The final out of the World Series is the ultimate high. It’s the culmination of a grueling season, a dream come true for every player on the field. The image of the players jumping in joy near the mound and the champagne-soaked clubhouse is what every baseball fan lives for. Anthony Rizzo said the World Series hangover is real on the Glory Daze Podcast. Then later pointed out that no team has won back to back World Series titles since the New York Yankees did.
Did the Cubs leave more World Series’ on the table after 2016?
Anthony Rizzo: “the World Series hangover is real” pic.twitter.com/fCEOgqLGof
— Glory Daze Podcast (@glorydazepod) August 7, 2025
The unspoken cost of that euphoria is a deep, pervasive exhaustion. The following season doesn’t start with a clean slate. Instead, a championship team faces the lingering effects of the relentless journey. This is the great divide in modern baseball: the difference between achieving one glorious peak and the multi-year climb required to establish a dynasty. The World Series hangover, once just a fan theory, is a measurable, physiological, and psychological reality. And Anthony Rizzo, a cornerstone of the 2016 Chicago Cubs, has provided a rare, unfiltered perspective on this very real phenomenon.
Forget the stories about players drinking too much champagne. The modern World Series hangover is a decline in performance and an increased risk of injury caused by the physical and mental toll of a championship season. A study of every pitcher who started a World Series game in the Wild Card era found a “considerable drop-off” in the season that followed. For most pitchers—the “mere mortals” of the league—their ERA increased by two-tenths of a run, and their fWAR (FanGraphs Wins Above Replacement) fell by nearly a full win.
Think of Mark Buehrle, whose FIP spiked from 3.12 in 2005 to 4.99 in 2006, or Mike Mussina, whose fWAR was halved from 6.4 in 2003 to 3.3 in 2004. The reason is simple: winning the World Series extends a team’s season by a full month, which in turn shortens the offseason by the same amount, robbing players of crucial recovery time. This isn’t a random coincidence; it’s a clear causal chain.
But the hangover isn’t just physical. It’s also an immense psychological weight. After the historic win, Rizzo described the daunting pressure of the next season. He looked at the mountain of another championship and thought, “There’s no f—ing way I’m climbing this thing again”. This candid admission shows us that the mental grind is as real as the physical one.
The 2016 Chicago Cubs famously ended a 108-year championship drought, yet they failed to build a dynasty in the years that followed. Anthony Rizzo’s commentary gives us the definitive inside scoop. He also stated that anyone who would deny the existence of a World Series hangover is crazy.
Rizzo’s analysis extends to the organization. He critiqued the front office’s strategy, arguing that the team’s failure to repeat was linked to their decision-making. He pointed to the boost the Cubs got from acquiring a game-changer like Aroldis Chapman at the 2016 trade deadline and contrasted it with the lack of a similar high-impact move in 2017. He felt this organizational hesitation shut the back-to-back window, which aligns with the fan perspective that ownership’s goal was to win “A” World Series, not to build a dynasty.
So, what does it take to defy the hangover? A dynasty. A dynasty isn’t a one-and-done team; it’s a “sports franchise which has a prolonged run of championship seasons.” The late 1990s New York Yankees are the prime example. They won four World Series in five years by building a foundation of “great depth beyond the star names.” They had a deep starting rotation, a stacked lineup, and the “greatest relief pitcher ever” in Mariano Rivera.
Critically, the pitchers on these dynasty teams were often “all-time greats” who maintained their consistency year after year, defying the typical post-championship decline. The Yankees’ dynasty was a product of hefty ownership spending and superb player development, a strategic foresight that created an ecosystem of talent that could withstand player declines and injuries without collapsing. This is in stark contrast to the “all-in” approach that often leads to a hangover.
The World Series hangover is the inevitable consequence of a single-minded pursuit of a championship. A dynasty, in contrast, is built to overcome it. The “all-in” strategy, where a team mortgages its future for immediate help, can lead to a single championship.
Here’s the thing, folks: A true dynasty operates on a different plane. It prioritizes strategic foresight over short-term gain, building a roster of talent through long-term player development. This model allows an organization to absorb the inevitable player declines and injuries without collapsing. We saw this reality in recent post-championship history. For the first time since 2007, both World Series teams from the previous season, the Texas Rangers and the Arizona Diamondbacks, missed the playoffs in 2024. The Rangers’ struggles were widely attributed to a World Series hangover, a modern-day example of this old sports adage.
With that…. Ultimately, a championship season is a marathon that ends in a sprint, leaving a team’s reserves depleted. The World Series hangover isn’t a curse, but a predictable consequence of that immense effort. Anthony Rizzo’s journey from the euphoric high of 2016 to the crushing reality of the following season perfectly illustrates this.
If you cannot play with them, then root for them!