The Rangers, Brewers and Rays will each be making their ninth playoff appearance in the history of their respective franchises. All three will be looking for their first World Series title.
The Padres have made it to the playoffs seven times, and the Rockies and Mariners have each reached five times. They will all be hoping 2024 marks their first time collecting the Commissioner's Trophy.
In 2023, the Marlins will be heading to the postseason for the fourth time in franchise history. The road to the World Series begins with a wild-card series against the Phillies.
Miami has never won its division. It has never been to the playoffs in back-to-back years. It's never even won more than 92 games in a season.
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Yet the Marlins have something the Rangers, Brewers, Rays, Padres, Rockies and Mariners all are lacking: a World Series trophy. In fact, in three trips to the postseason, Miami's squad has come away with World Series titles twice in only 31 seasons. It is looking to add another this time around, as well.
How have the Marlins managed to stun the baseball world with two trophies in so few appearances? Here's what you need to know.
Marlins playoff history
1997
The Marlins were founded as an expansion team in 1993, and went through plenty of struggles early. Then the Florida Marlins, the squad lost 98 games in 1993, 64 in the strike-shortened 1994, 76 in 1995 and made it up to 80-82 in 1996.
Ahead of the 1997 season, the Marlins brought in Jim Leyland, the former Pirates manager, to anchor the franchise. The team was largely comprised of veteran players, anchored by starters Kevin Brown, Alex Fernandez and Al Leiter. Though not overpowering, the lineup had some big names, with Gary Sheffield, Moises Alou and Bobby Bonilla the big names, and a young Edgar Renteria and Luis Castillo emerging in the middle infield.
Florida finished nine games back of the 101-win Braves, the decade's most consistent powerhouse, but with 92 wins, it still had better seasons than the 84-win, Central-winning Astros and the 90-win, West-winning Giants. Yet Atlanta had largely been unlucky, winning only one World Series despite four trips to the Fall Classic.
Once in the playoffs, the Marlins began by edging the Giants in three games, winning a pair of one-win contests before bludgeoning the Giants 6-2 in Game 3 in San Francisco.
The NLCS was a classic between the two clear best teams in the National League. Like Florida, Atlanta had swept past the Astros in the NLDS to reach the NLCS for the third straight season.
The series began with the Marlins taking an early advantage over the Braves, with a some early inning runs off Greg Maddux helping Brown out-duel the future Hall of Famer. The Braves struck back in the next contest, however, with Tom Glavine shutting down the Florida lineup and the bats slugging out seven runs.
The teams traded Games 3, 4 and 5, with the Marlins taking a 3-2 edge heading back to Atlanta with a chance to win the NLCS. The Marlins hitters again spotted Brown some early runs, this time against Glavine, and put up a three-spot in the sixth to go up 7-3. The Braves added a run in the bottom of the ninth, but it was too little too late, as Brown completed a 140-pitch complete game to send Miami to the World Series.
Much like the Braves, the Indians had found little postseason success in the 1990s despite consistent regular-season wins. Cleveland won the division consecutively from 1995 to 1999, built lost in the World Series in 1995 to the Braves. It won the division again in 1997, and edged out the Yankees and Orioles to reach the World Series for the second time in three years.
And much like the NLCS, the series was close all the way through. Livan Hernandez, fresh off winning the NLCS MVP, began his case in Game 1 of the World Series by helping to lead the Marlins over the Indians 7-4 against Orel Hershiser. Cleveland jumped on Brown in the second game to win 6-1 before the Marlins came out on top of a slugfest in Game 3, winning 14-11. Cleveland kept its bats hot, however, scorching 10 runs to even the series in Game 4 10-3.
Though Hernandez surrendered five earned runs against the Indians in Game 5, the Florida bats hit Hershiser and the Cleveland staff harder, tallying eight runs to take the 3-2 series lead after an 8-7 win. The Indians tied up the series with a 4-1 win in Game 6, forcing Game 7 in Florida.
It appeared Cleveland was on the verge of winning the World Series. It went to the bottom of the ninth with the Indians leading 2-1, with closer Jose Mesa coming on to shut the game down. Alou and Charles Johnson tallied hits, and with one out, Craig Counsell hit a game-tying sacrifice fly to score Alou.
Robb Nenn and Jay Powell did their part, setting down the Indians batters in order in both the top of the 10th and the top of the 11th. The Indians turned to Charles Nagy, who started the bottom of the 11th in some trouble, allowing a single, an error and an intentional walk to load the bases. Cleveland nabbed Bonilla on the forceout at home, but Renteria, the next batter, lined a base hit up the middle, scoring Counsell and winning Miami's first World Series.
