To no one's surprise, the Milwaukee Brewers will have ace Jacob Misiorowski starting Game 1 of the World Series against the Tampa Bay Rays. He's also an ESPN writer's pick for World Series MVP.

Kiley McDaniel ranked every player in the World Series, and he had Misiorowski as his No. 1. He gushed about the Brewers ace's off-the-charts stats, then concluded that Misiorowski was his choice to win MVP.

As the Game 1 starter, McDaniel opened up the possibility of Misiorowski making three appearances during the World Series, which could significantly improve his odds of winning MVP. Of course, that would still depend on how long the series goes and how well he performs in those appearances.

But after a sensational regular season campaign, Misiorowski has been merely fine thus far in the postseason. He's failed to get out of the fifth inning in both of his starts, and he has a 3.24 ERA with 11 strikeouts over just 8.1 innings of work.

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Over the last 15 years, there have only been three pitchers who have won World Series MVP: Madison Bumgarner (2014), Stephen Strasburg (2019), and Yoshinobu Yamamoto (2025). In two of those instances (Bumgarner and Yamamoto), the pitcher made three appearances during the World Series, with two starts and one relief appearance.

It remains to be seen if Misiorowski is capable of taking on that sort of workload. Granted, his starts typically aren't that long, so he could potentially make three appearances if needed. But given the middling performances he's had thus far this postseason, the Brewers would likely take one strong Misiorowski start at the World Series.