One of the more surprising storylines of the 2023 MLB season came with the uprising of two young, talented, and exciting teams — the Cincinnati Reds and the Arizona Diamondbacks. Neither team was projected to make much noise, but quickly proved the critics wrong with monster starts to their 2023 campaigns.
Here we are in late August, and both squads find themselves in the hunt for a playoff berth, each starting Monday’s play 1.0 games back in the NL Wild Card race. But what happened to them being division leaders making their mark as top teams in the league?
Young talent means a lot in the MLB, but it’s hard to have a successful season without a mix of young talent and veteran talent.
As exciting as both of these teams are, they lack one thing that is paramount to making a run in the MLB … and that is veteran talent and leadership. In a normal season, 162 games in MLB is no joke, and it’s hard for young players to come in and perform for the entire season, let alone the postseason.