Ranking the 14 Best Active MLB Players Who've Never Won a World Series Ring
Yogi Berra won 10 World Series rings in his 19-year playing career, while Ken Griffey Jr. played 22 seasons without once reaching a World Series.
Both were no-brainer Hall of Famers, but it definitely became a Dan Marino-ish "How has this incredible player never played on a championship team?" talking point that followed Griffey over the latter half of his career.
It's becoming a thing for quite a few current greats, as well.
Forty career wins above replacement is a good cutoff for this exercise, right? Players who reach that threshold without winning a World Series have been good enough for long enough that it becomes noteworthy if they've never gotten a ring.
With that criterion in mind, we found 13* active^ players who have accumulated at least 40 career WAR on either Baseball Reference or FanGraphs. (As it so happens, all 13 have at least 40 career WAR on both sites, so we'll just use B-R from here.)
We've also included Shohei Ohtani, who is currently at 37.6 career bWAR, may well eclipse 40 before the 2024 playoffs begin and has yet to experience any round of the MLB postseason, let alone the World Series.
Because we're comparing some guys with seven years of experience to others with 17 years of experience, the ranking was a bit tricky. Didn't want to go with a straight ranking by career WAR and overvalue the older guys, but also didn't want to rank based on value added in the current season and thereby undervalue the older guys. So we settled on a loose ranking of likelihood of being a first-ballot Hall of Famer five years after they ultimately retire.
*Though he didn't pitch beyond April, Jacob deGrom did get a ring for Texas' 2023 World Series, and thus does not appear on the list.
^Zack Greinke hasn't officially retired, but he does not appear on Baseball Reference's list of active WAR leaders, so we're excluding him. If we did include him, though, he'd be borderline top five.
14-10. C. Yelich, A. McCutchen, F. Lindor, J. Ramírez, G. Stanton
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14. Christian Yelich (40.6 bWAR)
Peak Yelich was one heck of a ride. From 2018-19, he had a 1.046 OPS with 80 home runs, 207 RBI and 52 stolen bases. He won NL MVP in the former and almost certainly would've won it in the latter if he hadn't suffered a broken leg with about three weeks left in the season.
Those were the only two years (thus far) Yelich was named an All-Star, though, so a plaque in Cooperstown probably isn't in the cards. However, maybe that changes if he can lead the Brewers to their first World Series title.
13. Andrew McCutchen (48.9 bWAR)
The Pittsburgh Pirates have been to the postseason just three times in the past three decades, doing so consecutively during McCutchen's peak. He was named NL MVP in 2013 and was both a Silver Slugger and a top-five finisher for MVP in each of 2012, 2014 and 2015.
"Cutch" has eclipsed 2,000 career hits, 300 home runs and 200 stolen bases, which only 18 other players in MLB history can claim. But he never once played in an ALCS/NLCS, let alone won a World Series.
12. Francisco Lindor (43.2 bWAR)
Might be underselling Lindor a bit at No. 12, as he is the youngest member of the "40 WAR, 0 WS" club and is under contract with the Mets through 2031. Don't imagine he'd be a Hall of Famer if his career ended today, but there's a decent chance he gets there over the next decade.
He has never won an MVP, but he has finished top nine in that vote five times. And he's well on his way to joining McCutchen in that 2,000/300/200 club, if he stays reasonably healthy. Lindor did at least play in a World Series, with Cleveland in 2016.
11. Giancarlo Stanton (44.4 bWAR)
Before he became a constant injury risk and a financial liability in what are now the latter stages of a 13-year, $325 million contract, Stanton was on the path to all-time greatness, clubbing 305 career home runs by the end of his age-28 season. He won NL MVP in 2017, this after getting edged out by Clayton Kershaw for that title in 2014.
But despite this being his seventh season with the Yankees and his 15th in the big leagues, Stanton has never once played in a Fall Classic. Maybe 2024 is finally the year.
10. José Ramírez (46.8 bWAR)
Much like his former teammate Lindor, Ramírez has never won an MVP, but is a five-time, top-nine finisher for an MVP vote who came ever so close to never landing on this list in 2016. However, Cleveland blew that 3-1 series lead against the Chicago Cubs, so here sits the first of three excellent third basemen that we'll be discussing.
Ramírez turns 32 this September, and he isn't nearly finished yet. Both he and the Guardians are out to quite the impressive start. He's on pace for around 40 home runs and 25 stolen bases while the team is in the running for the AL's No. 1 seed. Several of these stars play for teams that have effectively already been eliminated from the running in 2024, but there's a decent chance Ramírez gets off the list a few months from now.
9. Manny Machado
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Career bWAR: 54.8
Manny Machado is a seven-time All-Star with two Gold Gloves, one Silver Slugger and four top-five finishes for MVP. With 318 career home runs, there's a decent chance he joins the 500 club, as well as a decent chance he makes the Hall of Fame one day.
Teams have certainly attempted to make him a key cog of a World Series champion.
