The 2026 MLB Playoffs Are Here: Which Teams Survive the Wild Card Round?

We've made it. We're finally here. It's the end of the regular season. And we're here we're here tonight talking on the eve of the postseason as we get ready for playoff baseball. It's this week in baseball.

Well, it took a long time to get here. A hundred and sixty-two games, though a hundred and sixty one for a few of them. And the Baltimore Oyoles in particular. But we have made it to the end of the regular season, though some teams had a

Miserable run of it. Some teams had a surprising season. Overall, I mean when you look at where the teams finished this year and out our playoff teams, are you surprised a great deal? Well, I'm certainly surprised by the White Sox not only winning more games than they lost, remember they lost a hundred games the past two years, the most ever two years ago, and not only turning it around. So no team had ever won seventy games after they lost a hundred two years in a row.

The White Sox blew past that. They won eighty four and they're gonna be in the playoffs visiting the Houston Astros. What's another surprise? You wouldn't be that surprised. Right, right, but then you'd be told, Well, the Tampa Bay Rays are gonna be the first place team and the Blue Jays won't be one of those three. You'll be like, Excuse me? Yeah, and and I don't know what you thought about the Astros before the season. I think

I I'm sure I picked the Mariners because I think most everybody thought the Mariners It was kinda hard. I mean, everybody was picking the Mariners. I know I did. I don't know where I think I felt Houston was gonna have a down year and well they kinda were a five hundred team, so every year we predict a team we were predicting this is gonna be the year of Houston's downfall. And I guess in most years an eighty one and eighty one season would be a team's downfall. This year it wins you the AL West. So the s surprise is maybe, you know, that

you know, the teams in in the order of finish, Tampa winning the AL East and winning it quite comfortably and and being a much better hitting team than they've been in in l recent years. And we'll talk about their prognosis for the playoffs, even though they don't play this week. Right, right, 'cause I do think it's interesting until the weekend. Whereas when you go away from the American League and you look it over at the National League, business as usual, one might say. I mean, is there there's not really a whole lot of surprise going on there. Maybe the Mets not being there, but it's like

Okay, your three playoff teams are the Phillies, the Cubs, and the Padres. Three teams that I think people would have picked as potential playoff teams before the season. Maybe the Padres are a bit of a And the Braves, Brewers, and Dodgers win divisions. there's your six. Right, exactly. I agree. So I think it's just kind of interesting, though I and it is just you know, as but comparing these playoff teams going in, it's very fun to do in the national league because

Not all teams made it to the postseason equally. I think you feel very different if you're a San Diego fan than if you're a Philadelphia fan right now. Yeah, you know no well the Philadelphia squeaked in there, but let's let's just talk about the season itself, right? Because you know, you know now we've got we've we've boiled it down to twelve teams. and you know everybody calls it a tournament now, right? That's it's no longer the playoffs, it's a tournament.

but the wild card round and and let's face it, you know, you play three games at if it lasts that long at the opponent's ballpark. and I I Or at your home stadium. I don't like the idea that it's at the opponent's ballpark 'cause it's like, wait, why is the entire wild card series casted from the perspective of the away team? Well, because they've got the tougher road to hoe because you get for being the worst team. Yeah, or or the worst of the two teams. But we had some, you know, spectacular you know, things that

Ended up not happening this season as we were talking about the past few weeks was Jordan Alvarez gonna win the triple crown. Nope. He didn't. he he did win the American League batting title with the h highest the lowest, highest batting average ever. Yeah. For a for a bat for two for both leagues. And if you didn't win a three sixteen. If you didn't think offense of down offense was down, look at this. You had the lowest batting average for a batting average title in history, and you had the least amount of home runs to win the home run title since twenty fourteen. Clearly

You are seeing offense be depressed via these, you know, cumulative statistics across the league. to the surprise of nobody and and you know, right, I mean Alvarez wa hit three sixteen and the the national league winner hit lower than that. So it's the first time that somebody you know, one year Car Kallier Scrimsky hit three one in nineteen sixty eight, I believe, but Pete Rose hit three thirty five.