2003
The Marlins went through some serious ups and downs after that 1996 World Series. Florida's owner, Wayne Huizenga, infamously sold off most of the biggest names on the team, and the Marlins dropped to a 54-win team the next season. Leyland resigned after the season.
What followed was four more seasons of losing baseball. When the 2003 season got off to a 16-22 start, Jeff Torborg was fired and Jack McKeon was brought on to become the team's new manager.
The team certainly had plenty of talent. Ivan Rodriguez had joined the team as a top free agent signing in the offseason from the Rangers, and Derrek Lee and Mike Lowell formed a feared corner-infield duo in the middle of the lineup. Juan Pierre was a speedy center fielder, a young slugger named Miguel Cabrera eventually made his mark and the pitching staff with Josh Beckett, Dontrelle Willis, Mark Redman, Carl Pavano and Brad Penny was a well-rounded unit.
The Marlins played up to their potential, and more, under McKeon, going 75-49 to finish 91-71, again trailing only a 101-win Braves team in the final NL East standings.
Florida's postseason run began with another show of dominance, this one in 3-1 fashion over the Giants. San Francisco had narrowly won Game 1 2-0, but the Marlins swept the rest of the series, ending with a pair of wins in Miami to advance to the NLCS. There, they were met by the Cubs, who had stunned the Braves in five.
For a while, it did not look good for Florida. The Marlins won in 11 innings to start the series, before falling to the Cubs in three straight games to fall behind in the series 3-1. Beckett turned in a gem against the Cubs in Game 5, holding Chicago quiet in a two-hit, 11-strikeout shutout.
Then came the infamous Game 6. The Cubs led 3-0 heading into the eighth inning in Chicago. Castillo hit a fly ball into the left field stands, and Steve Bartman, a Cubs fan, deflected it as Alou tried to make the catch against his former team. The call was not ruled fan interference, keeping Castillo alive.
The Marlins proceeded to crush the Cubs, racking up eight runs on five hits, an error and three walks, and won the game 8-3. Florida's offense again roared to life in the middle innings against the Cubs in Game 7, ultimately winning 9-6 to advance to the World Series.
It was on to New York to face the Yankees. New York had won four of five World Series from 1996 to 2000, and though it had lost the 2001 World Series and come up short in the 2002 ALDS, it was back in the 2003 Fall Classic after winning 101 games and edging the Twins and Red Sox in the playoffs.
The start of the World Series looked much like the NLCS. The Marlins won Game 1, but dropped back-to-back contests to fall behind in the series. The Marlins were leading Game 4, but gave up two runs in the ninth to send the game to extra innings. Florida battled back from the blown save, however, to win 4-3 in extras.
It was all Florida from there. Penny allowed only a run against the Yankees, and though it got close in the ninth, the Marlins won 6-4. The next game, it took until the fifth inning before the first run was scratched across, with Castillo hitting an RBI single off Andy Pettitte to give Florida the 1-0 lead. Juan Encarnacion added an extra run on a sac fly in the top of the sixth to make it a 2-0 game, which was more than what Beckett needed to complete a five-hit, nine-strikeout shutout and win Game 6 and the World Series.
2020
The entire 2020 season was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than just a one-game, winner-take-all matchup between two wild-card teams, a total of eight teams in each league reached the playoffs after the season was shortened to 60 games. The Marlins, now called the Miami Marlins, would have been one of the two wild cards anyway, but rather than head to San Diego, they went to Chicago to face the NL Central-winning Cubs.
The roster was a team full of underdogs largely carried by its pitching. The Marlins had five starting pitchers that made at least six starts post an ERA at or below 3.61, though the bullpen had its issues holding onto all those games. The lineup ranked 11th in baseball in OPS, with Brian Anderson and his 11 home runs providing most of the thunder.
Having already gone two-for-two in World Series wins as wild-card teams, it certainly started to appear things might go that way again for the Marlins to start the 2020 postseason. Miami kicked off the wild-card series with a dominating 5-1 win against the Cubs, with Sandy Alcantara and the bullpen holding Chicago to just one run on four hits and three walks.
Miami kept the momentum going in Game 2, scoring a pair of runs in the top of the seventh off a home run from Garrett Cooper and an RBI single from Magneuris Sierra. Sixto Sanchez and the Miami bullpen did the rest, shutting out the Cubs and giving up just two walks and five hits to win 2-0 and advance to the next round.
But Miami's hopes of a third World Series were quickly thwarted. The Braves rattled off nine runs in Game 1 to win 9-5, and it was all Atlanta from there. Ian Anderson and the Atlanta pitching staff blanked the Marlins in a 2-0, Game 2 win and the bats and arms both thoroughly took care of business in Game 3, clobbering Miami 7-0 to finish the three-game sweep.
