From 2020 through 2025, every World Series had one thing in common: a player named Will Smith on the winning side. Six straight years. Two different guys sharing the same name. Six rings. In 2026, with the Dodgers on the brink of elimination at 0-3 against the Brewers in the NLCS — and the pitcher Will Smith already retired — the most delightfully weird streak in modern baseball is finally coming to an end.
How it started: a catcher, a pitcher, and six rings
It began in 2020, when the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series with Will Smith as their starting catcher. Nothing extraordinary yet — just a young backstop on a historic team. But in 2021, with that Smith off the roster, a different Will Smith showed up: a left-handed reliever who earned a ring with the Atlanta Braves.
And then it got genuinely absurd. The pitcher Will Smith won again in 2022 with the Houston Astros and again in 2023 with the Texas Rangers — making him the first player in MLB history to appear on World Series rosters with three different franchises in three consecutive years and win each time. Three years, three teams, three rings. The kind of stat that sounds made up.
The catcher picked the torch back up in 2024 and 2025, when the Dodgers won back-to-back titles. The second one was unforgettable: a walk-off home run by Will Smith in the 11th inning of Game 7 against the Toronto Blue Jays. By that point, the streak had become a living meme inside the league — want to win the World Series? Put a Will Smith on your roster.
Why 2026 is different — and why the Dodgers can’t save it
The pitcher Will Smith retired after the 2024 season with the Kansas City Royals, his last MLB appearance coming on August 25 of that year. He’s not on any active roster.
The catcher is still with the Dodgers — but the Dodgers are down 0-3 to the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLCS. Only one team in baseball history has ever come back from that deficit: the 2004 Boston Red Sox, in the ALCS.
The numbers make it even harder to believe in a miracle. Through Game 3, Los Angeles was batting a collective .146 with runners in scoring position in the series — 147 points below the Brewers in that split. Will Smith (the catcher) arrived at that game with just 1 hit in his last 25 October at-bats and an OPS of .126 in the postseason. For context: the average MLB OPS is around .730. He did snap out of it with a two-run double in the sixth inning, but the Dodgers lost anyway, 6-2.
And here’s the detail that closes the argument: the other three teams still alive in 2026 — the Brewers, the Cleveland Guardians, and the Tampa Bay Rays — don’t have a single player named Will Smith on their active postseason rosters. There’s no backdoor. If the Dodgers go home, the streak goes with them.
Will Smith’s 2026 numbers (Statcast)
- Plate appearances: 276
- Home runs: 10 | RBI: 34
- AVG: .260 | OPS: .781
- xwOBA: .389 (expected production based on contact quality)
- Average exit velocity: 89.1 mph
- Barrel rate: 12.4%
- Hard-hit rate: 41.2% (balls hit 95 mph or harder)
- Sprint speed: 43rd percentile
The Statcast profile tells a story the traditional line doesn’t always capture: a hitter who makes hard contact and whose expected numbers (.389 xwOBA) outpace his surface stats. Which makes the postseason slump — a .126 OPS through Game 3 — all the more jarring. The version of Will Smith who could extend this streak is in there. The Dodgers just haven’t been able to find him when it matters most.