Baltimore made the postseason in each of 2012, 2014 and 2016 before holding onto its core a year too long, bottoming out in spectacular fashion for four years.
In the summer of 2018, the O's were able to get five prospects from the Dodgers for a three-month rental of Machado, who helped get his new squad to the World Series. Unfortunately, both he and Cody Bellinger completely vanished in that series against Boston, and he hit free agency still looking for his first championship.
He signed a $300M contract with the Padres that winter, renegotiating a new $350M contract four years later.
So far in San Diego, though, nary a trip to the promised land.
By the end of his current contract, Machado is going to be at just a shade under half a billion dollars in career earnings.
Just about the only thing he can't buy is a World Series ring.
8. Joey Votto
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Career bWAR: 64.5
Yes, Joey Votto is technically still active.
The 40-year-old, long-time Cincinnati Red homered off Zack Wheeler in his lone at-bat of spring training with Toronto before suffering an ankle injury from which he evidently is still recovering. Whether he'll play in 2024 and whether he can save the Blue Jays from finishing in dead last in the AL East remains to be seen, but he counts here.
Votto is a six-time All-Star who won NL MVP in 2010 and came oh so close to winning another in 2017, getting 300 votes to Giancarlo Stanton's 302. He is north of 350 home runs and 450 doubles for his career, and also won a Gold Glove in 2011.
Before Juan Soto came along, Votto was the undisputed king of on-base percentage and drawing walks. In fact, if walks counted toward total bases, Votto would have more than 5,000 for his career. (3,706 total bases plus 1,365 walks.)
Cincinnati never managed to do anything in October with all of his on-base prowess, though.
The Reds did make the playoffs a few times, but they have not won a postseason series since 1995, which is the longest drought in baseball by a full decade. (Next-longest is the Chicago White Sox, whose last postseason series win was the 2005 World Series.)
7. Nolan Arenado
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Career bWAR: 54.6
How many Gold Gloves does it take to win a World Series?
For Omar Vizquel, 11 wasn't enough. He holds the MLB record for the most ringless Gold Gloves in a career. But Nolan Arenado is right behind him with 10; 2023 serving as the first season of his career in which he didn't earn some hardware for his work on defense.
He's much more than just a pretty glove, too. Arenado has had seven seasons with at least 30 HR and 100 RBI, leading the NL in homers in each of 2015, 2016 and 2018. He's a career .286 hitter and an eight-time All-Star who has placed top eight in the NL MVP vote six times.
However, he's also cursed in October.
Arenado has played on four teams who made the playoffs—the Rockies in 2017 and 2018; the Cardinals in 2021 and 2022—resulting in an overall record of 1-7, with the lone win coming in the 13-inning classic against the Cubs in the 2018 wild-card round.
Arenado hit a solo home run in the first of his eight postseason games. Since then, however, he has gone 4-for-28 (.143) with no extra-base hits while his teams scored a combined total of eight runs in seven games. He did score one of those runs and drove in two of the others, but luck has not been on his side in the playoffs.
6. Paul Goldschmidt
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Career bWAR: 61.6
A few weeks after celebrating his 35th birthday, Paul Goldschmidt finally secured an MVP trophy in 2022.
The seven-time All-Star had finished second in that vote in each of 2013 and 2015, as well as third in 2017. But it wasn't until his ninth time receiving votes that he got enough of them to win it.
Might he also get an elusive World Series ring before calling it a career?
Goldy has had nearly three times as much postseason experience as teammate Nolan Arenado, but without much more team success. The lone time he played for a team that made it to the NLCS, he went 1-for-16 with nine strikeouts as the Cardinals were swept by the Nationals in 2019.
Outside of that rough patch, though, he has carried his share of the load, going 23-for-76 (.303) with eight home runs in his other 19 postseason games. It just wasn't enough to keep the Diamondbacks from getting bounced in the NLDS in either 2011 or 2017, nor did it keep the Cardinals from losing in the wild card round in each of 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Goldschmidt is in his final season before free agency, and perhaps his final season, period. He turns 37 in a few months and is sputtering through what has been by far the worst season of his career. Maybe he'll get traded to a contender, though, for one last run at a ring.
5. Gerrit Cole
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Career bWAR: 41.3
If you've been wondering, "Where the heck are the pitchers at?" Here you go.
Don't blink, though. Gerrit Cole is the only one. (Unless you want to count Shohei Ohtani.)
As noted in the intro, Jacob deGrom 'graduated' from this list with Texas winning the World Series last October. He would've been top 10 if still eligible. Same goes for Zack Greinke if he counted as an active player. And if we were to lower the threshold from 40 WAR to 30 WAR, that introduces all of Yu Darvish, Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler and Sonny Gray to the conversation.
As is, though, Cole is a party of one.
The six-time All-Star finally won a Cy Young last season after five previous top-five finishes.
His lack of World Series rings is not for lack of chances.