So, you know, that's not it up. Just Srimsky Studio One is the lowest ever for a batting champion, but it's not the lowest in for both leagues. For both leagues. But he certainly set himself up as

V P I think in the national league, as as Alvarez has probably in in the American League. You know, w what once looked like a lock for Shohei unfortunately became undone due to Shohei Show. yeah, that guy. Yeah, unfortunately injuries sort of derailed that because first he stopped pitching and then it was like okay, well if he keeps hitting it'll be fine and then he

stopped hitting and then was like, okay, well he basically didn't play the last month and a half of the season very much. Very much. So yeah, that had a big impact on his ability to win the N V P. Yeah, yeah. And it certainly he took himself out of it. He needed to pitch at at a at the same level he had been pitching to have a chance and he he didn't do that. the I I mentioned the White Sox. we also had another White Sox player do something remarkable this year and it's not Munataka Murakami. it is Colson Montgomery, the shortstop, who broke

The all time record for strikeouts by a batter in one season. Two hundred and twenty seven. Two hundred and twenty seven. So Mark Reynolds, who who struck out two hundred and twenty four times and was the leader for years, formerly I think of Arizona more than any place else, he wore that

badge with honor like he liked being the guy that had the most strikeouts in one season of history which is not a not something you normally would wear with pride. I think it's the kind of thing when you're done playing you're able to wear it with pride but while you're playing we saw you I saw how frustrated he was when he struck out and he broke the record because now he knows he's got to wear that. Right, exactly and and and so yeah it's a good point about being during during your career after the career going well at least they remember me for something. Right, exactly. It's a lot easier to romanticize that aspect of your career when you're not in the middle of

and of the of the playoff teams and we mentioned Houston and they were battling with the Texas Rangers all the way to the to the last day of the season, and the Astros had the tiebreaker and they won the division with a five hundred record and the lowest a negative run differential for a playoff team, which is just awful. I mean I mean you really saw it with the teams that and is why, you know, when you look at the postseason and we get to sort of our brief postseason preview

It's a very interesting wild card round because the some series are super contested, others you're just like I mean, you're kinda thinking, you know, this is how it's gonna go, right? Yeah, you know, I think the you know the there's only one team I give like a real good chance in the wild card as the the team that's gonna be playing away. and we'll talk about that in a moment. But I I think, you know, the the

The teams that are sitting home watching this round and they'll play on the weekend. The division series starts on Saturday this week.

I think they're also sitting pretty because I think they have what it takes to beat any of the wildcard teams if the wild card teams make it. But we do want to keep talking about the regular season 'cause we did just finish and as much as we've talked about, you know, who finished top in the batting title in the home runs, who led the NL in RBIs this season? I think a lot of people would not know this. No, and and you know I I tease that out in our in our pre show notes and all that stuff 'cause I I had to look it up and if somebody didn't no I didn't read it someplace today, it was Alec Burlson of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Who not only led the National League with a hundred and sixteen RBIs, he led all of baseball. Now, congratulations to Ale Alec Burrow. Which position does he play?

I think he's an outfielder. He's a first baseman, and that's the problem with Alec Burlson. I know he plays for St. Louis. I at least know what team he plays. He looked good in orange and blue, but anyway. Yeah, he's not leaving. He's not leaving St. Louis. But I was gonna say, you know, to bring it back to the orange and blue, you know, great job to Alec Burlson. But the fact that Sal Stewart didn't win the RBI title in the National League, do you think that gives Carson Bench a better chance to win the rookie of the year? I I I think my met blinders allow me to think that, but I don't really believe I'm just saying, like the the d the

not having the RBI crown does c it it's kind of a weird knock, right? I would say this though about Benj and and who's a rookie of the year candidate along with his teammate Nolan McLean, both of whom were teammates at Oklahoma State and they were both two way players at Oklahoma State. And when they when they got to the pros, they said McClane, you're a pitcher and they said to Benj, you're not a pitcher, you're a hitter. And so they both had great seasons and those guys, you know, b Benj is I will say will have the better career

Over Sal Stewart. You I I saw some some people were posting some stats, and basically over his last hundred and something games from like May onwards, basically, he was a five point two war player over the entire season. Like he was as a rookie. As a rookie hit two ninety. You he projected at like two ninety, twenty eight homers, seventy something RBIs, like thirty steals, and then good defense. So kudos to Sal Stewart who had a great season. And will likely be rookie of I think I think he's gonna win it. and and I the other guy that had a chance was the Cardinal.

