Seeking to extract a little more juice from its annual October broadcast revenue stream, Major League Baseball had a choice. It could expand the postseason responsibly, in a way that made it more reflective of a champion-vetting process at the end of a six-month regular season. Or it could do something else entirely.
Now, a year into the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, we stand on the precipice of another unpredictable postseason. I could also do the responsible thing and tell you that the top seed in each league, the Atlanta Braves and Baltimore Orioles, are well-positioned to meet in the World Series.
But what’s the old saying? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me?
By the end of last year’s National League Division Series, all three 100-win teams from the Senior Circuit (the Dodgers, the Atlanta Braves and the New York Mets) had been eliminated. The Philadelphia Phillies and San Diego Padres duked it out in an NL Championship Series built on good vibes, long hair, and a why-not-us attitude.
For two fanbases who had patiently waited through long (Philadelphia) and longer (San Diego) rebuilds, October 2022 was a breath of fresh air.
For those trying to make sense of the new postseason format, a not-so-classic Fall Classic participant marked an inflection point. Did the Phillies-Padres NLCS represent a blip on the radar like 2006, 1987, or 1959, when even a 90-win season was not a prerequisite for winning a championship? Or did it reflect the new reality of a five-day layoff for the top two seeds in each league and an expanded, best-of-three wild card round?
The Dodgers, at least, are not putting all their chips in on the former. Rather than repeating last year’s process, they chose to open their Wednesday night intrasquad game to select fans, giving players some semblance of an audience to enthrall while the Milwaukee Brewers and Arizona Diamondbacks vied to become the Dodgers’ NLDS opponent.
The ploy might work. Even if it doesn’t, the Dodgers might simply outlast the Diamondbacks in the NLDS for the simple reason that they are the better baseball team.
The problem with making safe predictions for this postseason is that 2023 wasn’t the best regular season for safe predictions, either. The Miami Marlins, Phillies and Diamondbacks all began with 50% or lower playoff odds, according to FanGraphs. So did the Texas Rangers, Minnesota Twins and Orioles in the American League. Half of the playoff field wasn’t supposed to be here.
I highlight this not to impugn the good work of FanGraphs, but to point out that only four of the 12 teams a year ago were considered underdogs by the same website. This year, the Diamondbacks, Marlins and Orioles were considered big underdogs back in April, their playoff odds below 25% when the season began.
Adding fuel to the fire of ignoring projections: just look at how our top-seeded teams got here.
Atlanta did it without a single weak link in its lineup (the Braves’ .501 team slugging percentage is an all-time record). The Dodgers finished the season with three starting pitchers who started the year in the minors, and five other midseason acquisitions who effectively “raised the floor” of their roster.
Baltimore’s whole was greater than the sum of its parts, but even the most aggressive projections did not foresee breakout seasons by their best position player (Gunnar Henderson), best starter (Kyle Bradish) and best reliever (Felix Bautista). A 90-win Houston Astros team that won the AL West had the closest thing to a “predictable” season among our postseason participants, and even they were 2½ games out of first place in their own division following their penultimate regular-season series.
So, even if you nailed the end result, it’s probable that something about the process that got us to this point was a surprise. Why should the postseason be any different?
Here is the Reader’s Digest version of the best case for each of the eight remaining teams to win the World Series, starting in the American League:
Baltimore: The Orioles had the best record in the AL after the All-Star break, when their roster coalesced and kept rolling even after losing Bautista to Tommy John surgery. Starting rotation depth was arguably their biggest weakness in the regular season, but that won’t be an issue in a best-of-five or best-of-seven series.
Houston: The defending champions are no strangers to the postseason – or World Series success, something no other AL team can claim. The Astros’ division title quest was hampered by a 1-8 record in extra innings. Now that the automatic runner on second base no longer casts a pall on the game, the 10th inning isn’t a near-certain death knell in Houston.
Minnesota: Their highly improbable 18-game postseason losing streak is over with a two-game sweep of the Toronto Blue Jays in front of an electric crowd, meaning the sky’s the limit for this young Twins team. No team’s pitchers recorded more regular-season strikeouts this year, often an important ingredient in clutch situations. Speaking of clutch, no player hit more grand slams this year than Orange County native Royce Lewis. The vibes here are amazing.
Texas: After sweeping Tampa Bay, Texas can line up its top two starters not named Max Scherzer (Nathan Eovaldi and Jordan Montgomery) to pitch Games 2 and 3 of the ALDS on regular rest against the Orioles. A lineup with no weak links and an MVP candidate (Corey Seager) looks better on paper than any they might face until the World Series.
Atlanta: Speaking of no weak links, Atlanta’s worst starting position player this season was shortstop Orlando Arcia, who hit 17 home runs and drove in 65 runs. And while the Dodgers had a better record after the All-Star break (49-24 compared to 44-29), guess which team won three of four games in Los Angeles in September? That might bode well for the Braves’ ability to get past their biggest NL foe in October.
Dodgers: Conventional wisdom holds that the Dodgers will go as far as their patchwork pitching staff will take them, but consider that their young starters (Bobby Miller, Ryan Pepiot, Emmet Sheehan) should be fresher than any other starting unit going into their first postseason series. If the Dodgers can get away with using their youngsters no more than twice through the order, the bullpen and lineup offer a viable path to a championship.
Philadelphia: Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner and Bryce Harper were arguably the best 1-2-3 hitters in any lineup after Turner’s midseason resurgence, carrying the Phillies to the NL’s top wild-card berth. The Zack Wheeler/Aaron Nola combo makes for an enviable rotation anchor. Less tangibly, but perhaps just as importantly: can vibes carry over from one year to the next?
Arizona: Talk about vibes. Two years after losing 110 games, the Diamondbacks became a playoff team faster than it takes Corbin Carroll to circle the bases. The probable NL Rookie of the Year is the face of a young, speed-and-defense ethos that evokes the World Series Kansas City Royals teams of the mid-2010s.
