The Mets, uh, are no longer playing baseball, to put it nicely. They lost their final game of the season on Sunday, in embarrassing fashion.
So here we are, without the Mets, but still with baseball. This raises the question, who are we watching now?
I’ll be watching the Marlins in the playoffs, not from a fan standpoint, but more because I feel like they might be the flukiest team in the playoffs. Even though they’re not the lowest seed in the National League, I still feel like they’re the biggest shock in terms of teams that made the playoffs and it would be fun to see them actually make a run for the World Series.
I think it’s the Brewers. They’re really the only team who might be capable of beating the Dodgers in the NL. They have Woodruff leading their rotation. Not to mention, Devin Williams, Freddy Peralta, and Josh Hader in their bullpen. Losing Corbin Burnes hurts but they can conceivably get a gem from Woodruff and have their bullpen be dominant.
The Dodgers are so stacked that I’d still pick them but the Brewers can absolutely take 2 out of 3 from them. If they don’t, I’m not sure who will. Mookie Betts, Corey Seager, Justin Turner, Max Muncy, Joc Pederson, Will Smith, Chris Taylor, and Cody Bellinger with a rotation of Kershaw, Buehler, Gonsolin, and May? Good luck.
It’s always a great story when you see a team win their first World Series, so I am rooting for a San Diego Padres/Tampa Bay Rays World Series. San Diego has so much exciting young talent and the Rays are probably the best-run small market team in baseball. Also, since I just re-watched Moneyball, there is a part of me that wouldn’t mind seeing Billy Beane finally win one in Oakland.
I expect the Dodgers to run roughshod over the NL side of the bracket on the basis of not only their complete roster, but also their wealth of experience relative to the other seven teams. However, there should be some profoundly entertaining matchups in that first round – my standout being Reds-Braves, which is a lot more evenly matched than the records may lead you to believe. Cincinnati’s pitching staff has commanded our attention as an unstoppable force, whereas the bats of Freddie Freeman, Marcell Ozuna, and Travis d’Arnaud have been the immovable objects of the NL East.
The AL is lined up to be a dogfight for the ages with every contest in the first-round up in the air (save for probably the Rays and Blue Jays), but I think the Chicago White Sox are going to milk every ounce of young, weird energy out of what’s been an incredibly weird baseball season. Dallas Keuchel may have submitted the quietest 1.99 ERA in the modern era, and their bullpen (Alex Colome, Matt Foster, Aaron Bummer, Garrett Crochet, and Codi Heuer) is made for this kind of stage.
Their starting rotation whimpered through this last week of baseball, but some of the best runs through the postseason come on the heels of a weak streak on the way in. If they can crack the Oakland Athletics like the last two wild-card teams have, I think they could surprise a lot of people in the later stages.
With the Mets missing yet another postseason, It’s time to set our sights on the remaining teams in the hunt for a World Series title. For me, there are three teams that I will be keeping an eye on in the postseason. The first two teams are the Oakland A’s and Minnesota Twins. The main reason for this is because neither team, despite their regular season successes over the last few years, have yet to win a postseason series.
If we are to continue taking the A’s and Twins as serious contenders, then they both need to finally get over this hump and make some noise in October.
The other team I will be watching closely is the Los Angles Dodgers. The reason is obvious — can they finally end their World Series title drought? This is a team with far too much talent, even with the expanded postseason, to not make it to another Fall Classic…win finally win it.
During the post season, I’ll be paying particular attention to the teams that were favored this year -the Dodgers and Yankees. Those two teams have pressure on them to perform well in October, particularly the Dodgers, who lost the World Series in 2017 and 2018. The Yankees and Dodgers have the highest payrolls in 2020, so expectations are high.
When you think about some of the other teams in this year’s post season, such as the Blue Jays, Reds, and Brewers, they’re essentially playing with house money. They probably would not have qualified in a traditional season. Anything they achieve would be a bonus for their franchises.
The Dodgers and Yankees have to survive an extra round of playoffs to get to the place where they’re expected to be. It will be interesting to see if the oddities of 2020 play out in the baseball playoffs. Will an underdog, barely .500 team pick off either of the Goliaths? We’ll see, that’s why it’s going to be fun.
As a lifelong L.A. native, I’ll obviously be rooting hard for the Dodgers to finally get over the hump and end a string of years of postseason frustration. I was going to have a dilemma on my hands if the Mets squeaked in, but they made that pretty easy for me.
If the Dodgers do fall again, my second choice would have to be the Marlins, because who doesn’t love an underdog? The fact that they’re even in the playoffs is a great story within itself.
For the National League, while I know that the Dodgers are likely to be the league representative in the World Series given their insane amount of talent and strength both in their rotation and offensively, I’ll be rooting for the Chicago Cubs. I visited Wrigley field in 2016 for a Mets-Cubs game and instantly fell in love with the baseball-centric atmosphere in the city, and around the ballpark, which made me a closet Cubs fan whenever the Mets do poorly. The Cubs have the pitching, and they have the offense to do well and are a quietly good team in this years’ playoff marathon.
I also would love to see more of the Padres, given just how exciting the team has been this season. They have a lot of talent and spunk on that team and I think they can go far, plus it would be nice to see them win their first World Series Title.
Now for the American League, there are a lot of teams I like going into the playoffs. The Athletics have been a very good team the last few years with a powerhouse on offense which makes me believe they have a real shot this year to go far. My other two teams going in are the Chicago White Sox, and the Tampa Bay Rays.
The White Sox are sneaky-good from top to bottom and they are a fun team to watch. I also watched the no-hitter Lucas Giolito threw in the Players League and during the 2020 regular season, so naturally I am a bit biased.
Unfortunately, the Athletics and White Sox play one another in the first round so they both cannot make it to the second round, and because of that I have a third team I am rooting for—The Tampa Bay Rays. The Tampa Bay Rays are such a deep team with their rotation, the bullpen, and the big offensive talent they have, and I genuinely think they can make it to the World Series.
As good as the Rays are, can they beat the Dodgers? We shall see…
For my team to watch, I’m going to say the Athletics. Though their offense is lacking some key components (for example, they’re 21st in the Majors in slugging), the A’s will make you work at the plate. They had the third highest walk percentage in the league and they can make opposing pitchers work.
Plus, their bullpen is one of the better ones in baseball so as long as the rotation can hold up well enough, this pen has proven tough to get to. Their four blown saves were tied for the second fewest in all of baseball. They catch a White Sox team that struggled down the stretch and if seeds hold, a Twins squad that struggled to hit lefties and is very dependent on the long ball.
Am I a sucker for the baseball underdog? Maybe. With the extended playoffs this year, I have to pay attention to those teams that likely would not have made it into the postseason in any other year, such as the Blue Jays. I know I joked several times during this season, like many other did, that the Blue Jays were the best team in New York. Let’s see what they have in them.
Also, as a fan of an NL East team that in most recent years always had the Marlins behind them, watching them in the playoffs will be a definite. It can give us hope, and remind us that we should be there, too. And we will, with Steve Cohen.