Who has a higher I think F war than anybody, including Benge, and that's JJ Weatherhold. but but does his offensive struggles in the second half make it hard be especially because question it it's second base defense, which is not showy. Like if he was like a hot shot field like if he was Peter Armstrong and he had a terrible hitting second half, but he made all these crazy outfield defensive plays, that's a lot easy to like, well, Lisi's an amazing defender. It's like seeing a guy be really good at fielding ground balls.

This is not sexy to the voters. He's kind of sort of he he had the lead in the clubhouse as they like to say. He looked like a slam dunk and then he unfortunately sort of forgot how to hit a baseball. So talk to Alec Burleson. We saw one of the more poignant, you know, moments of the end of a career happen on Saturday, not on Sunday, 'cause Justin Verlander started and pitched six innings for the Tigers. and you know, he he battled and through over a hundred pitches, I forget what it was.

And so and as is all c put together by his wife Kate Upton and the manager AJ Hinch, who was Verlander's manager in Houston as well. his he he comes out does Hinge to finally take Verlander out of the game and his daughter runs out of the dugout and runs and she had just thrown out the pitch, by the way, a perfect strike, two nights before, before the game as as and she came out and she gave her dad a hug and you watch Verlander

break down basically on the mound and he had to tell his daughter these are tears of joy. Because she couldn't understand why Daddy was crying on the mound. Well and he pitched o he had over a hundred pitches also. and there he's not

hasn't really said that he's going to retire. But it sure feels like that he should. Right, right. We know he we know Verlander. It it is interesting because he's almost incentivized to keep playing for another year because it means he gets to separate his Hall of Fame stuff from Verlander and sh and Kershaw. What you end up with? And you end up with Kershaw one year, Verlander the next year, and

And then Max Scherzer the three years. So three years in a row, you're gonna have, you know, Hall of Fame starting pitchers be inducted. That's almost enough of a reason for Max Scherzer to come back. I want my own year. Right, exactly. It was interesting because with with Verlander stopping, you might have seen the last pitcher to record innings where record a game where he faced the lineup five times in a game. Yeah. Because Verlander and there's not gonna be a lot of guys left in that. Verlander had a couple, couple long starts where he had that.

And there's been You'd have to almost have to pitch into the tenth inning a lot of the time. It requires facing 37 batters. So it requires having a complete game generally where you give up a fair number of base runners, which is kind of hard to do to throw a complete game, but still face that number of batteries. You basically have to give up like a hit or two in each inning on like early in the count and then work around that quick. Yeah. Anyway, kudos to Justin Verlander.

Fantastic career. He he'd be a guy I'd love to have on the podcast and talk too. Guy in in in the first place. and then, you know, let's let's talk about the American League home run champion and the American League RBI champion. Not Vladdy Jr. It is not Vladdy Jr. And Pete Alonso of the Baltimore Orioles was in fact that this year.

And he becomes the first player, and I I this is this really kind of blew blew my mind a little bit. Here, the first player to lead each league in RBIs for an entire season. That that has never happened before in major league history really surprised the heck out of me. This and this is the year you got everything you would want out of Pete this year. He hit two sixty seven, he hit forty three homers, he drove in a hundred and thirteen. That is Pete Alonso. Played in the biggest thing played a hundred and sixty one games.

Yeah, and he would have played 162 had they played the game. Right. So yeah, cu kudos to Pete. You know, great season. you know, Mets you know have egg on their face on that one this year. Yeah. And and so there's there's nothing you can you can say any more than, you know, had a had a great year and the Mets could have used that production this year. it would have been real for for sure. Luis Arrayas, I had talked about, was in the running for his fourth batting title, and what would have been, because he didn't do it.

the fourth different team he had done it with. and you saw he came up injured and just before the end of the season. and and the last couple of games before he got injured, he managed to go over seven, which is enough to cost him the batting title. He lost by one point to Gabriel Moreno of the Arizona Diamondbacks. That's gotta be frustrating. So if I didn't if he didn't play those games.

Right. And he wasn't hurt at that point. He just would have but you know, he would have done the old sit down and sit in my lead, but he didn't. He played and then what he didn't know is that he would never get back into the game the rest of the season. And I think I heard you say that he is off the postseason roster in the wild car round for the Phillies. So and he somehow was their cleanup hitter and that is the Phillies doing things like no one else does. That just feels strange. So let's see.

