The best players who haven’t won a World Series -- yet

Here’s another MLB record that one feels pretty comfortable saying will never be broken: Ernie Banks’ 2,528 games played without ever reaching the postseason. Banks, of course, was unfortunate to play almost his entire career in an era when only the league champions made the postseason (which consisted of only the World Series), as well as playing that entire career with the then-moribund Chicago Cubs. Due to the expanded playoff format, it’s probably fair to say no one is going to approach that mark any time soon.

The real measure for a long career coming up just short of the final level of anyone’s career, then, is probably going to have to be an old-fashioned one: Did you ever win a World Series? Last year, we came up with a name for these great players who never quite broken through: The Marinos. These are top-shelf players with distinguished careers -- maybe even Hall of Fame careers someday -- who have never been able to earn a ring.

Throughout baseball history, there are a lot of these guys. Ted Williams never won one. Neither did Ken Griffey Jr., Ty Cobb, Tony Gwynn, Barry Bonds or Harmon Killebrew. You’d like to see the all-time greats get a World Series title. Half the fun of the Dodgers’ championship a couple of years ago revolved around Clayton Kershaw adding that final line to his Hall of Fame resume.

Today, we look at eight active players who have had the best, most storied careers but have yet to win a World Series … and, most important, have a chance to do so this year -- which is why you won’t see Mike Trout or Nolan Arenado here. (And given the Guardians’ recent slide, José Ramírez was a late cut.) We’re also limiting this to players who have played at least 10 years in the Majors, to focus on guys who -- like Kershaw -- would really feel like they are ending a drought.

Any one of these eight players reaching the World Series would instantly become one of the biggest storylines of the Fall Classic. (Players listed in order of career WAR, according to Baseball Reference.)

Joey Votto, 1B, Reds
Career WAR: 64.5

Votto is a national treasure in both the United States and his native Canada, and has become even more so as his career has wound down. He is now in the final year of that massive contract he signed with the Reds back in 2014 (this assumes the Reds decline his '24 option), and he’s working his way back off the injured list for a team that has a chance to make the playoffs after a full season for the first time since 2013. It sure would be something to see him finish (?) his Reds career with a World Series, which would be the first of his 17-year career. The postseason has never been Votto’s showcase time: In 11 career postseason games (spread out between 2010, '12, '13 and '20), he has batted .244 with no extra-base hits. Can you imagine the ovation for him in Cincinnati if he takes a plate appearance this October? Can you imagine one in the World Series?

Evan Longoria, 3B, D-backs
Career WAR: 58.6

Longoria is certainly no stranger to postseason play: His Rookie of the Year season in 2008 ended up in the World Series, the first ever postseason appearance for the Tampa Bay franchise. Longoria has only four more bites of the postseason apple since then, including 2021 in San Francisco, a season in which he put up Rays-level numbers at the age of 35. He’s 37 now and has put up the lowest batting average of his career. But it’d be a terrific story to see him playing for a championship in his baseball twilight, and an ideal way for the greatest player in Rays history to finish it off.

Bryce Harper, 1B/DH, Phillies
Career WAR: 45.0

This is perhaps most obvious name on this list. Harper finally reached the World Series in his fifth postseason attempt last year, winning an NLCS MVP with a 1.250 OPS against the Padres in the process. Harper’s postseason legacy will always be complicated, of course, by the fact that the Nationals won a championship the year after he left. That wasn’t his fault, of course -- he was their best player for several years leading up to that year, and has won an MVP since -- but it has to still stick in his craw that he doesn’t have a ring of his own. He seems well on his way toward Hall of Fame status at this point -- he has two MVPs and just hit his 300th homer, and he’s famously signed in Philadelphia through 2031 -- but that plaque sure would look a lot sharper with a “World Series champ” line on it.

Marcus Semien, 2B, Rangers
Career WAR: 40.6

Speaking of guys who are ever underappreciated, Semien has been fantastic from the get-go of his career and is always looking a little better in advanced metrics than he might in traditional stats. How much better? Here’s a fun fact: He’s tied with Aaron Judge for 28th in WAR among active players (per Baseball Reference), and fourth among the players listed here. He has been absolutely essential for the Rangers this year and, unlike his fellow free-agent Rangers infielder Corey Seager … he has never won a World Series before. He has actually never even reached the LCS.

(Note: You could also include Jacob deGrom, Semien’s teammate, on this list, as he is in his 10th season. But given how little he has pitched this year -- and the fact that he is out until late next season at the earliest -- it doesn’t exactly feel the same.)

J.T. Realmuto, C, Phillies
Career WAR: 32.8

Realmuto finally cracked the top 10 in MVP voting last year, but he’s long been considered one of the most vital players in baseball to his teams, and quietly cobbling together a career that will benefit, narratively, from the soft factors we often give catchers at the end of their careers. (He’s great in what we can measure too, from pop time to career WAR, where he’s actually first among active catchers.) If his team were to win a World Series, he’d instantly be considered one of the primary reasons why, and with good cause. And don’t look now: Despite a somewhat “down” year offensively, he has been one of the best Phillies hitters of late, picking up his game just in time.

Christian Yelich, OF, Brewers
Career WAR: 39.0

Yelich might not have turned out to be the perpetual MVP candidate and franchise player he looked like he might be back in 2018-19, but to assail him for what he is not is to ignore what he is: An excellent on-base guy, a major speed threat (he’s likely going to set a career high in steals this year), a solid defender and the sort of reliable player that has helped the Brewers make themselves into a sleeper October contender this year. And for what it’s worth, he’s hitting the ball harder than he has in a while, with his highest slugging and OPS since that 2019 season. This is his 11th year in the Majors, and will likely be his fourth postseason appearance. He’ll be the guy you see in the all the pregame promos when the Brewers play.

José Abreu, 1B, Astros
Career WAR: 31.3

Say what you will about this first season with the Astros, but this guy did win an MVP just three years ago and is one of the best players ever to come from Cuba. Until this year, he’s been a reliable mainstay, and sometimes quite a bit even more. He has been coming around a bit of late, and, when you look at this Astros roster, he’s the essentially the only guy who has not won a World Series at this point.

Sonny Gray, RHP, Twins
Career WAR: 29.3

Remember when Gray was scuffling with the Yankees about throwing all those sliders back in the day? It turns out that Gray may have known what he was doing. He made his third All-Star team this year and is going to earn himself some Cy Young votes for a team that, for all your talk about the AL Central, is going to host a playoff series. He’ll be the No. 1 starter when they do.