these little sections about each player, we focus on the difference they can make in a best-of-seven series: A guy hits a big homer at the right time, he steals a base in a key moment, he tosses five innings in a deciding game. Each of these factors would earn their own section. Well, Shohei does all of these things himself. We’re only giving him this one section, same as everyone else, just to be fair. But he’s really two stars (at least) in one, and that remains an advantage Los Angeles has over everyone else.
Blue Jays: 1B Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
It was a nice touch that both LCS MVP Awards went to the winning team’s biggest star: Ohtani in the NL and Guerrero in the AL. Just add one more line to their eventual Hall of Fame résumés. When Guerrero signed his extension in April, it set the Blue Jays on their current path, and one of the best moments after Toronto won ALCS Game 7 on Monday came when Tom Verducci asked Guerrero if this was what he imagined when he signed, and he simply nodded and said, “Yes.”
He is on an all-time postseason tear right now, hitting .442 and leading everyone with six homers, particularly impressive because he had been 3-for-22 (.136) in his three postseason series heading into the year. He is the face of this team and, really, the face of baseball in Canada. If the Blue Jays win this Fall Classic, there will be more statues of him erected than you can count.
Category 2: The Starting Pitchers
Dodgers: LHP Blake Snell
Snell, when healthy, has always been a great pitcher. You don’t win two Cy Young Awards without being something special. But is it possible he has never been better than he is right now? Snell has had a history of walking guys — one of the most impressive aspects of his genius has always been that he was so good at pitching around the walks — but now he’s not even doing that. He didn’t walk a single batter in his eight-inning masterpiece in Game 1 of the NLCS against the Brewers.
Snell has also given up just two runs and six hits in 21 postseason innings, and he has struck out 28 batters. Basically, he’s pitching like Mariano Rivera, except as a starter. Snell will start Game 1 and figures to start Game 5 of this Series, and if it goes seven, you can expect him to see work in that final game as well. If he doesn’t let up, the Blue Jays essentially have to win four of the five games he doesn’t pitch. Good luck.
Blue Jays: RHP Trey Yesavage
Six games. Six games! Yesavage has pitched in exactly six MLB games in his career, and three of them have come in the past 2 1/2 weeks. One of the quiet trends of this postseason has been young pitchers with big arms being entrusted with some of the most stressful postseason moments, and no one has been a better indicator of this than Yesavage, who has worn five uniforms this year alone: Dunedin, Vancouver, New Hampshire, Buffalo and now Toronto … in the World Series.
At first, it looked like the Blue Jays’ No. 1 prospect might be a multi-innings bullpen arm this postseason, but Yesavage has been thrust into the starting rotation, with mostly smashing results. But this is the World Series. And he is just 22 years old. And it is the Dodgers on the other side. Eventually he’s going to realize the situation he finds himself in, right?
Category 3: The Relievers
Dodgers: RHP Roki Sasaki
Sasaki has had six overwhelmingly dominant appearances this postseason, in just about the most pressure-packed situations possible. In those six appearances, he has thrown 7 1/3 innings, given up two hits, struck out six and walked none. His splitter seems to be a magic pitch that, when it’s on, is essentially unhittable. And then there was that one appearance. That was Game 1 of the NLCS, after Snell’s brilliance in Milwaukee, where Sasaki, suddenly, was extremely vulnerable, walking two hitters, giving up a ringing double and a run, and eventually having to be pulled for Blake Treinen.
Sasaki recovered to have two appearances after that in which he had no problem at all, back to his previous untouchable self. The Blue Jays need to hope they get one (or two!) of those traces of fallibility from Sasaki, because the combination of Los Angeles’ starters and Sasaki has proven too much to overcome. If Sasaki wobbles, though, the Dodgers’ bullpen outside of him has been their weak spot. If the Jays can get to that mushy middle, they have a chance.
Blue Jays: RHP Louis Varland
One is somewhat tempted to go with Mason Fluharty, Eric Lauer or Brendon Little here, since they are the only left-handers on this pitching staff — the rotation is entirely right-handed — and Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy all swing left-handed. But the most important reliever for Toronto this postseason has been Varland, a Trade Deadline acquisition from the Twins that the Blue Jays have been using relentlessly. He pitched in 23 games after the trade, almost half of the team’s total, and he has only gotten one game of rest this October. (Of the Jays’ 11 postseason games, Varland has pitched in 10 of them.)
You can see why manager John Schneider keeps turning to him: He has been excellent, though Cal Raleigh did get him for a homer in ALCS Game 7. The Jays are very much looking for every arm they can find, but Varland has steadied them throughout this postseason. They would not currently be in the World Series without him, and they undoubtedly will try to ride him all the way to the finish line.
Category 4: The Wild Cards
Dodgers: LF Kiké Hernández
No matter how good the Dodgers are, no matter how their season is going, no matter how their roster is constructed, they always end up finding a place for Hernández — and they always end up relying on him. Hernández had the worst season of his career at the plate in 2025, hitting just .203 in 93 games, but like his team as a whole, he’s been at his best in October. The 12-year veteran has come up with all sorts of clutch hits for the Dodgers, particularly in the NLCS, and he’s just someone every Dodger fan feels comfortable with at the plate when the lights are brightest.
The Dodgers’ bench is weaker than it has been in years past, and while Kiké might be pulled for a defensive replacement late, he will take some vitally important at-bats in this Fall Classic. Here’s a key metric: How often is he on base when Ohtani comes to the plate?
Blue Jays: SS Bo Bichette
Yep, he’s back. Not officially — we haven’t seen these teams’ rosters yet — but it certainly seems that way. You didn’t think Bichette — who is actually the 19th-best Blue Jay all-time by WAR, and, of course, is due to reach free agency this offseason — was going to miss this, did you? Bichette has missed six weeks with his left knee injury, but he made it clear postgame on Monday: “I’ll be ready.”
The Blue Jays could obviously use his bat; it has been a lovely bounce-back season for him after a dreadful, injury-plagued 2024. But can he play shortstop? It seems a lot to ask after missing six weeks, particularly with how Andrés Giménez has been playing. But if Toronto has to put Bichette at DH, that means George Springer has to play the field, which is not the optimal use of the veteran, to say the least. But if you can get Bichette’s bat in the lineup, you have to do it. He’s a Jay who has been waiting a long time for this moment.