The other thing is we had our first manager firing at the end of the the season. Dan Wilson of the Mariners didn't last twenty four hours after the season before they told them to get out of town. And we've had enough of you. There's no reason why whoever c comes in there next season

can't take that team right back to a division crowd. Steve Phillips mentioned this morning on the leadoff spot that, you know, his his take on the Mariners, you he kind of scratched his head going, they have all those pitchers, right? Logan Gilbert and they have the more than I can I can name him, you know, George Kirby. So th they all were worse this year than they have been in the past. And so it makes you scratch your head when guys are heading into their prime to have their worst year when your team needed it the most because the Mariners real problem was they couldn't hit.

Shocker. We all kinda knew that was gonna be a problem. Well, and and when Cal Raleigh didn't hit for them, you know, the rest of it went down the tubes. And you know, what do you think the prospects are for them to turn it around next year under a new manager and to to be you know the good news is is you're gonna get a better version of Cal Raleigh almost because hard to be worse. Right, exactly. But the problem is is that there's no guarantee Randy Arroz Arena is coming back who would already a r offensively bereft team.

And that I don't under s I don't know how you're gonna fix that in an off season. So l let's let's talk about the playoffs if if you're ready now. And I w I wanted to, you know, talk about the fact that if you went into game one sixty two and you were the Philadelphia Phillies yesterday and the Phillies were on a losing streak, man. They were they were collapsing, right? And they're famous for collapses, as as we've talked about in the past on this podcast. and then but on game one sixty two, you send Zach Wheeler to the mound. If you would have told him before the season

It's the last game of the season. You have Zach Wheeler on the mound to make the playoffs. Do you take it if you're the Phillies? yeah. You would feel pretty good about that. Because before the season, you thought they were gonna be maybe a contender, but you weren't sure a little older. You didn't sure if it was gonna work. You knew this was kind of gathering the guys in for the last ride into the sunset, that there wasn't there there was an expiration date on this team, and you were gonna still get the band together and try and go for it. And if it came down to Wheeler in game one sixty-two, you'd be pretty happy with that.

So Wheeler did get it done and and the Phillies ended up did winning that game and making the playoffs, and the Diamondbacks needed to win and have the Phillies lose to make it. They lost anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered. The Phillies would have backed in had they lost that game behind Wheeler. But now they go and they face their division rival, the Arch Nemesis Braves, three games in Atlanta. and if you looked at the two teams and you said, Okay, who do you favor?

it's easy to say that you would favor, you know, the Braves 'cause they're home, but what do you think? I think looking at how the teams are playing, I favor the Braves. I think the best thing for the Braves is you get game one Chris Sale against Andrew Painter. No, no, no. Sanchez, I think. Sanchez, right. Sanchez on like short rest.

Not full rest. He's not on his he's he's not. Lozardo's gonna pitch. Obviously, you're talking about Wheeler, and Nola is obviously had pitched great at the end of the year, but I don't even know that he's lined up to pitch. Right, he just he just pitched on Saturday. Right, right. So there's no way he's gonna be ready for two. And Wheeler won't pitch, obviously, in this series because the series are Tuesday, Wednesday. Sanchez would be on full rest for Wednesday, but if the game game's Tuesday night, which means you gotta have somebody pitching Tuesday night. So now you might look at this and go, okay, well, Chris Sale has typically

dominated Harper and Schwarber. Do you dare go, Okay, rookie, get out there and give us game one because we might lose this anyway. At least then you have Sanchez for game two to j try and then force it to a game three where you could have Wheeler go. Well I I my my take on on that was hey you you know how much the Phillies struggled hitting at the end of the season. It was remarkable to have Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber on your team and be as paltry in scoring runs as were the Phillies. Right.

gonna be tough in this series 'cause I mean, yeah, they got they besides Sale, that's what I was gonna get. Tyler Male is gonna be really are you gonna go to the mat with Tyler Molly go, God, we sure glad we got Tyler Male going in And I think that's gonna be the hard thing for the br the the Braves in this postseason is like, okay, you Chris Sale, but he can only start so many games in a series. What are you gonna do in all of these other games? And one one thing that will be a part of the playoffs and we talk about that in the World Series, is is the power rules at this time of year. Both the Phillies and the Braves can hit the ball out of the ballpark.

