A bloodless and ruthlessly efficient wild-card round certainly cleaned out the playoff pool, but did little to establish which clubs might be firmly positioned as World Series favorites.
In fact, it probably clouded the issue.
As Major League Baseball’s postseason bracket challenge gets trimmed from 12 hopefuls to eight, the formality of the four wild-card series certainly created a fresh set of challenges for the higher-seeded and ostensibly superior division winners who await in the American and National League Division Series.
And the clearest path to a pennant and the World Series that follows looks much more cluttered.
Nonetheless, USA TODAY Sports will take aim at ranking the remaining playoff pool, based on the best path to the World Series as the four Division Series tip off Saturday:
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Whoa. You mean a team with a sore-shouldered ace capable of pitching five innings a week, backed by a kiddie corps of starters should be booking its Fall Classic reservations?
Well, you can’t get to the World Series unless you survive the NL Championship Series. And there’s no NLCS unless you survive the NLDS.
And the Dodgers have by far the simplest assignment of the four top seeds.
They’ll welcome 84-win Arizona to Dodger Stadium to open the proceedings, thanks to the Diamondbacks’ “upset” of a Milwaukee club without No. 2 starter Brandon Woodruff. No Central club has advanced to a World Series since 2016, so the loss wasn’t exactly a stunner.
Los Angeles went 8-5 against Arizona this year and will start Clayton Kershaw in Game 1. Whether the future Hall of Famer can pitch more than the once a week he’s gone in the past month remains to be seen.
But a high-octane and playoff-seasoned Dodgers offense should take the heat off young starters Bobby Miller and Ryan Pepiot, who may become household names by November. Most important: The Dodgers only have to beat one of Atlanta and Philadelphia to get to the Fall Classic.
Yeah, not sure just what we’re smoking here. But we had a sneaking suspicion the Twins’ pitching really was for real coming into the playoffs, and Pablo Lopez and Sonny Gray only reinforced that notion in dismissing the Toronto Blue Jays.
Can they topple the playoff-seasoned Houston Astros? Well, Carlos Correa is on their side for this one. Swiping a game off Justin Verlander or Framber Valdez at Minute Maid Park would send the Twins back to their suddenly crazed home field.
Beyond that, Lopez, Gray, Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober and Kenta Maeda form a solid base to survive the best-of-seven series to come. Hey, sometimes you gotta roll the dice.
There’s no more proving if they’re for real. The Orioles answered every question effusively down the stretch, and in this bloated playoff environment, 101 wins counts for an awful lot.
The only problem is the Texas Rangers tumbling from AL West champ all the way down to a wild-card series. Now, Baltimore faces an ALCS-caliber matchup a round early – and the first to three wins.
Having wisely managed their young pitchers’ workloads, the Orioles have enough pitching. The question is whether an offense prone to dry spells can consistently produce against the shortened playoff staffs they’ll face.
We’ll deem them the official “Don’t let them get hot” club of October: Survive the Rangers, and the Orioles might not be stopped.
The most fascinating division series is a rematch from last year – and this time, a Phillies conquest won’t be considered such an “upset.”
Oh, Atlanta is as scary as it looks on paper: 104 wins, 307 home runs, the presumptive NL MVP in Ronald Acuña Jr. It’s just that Philly’s pitching is looking far deeper right now – and that could be the case in every series going forward.
Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola showed they can lead the way in sweeping aside Miami. But it’s the weapons they’ve scarcely deployed yet – lefty starters Ranger Suarez and Cristopher Sanchez, and a deep bullpen led by Jose Alvarado, Jeff Hoffman and intriguingly dominant rookie Orion Kerkering – that bodes particularly well for the later rounds.
Apparently, they can also hit the ball a little.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Spencer Strider may be the most significant individual this postseason.
No pitcher is as dominant as the 20-game winner and 281-strikeout man, and his starting assignment in Game 1 against the Phillies is huge. Manage the pitch count and shut down the Phillies, and Atlanta has a massive leg up in that NLDS.
Make a couple mistakes and fail to get through six innings, and the Braves’ quietly concerning pitching depth is suddenly a huge issue.
An off day between Games 1 and 4 means Strider can start twice on regular rest, the latter outing coming at Citizens Bank Park, where 45,000 frothy participants apparently took Strider’s cheeky general comments about fandom rather personally.
Two Strider wins would alleviate pressure on lefty Max Fried, who hasn’t pitched in two weeks due to a blister and diminish the import of a likely piggyback effort from Bryce Elder and Kyle Wright.
That Braves offense? It rolls nine deep. But it may only go as far as their arms take them.
Texas looked dead in the water after failing three times to lock down the division, but Tampa Bay’s pop-gun offense was just what an injury-wracked, bullpen-challenged club needed.
Now, can the Rangers slug their way into the final four?
By far the biggest bright spot in the wild-card round was Nathan Eovaldi’s dominant start, after an injury-filled and ineffective second half. Jordan Montgomery and Eovaldi will start Games 2 and 3 of the ALDS, which puts a huge burden on expected Game 1 starter Dane Dunning.
It seems unlikely a club missing both their Plan A, B and C starters in Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer and Jon Gray and a bullpen whose 4.77 ERA is worst among playoff teams can pull together enough pitching in a best-of-seven series. But Marcus Semien, Corey Seager and Adolis Garcia are healthy. Slugfests, anyone?
Far be it from us to say the Astros’ ownership of the AL is over with. Four ALCS titles in six seasons earns them the benefit of the doubt.
But we do have our doubts this year.
Houston spent September in an unfamiliar role – first assuring it would even reach the playoffs, and then needing a Rangers loss on the last day of the year and a tiebreaker to win the division.
The potholes they navigated to get here might be too deep going forward.
A pitching staff that saw Cristian Javier’s ERA leap by more than two runs and Framber Valdez’s more than half a run can no longer be the backbone – even if Justin Verlander is back, for old times’ sake. While Bryan Abreu and Hector Neris are reliably dominant, the bullpen is not the lockdown unit it was a year ago, not with Ryan Pressly’s concerning peripherals and Rafael Montero’s implosion.
The epic quartet of Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez means the club can get back in any game in a hurry. But this time, perhaps there’s one too many holes to patch.
Sure, it’s possible: The Diamondbacks can pull a 2006 Cardinals – they of the 83 wins – and chug their way into the World Series.
Just not particularly probable.
It’s nice that top starters Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen are aligned for the first two games of the NLDS. But while the Diamondbacks survived a Brandon Pfaadt start to win Game 1 of the wild-card series, their back-end rotation weaknesses and mid bullpen will eventually surface.
For now, enjoy the Corbin Carroll highlight reel while you can. You’d think the Dodgers saw enough of him to take utmost care with the presumed Rookie of the Year. The Brewers learned that lesson too late.
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