Cole's team has made the postseason in eight of his 11 career seasons, including reaching the World Series with the Astros in 2019. He has made 17 career starts in the playoffs, logging 104.1 innings pitched with incredible marks of 2.93 ERA, 0.95 WHIP and 11.6 K/9.
Cole has some work to do to pass Mike Mussina for the title of most postseason innings pitched without winning a World Series (139.2), but he's getting close.
4. Aaron Judge
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Career bWAR: 43.8
Each player in our top three has won multiple MVP awards and sure feels like a lock to get into the Hall of Fame one day.
Aaron Judge isn't far behind them, though, provided he stays moderately healthy for the next seven-plus years.
Because when he does play in at least 120 games in a season, he consistently has been one of the top candidates for MVP, winning one in 2022, finishing second in 2017 and placing fourth in 2021. In those three years, Judge averaged 51 home runs and 114.3 RBI, with an OPS north of 1.000.
Even in seasons where he hasn't stayed healthy, Judge still mashed; just intermittently. He struggled in 27 games played as a late-season call-up in 2016, but his worst slugging percentage since then was a .528 mark in 2018—when he still ranked top 10 percent in the majors in slugging among the 214 players with at least 400 plate appearances.
For his career, Judge is averaging one home run for every 14.2 trips to the plate. Even Barry Bonds needed 16.5 PA/HR.
But just like Bonds, Judge's trophy case is devoid of World Series rings. He does have 13 career postseason home runs, but running into Houston in the 2017, 2019 and 2022 ALCS has kept this Yankees slugger from reaching the World Series.
3. Bryce Harper
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Career bWAR: 47.7
With Bryce Harper on the roster, the Washington Nationals could never get over the NLDS hump, losing in that round of the postseason in each of 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2017.
As soon as he skipped town for a massive payday in Philadelphia, though, boom, the Nats won the first World Series in franchise history in 2019.
When Harper won NL MVP in 2015, Washington missed the postseason, barely cobbling together a .500 record.
Same goes for his second MVP trophy in 2021 with the Phillies.
Ewing Theory vibes all over the place here.
But Harper has been nothing short of awesome in the postseason over the past two years. In 30 games, he has 11 home runs (162-game pace of 59) and a 1.137 OPS. He was massive in getting the Phils past Atlanta in each of the past two NLDS, and he hit the series-clinching homer in the 2022 NLCS against San Diego.
Still searching for that first ring, though.
This year presents as good a chance as any, with the Phillies boasting the best record in the majors. Then again, having the NL's No. 1 seed in both 2012 and 2014 did nothing to help keep Harper away from this list.
2. Shohei Ohtani
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Career bWAR: 37.6
Time to discuss the $700 million man.
Shohei Ohtani has already won two MVPs and would have won a third were it not for Aaron Judge setting the single-season American League home run record in 2022.
For as great as Ohtani was with the Angels, though, he has been even better early on with the Dodgers, entering Wednesday leading the majors in batting average, slugging percentage and OPS. He's on pace for roughly 10 WAR, despite not pitching this season and despite not getting any value added from defense as a designated hitter.
The only thing more ludicrous than what Ohtani is capable of is the fact that the Angels couldn't win with him and Mike Trout.
Every other player on this list has at least been on a playoff team.
In fact, every player we've discussed thus far has participated in at least four different postseasons.
Not Ohtani, though, who is—already at the age of 29—no worse than the third-best player in MLB history without a postseason appearance, alongside Hall of Famers Ernie Banks and Fergie Jenkins.
Of course, he's all but certain to be removed from that list later this calendar year, now that he's playing for the Los Angeles team that can actually put together a winning season. But we shall see if he can win a championship with the Dodgers, who have won it all in just one of their last 17 trips to the postseason.
1. Mike Trout
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Career bWAR: 86.3
So long as there isn't any sort of scandal that tarnishes his legacy, there is about a 110 percent chance that Mike Trout will be in the Hall of Fame one day.
He's already 50th all-time in bWAR at the age of 32, and the only players in the top 65 on that list who aren't in Cooperstown are Justin Verlander (still playing), Albert Pujols (will absolutely get in once he's eligible) and the legacy-tarnished Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez.
Trout is one of 11 players in MLB history to win at least three MVP awards, doing so in 2014, 2016 and 2019. He also finished second in each of 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2018, as well as fourth in 2017 despite missing 48 games.
That eight-year run was simply unreal. FanGraphs put his value for 2012-19 at 70.5 WAR. The next-closest player was Max Scherzer at 48.5, suggesting that Trout was 45 percent more valuable than the second-most valuable player during those eight seasons.
And the Angels completely squandered it.
Of the other 10 three-time MVPs, the only one to not also win at least one World Series was Bonds—who did at least make it to the World Series in 2002, posting a 1.994 OPS that somehow wasn't enough to overcome the 2002 Angels and their rally monkey.
Trout, on the other hand, has been to the postseason just once in his career, swept by the Kansas City Royals in the 2014 ALDS. And unless the Angels manage to trade away his exorbitant contract, it's hard to see that changing in the next five years.
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