That's not true of all the twelve teams. Right right and exactly. And that's the thing is that unfortunately in this kind of series, Kyle Schwarber could go three for fifteen in this series, but if those three were home runs at the right time, that could all he needs to do across the three games. In in general, playoff games are low scoring, and you know, runs are hard to come by, which is why the home runs we always say become that much more important.

Because building runs by getting four hits in an inning is really hard to do. Part of it is just like when you think about it, if a guy gives up three hits in a row as a pitcher, unless he's your starter, he's probably getting pulled at that point in the postseason. And even if he's if he's at your number one starter, like I'm thinking if Tyler Male comes out in game two and gives up hit, hit, hit to the first three Philly batters, he's getting a mound visit at that point. Well he might be pulled, but the problem is is they don't have the guys to turn to. I mean you think about all the guys for the Braves that aren't pitching.

Spencer Strider, Schwellenbeck, AJ Smith Schwaker. I mean, these guys that were really s you know good pitchers, they're not pitching and that's a problem. I think in this series, that problem won't rear attack. Because of the Phillies lack of hitting? The Philly and the short nature of the series. Yeah. And because basically you have to go, okay, we have to cobble together one win across two games because we should be able to get that Crest Sale game. I think where the nightmare for the Brave comes in is if you somehow lose game one where Sale is pitching.

You've now entered territory because now you're like, well, we have win both of these games. Agreed, agreed. we'll pick them at the end, okay. So so talk to me about San Diego being host to the Chicago Cubs. Do you think the Chicago Cubs bats will stay hot in the postseason? I am concerned not only will they not necessarily stay hot, that they're not gonna be able to pitch their way through the podcast. And that that so there was a really interesting thing I saw where they they posted, you know, each team's combined F war.

And then their batting war and their pitching war. The Cubs bat the Cubs I think were top five. They had batters had thirty seven point six batting war. Top in the major like by far the most. And the best fielding team in in in baseball. How much pitching war do you think they had? No, no, not a lot, I'll say that. Six. Yeah. Six six is team what teams like the Rockies and the Athletics have. And then their injuries, look, you know, the injuries guys, right. You don't have Justin Steele, and you don't have, you know

This this bit. This is a battle of can the San Diego starters hold on enough to get games that are in the bull the bull the elite bullpen. Because the bullpen could shut down the Cubs batters, but you can't be doing that if you need to leave the game in the third, fourth innings. You're gonna have to have these pitchers go five, six innings. Will Nick Pavetta be able to do that? And and the Padres can struggle to score runs too. Right. Michael King. Can Michael King and Nick Pavetta give them these innings that they need? Because

I mean, yeah, sure the Padres offense has struggled to score runs, but the Cubs pitching can't stop anybody. Yeah, I yeah, I'm not sure the I think the Padres are only slightly better than that. But the mainly is th they may be able to not stop the Padres because the Padres may not hit much better than the Cubs. True enough. how about in the American League? You've got the you know, the series everybody wants to see. It seems to happen almost every year now. It's only the seventh time they've played in the postseason. That's they've played more games though in the postseason against any two teams except for the Yankees and the Dodgers.

The Red Sox and the Yankees have played more postseason games than anybody else but the Yankees and Dodgers, but they had to do that when the World Series was going on, by the way. Right. And part of that is because they've only played together since then, so it makes sense they, you know. So, you know, I I this is an exciting series, a great series. in in that you've got two pitching staffs that look look to be among the best out there, period, this year. Right. And this is a series where I think if I was gonna say one series, I feel like

you kinda look at it and you go I I to me one team is, you know, real definitively should win it. I actually think it's this one. Really? I to me, the Yankees, if they this is a series that the Yankees are gonna lose. Not the b because they should that's up to them. Up to them to lose. They have the better pitching, they have the better hitting. And even with Aaron Judge not being himself, I I I it's hard for me to see a path

the Red Sox with how anemic their lineup has been at points in this year against the Yankee pitching in Yankee Stadium to just suddenly turn it on when they need to at this point is hard for me to see. Tyler Keppner wrote that he felt the Yankees have a few more home run hitters than the Red Sox and that'll be the difference. I I I can buy that. I think hitting the ball out of the ballpark will matter. But

This Yankee team has to have a bit of a postseason bugaboo about them after how they lost that World Series last year. Yes, it's not a lot of the two two years ago. Yes, it's not a lot of the same guys, but you gotta think that's gonna be in their heads a little bit, right? Well, and and and I I thought the Yankees did something strange in setting up the rotation for the playoffs. they've got Schlitler starting in game one, which if you look at it from afar, guys gonna win the Cy Young. He was the best pitcher in the league.

All true, you know, all got had one of the great seasons, you know, in recent history. But he's pitching on four days rest, and apparently he's not as good on four days rest as he is on five. and so they could have flip flopped him and had you know Radon start game one or Garrett Cole, who's on full rest, start game one, but they pushed Cole to game three, I think they have Freed Freed in game two, not Radon.

and so that's just a lot of pitching the Yankees have. And so I think the Yankees, you know, that that's a little bit nervous for them to do that, knowing that he's much better and they they had a great pitcher in Max Fried they could have started in game one. Right, it is a bit strange, but obviously they're saying, Hey, listen, who's the guy that ride the horse that got ya here? And Schlitler who looks like he's gonna win this A L Cy Young.

kind of makes sense that you would tap him to have a I guess you'll be questioned if you don't win the guy won the Cy Young, shouldn't he start game one? And let's put it this way. What whatever they do is gonna be in based entirely on do the Yankees win the game. If they win the game, whichever pitcher they picked was right. If they lose the game, whichever they picked was pitcher picked they picked was wrong. It's that simple. And the Red Sox, you know, look, they they have great pitching and that's even without Garrett Crochet being you know, in the rotation. He is it looks like he's gonna pitch

in in this round probably out of the bullpen and he might do that for the entire playoffs. They may not start him because he's coming back from the shoulder injury that he was supposed to keep out a couple weeks in May. and he's finally coming back now. And certainly they could use a a a a full on Garrett crochet. That would, you know, tip the scales a little bit more towards the Red Sox. R certainly. It would make me be like, okay, well you know what, now that game one matchup is a lot more of a toss up. So then you've got

You've got the White Sox who, yay, the White Sox made the playoffs. Hooray! You know, go, White Sox go, they got a new ballpark coming. Everything is wonderful. And they, like the Cubs, are going to travel to the opposition, as you like as we were talking about before. They're gonna play the Houston Astros in Houston. what do you think about that series? This is a series I can't predict in the least, because it's like my my head's telling me like, okay, the White Sox seem like a team

That is destined to be just happy to be here. You know, it's like, okay, they made it. Yay, it's a nice story. They made the playoffs and now they'll get beat by the Astros because, you know, they're not actually really that good. And a lot of their warts as a team are gonna be particularly magnified in the playoffs. Like, you know, having all of your best hitters be really high strikeout guys with low averages, like, you know, that strike out a ton like Murakami and Colson Montgomery's. They did have three guys with thirty homers. Right, but both of those guys also, you know, have barely they've been some of the worst hitters since August first.

And so it's just like, ugh man, can they can they improve enough in what's traditionally a harder to hit environment and time in their first postseason in forever. And it's not like the Astros can't hit 'cause they've got Jordan Alvarez and I think they hit more home runs off right handers than any team in baseball this year.

and the White Sox happen to feature a bunch of right handed pitchers who are not necessarily household names in Sean Burke and Davis Martin and people like who what people are gonna say. So I I think that's that's a tall tale. I think the White Sox they have one chance to win this series and that's to hit a bunch of balls into the Crawford boxes. Pretty much. And if they if they bomb them, they could bomb them out 'cause the the the Astros pitching is not as good as it's been in the past. And that's

That's sort of where why I say it's hard to predict, because yes, in theory this looks like yes, the more experienced Astros team should handle the the the the White Sox team that had a great season and is a nice story, but ultimately isn't really equipped for postseason baseball. And if you think that But they're happy to be playing it because if you think that's not the case, I'm going to ask you, dear listener, can you name a single White Sox starter in this series? Well, I just named a couple of starting pitches and I'm like, ooh, everybody's like, Who are these guys? Exactly. So I think that's gonna be the big issue.

For you know that but but the Astros just aren't very good. They backed into the playoffs basically because the Mariners could just couldn't get their sack together in the last half of the season. So, okay, yeah, they should be able to handle the White Sox, but this is a five hundred baseball team. Yeah. Will they? They had the worst division record for a division winner and the worst playoff record in the history of baseball. How about that? Right? No one has ever done that.

And it's just like okay, is that and we're gonna just tell everybody, yeah, this team's gonna go comfortably win a postseason series? I don't know. I'll I'll be rooting for it to happen just because I think it would upset the apple card a little bit and they don't recede. So okay, well go let's go back around the other way. So then you go back to the Yankees, Red Sox, who you got? Got the Yankees. Okay. I I'm gonna pick the Yankees as well in that series, but just by a whisker. Braves Phillies. Braves.

I'm gonna pick the Phillies series. I just feel like and then they gotta win two games in Atlanta's ballpark. So I know what I'm saying when they say that. I just feel like after sale, the the Phillies might be able to do some damage. Okay, you what? I would say from a perspective of a jaded Mets fan that wants to enjoy the Schoden Freud, watching the Phillies beat the Braves in Atlanta to then just limp and get destroyed in the NLCS or the NL division series sounds way more enjoyable. Cause like both teams would be really unhappy.

The only thing better for the Mets is if both teams lost. and how about the you know the Cubs going to the Padres? This one, this one's this one's tricky. Cubs had a great year. Cubs had a great year. Padres had a great finish to their season. Padres were the hottest team in baseball coming down the stretch. And it's like, do you what what are you betting on? I'm betting on the Padres to I I just feel like the Cubs there's just the the the pitching dearth is going to come back to bite them in the behind.

I think in a three game series they're able to keep it together and get enough pitching with like th because they only need to really get one pi good pitching start to then find a win probably in this series 'cause I think that defense is gonna help cover up some of the bad pitching. I think they're able to get this series done and then when we go to the seven game series, that's when the problems begin. So we'll we'll we'll, you know, continue on this vein. I wanted to ask you so

Now the teams that are sitting at home watching these three games and they won't play until the weekend when they start the division series, the Dodgers, the Brewers, the Br Rays and the Guardians, do any of those four teams r run the risk of losing to one of these wild card teams who's gonna face them in the next in the division series?

Who's vulnerable? I think the Guardians would have to be vulnerable just based off of like like the only thing that the Guardians have going for the Guardians are vulnerable because they're probably going to be playing the Yankees. And I think that would be a matchup where people would probably favor the Yankees. Or the Red Sox, as it were. Either way. I I think the Rays don't have much to worry about purely off of the basis of who their likely opponent is to be. I think the Brewers would be playing the

They'd be playing the 3-6, so that's the Braves. Well, they don't reseed, so it's based off of who wins that matchup. So they would get the Phillies if the Phillies win this. I feel like that's a matchup the Brewers would be able to handle pretty well. I think if the Braves and the Padres win, the Padres I think could give the Brewers some pro I I think the Brewers would be okay against pretty much whoever they get matched up against.

I think the Dodgers will also probably be okay. Like the only thing is 'cause like the Brav the Braves can't play the Brewers. And that would be the only matchup I think that would give me hm that could give the b that could give them some paw. actually no, it could be Braves. It would be Braves Brewers. That could be yeah, 'cause the the Brewers are gonna be no the Brewers are the one, right? Right. Right. the I think the Dodgers are the one. Did the Dodgers steal the one? I'm not sure. No, the Brewers are the one.

Brewers are the ones. They can't play the Braves. That would be the only team I think other than the Dodgers that I think could really give them a lot of problems. I feel I feel like you do like it seems like it's gonna be, you know, for the NLCS it's gonna be the Dodgers and the Brewers. I don't see any of the other teams knocking them out. Right, right. If the Braves played the Brewers, I could see it only because it would take like one pitcher having a series that isn't Chris Sale to make that a real series, then. Yeah, yeah. And and then as far as, you know, the other the other league, you know, I I

I I pretty much feel the Rays will somehow get to the ALCS. I don't know what'll happen then, but they've had too good a season for them to to to to puke in the division series. It's hard for me not to look at this and see don't see a Rays Yankees ALCS just because I think that they're definitively better than the other teams in the Nash in the American league. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong. Well here and here's what the four teams that are waiting are hoping for three game series.