The team you wish made the playoffs
Les Carpenter: None. There are already too many teams in baseball’s postseason. I hate the Wild Card game. What’s the point of playing 162 games to have one play-in game? Four teams in each league is enough.
David Lengel: The Seattle Mariners, a team of watchable stars that failed to build on their 87-win season of a year ago. The franchise broke the bank to employ King Felix Hernandez, Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz, but Cano didn’t show up until the second half and their supporting cast floundered, eventually costing Jack Zduriencik his general manager gig. They have a lively fan base – it would’ve been good to see them again. Watching Miguel Sano and his Minnesota Twins play fall baseball would’ve also added to October.
DJ Gallo: As disappointing as the Nationals were this year, they’re not a team anyone would have wanted to face in the postseason. A team with Bryce Harper, Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg presents a very tough matchup in a series format. Plus, let’s not forget the added entertainment value of unprovoked attacks by Jonathan Papelbon on his teammates’ necks and Matt Williams doing absolutely everything wrong. That’s ratings gold.
Jonathan Bernhardt: I should say the Orioles here, but frankly I think that’d just be more embarrassing for a rotation with no business pitching in October, so I’ll go with the Angels. Baseball needs Mike Trout in postseason play, even if it is just in the Wild Card game.
The dream World Series would be
LC: Yankees and Cubs. Here are two iconic franchises who haven’t faced each other in the World Series since 1938. They also met in 1932, the year of Babe Ruth’s famous “Called Shot.”
DL: At the risk of alienating Cubs fans, most of which are banking on Back to the Future’s forecasting, I’d love to see Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke face the mashers of the Toronto Blue Jays. How would the modern day murderers’ row of Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Troy Tulowitzki, Josh Donaldson and Russell Martin do against a Koufax/Drysdale type set-up that’s combined to strikeout 501 batters? I’d sure love to find out.
DG: I look at questions like this more about who I don’t want to see. No one outside of St Louis wants the Cardinals. The Dodgers aren’t ideal because that means a team bought its way to a championship. And the Royals have quickly worn out their welcome this year. So I’d say some combination of Pirates-Mets-Cubs v Astros-Rangers-Blue Jays-Yankees. Yes, the “evil” Yankees. It would perfectly cap A-Rod’s season of trolling. And, you know what? Let’s cross the Cubs off. Their fans would likely become the modern version of 2004 Red Sox fans.
JB: Toronto Blue Jays v New York Mets. Lots of storylines here – the RA Dickey/Noah Syndergaard/Travis d’Arnaud trade from after the 2012 season is the biggest one, of course, but Mets starters against Toronto hitting is one of the best tests of team strength against team strength available in this year’s postseason play. And I’d be happy to see either team take home rings.
The actual World Series will be
LC: Blue Jays and Cardinals. These are your two best teams. Toronto’s addition of David Price has given them a starter who can win three games in a big series with an explosive lineup to support him. St Louis can beat teams with a solid rotation, strong bullpen and a lineup that can produce timely hits.
DL: You gotta enjoy the way that the Kansas City Royals play the game, particularly outfielder Lorenzo Cain and catcher Salvador Perez. But the absence of Greg Holland diminishes their bullpen formula, and they didn’t really play all that well against opponents over .500 this season. That’s why the Jays, who were best when playing stronger teams in 2015, come out of the American League.
The NL? Well, I’m way too damaged to think anyone can beat St Louis, who are nothing to be afraid of on paper but still somehow managed to win 100 games. Only the San Francisco Giants and Boston Red Sox seem to be able to beat them in the playoffs, and they’re playing golf.
DG: Dodgers-Blue Jays. At some point, Clayton Kershaw will pitch like Clayton Kershaw in the postseason and not like Ichiro Suzuki, right? Right? (Right?) My guess is that it’s this year and, teamed with Zack Greinke, the Dodgers will take out the Mets and then the victor from the three-headed NL Central monster. On the AL side, the Blue Jays will light up the scoreboard and we’ll see a classic pitching v offense World Series. That’s a guarantee. (Or I’m just guessing.)
JB: The Yankees v the Cardinals or some garbage nonsense like that. We rarely get nice things, and the most qualified teams are rarely the ones that make it all the way to the end of the postseason gauntlet. Maybe instead of the Yankees, the Royals will hit .800 in the ALCS again or something. Won’t that World Series be fun to sit through for everyone outside of Missouri?
World Series winner
LC: St Louis. Michael Wacha, Jamie Garcia, John Lackey and Lance Lynn give the Cardinals as deep a rotation as anyone and can follow it with strikeout pitchers in the eight and ninth. Plus Adam Wainwright is back too.
DL: In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a little thing going for the Blue Jays, and of course, I’m not alone on that Canadian love train. Not only do they have a bona-fide ace in David Price, but RA Dickey has an ERA of 2.80 in the second half while a healthy Marcus Stroman and Marco Estrada also helped their starters finish strong. But never mind the hurlers, this is the year that hitting wins championships.
DG: Good pitching beats good hitting, right? Isn’t that the saying? And the Dodgers have Kershaw and Greinke so … yeah, I’m going Blue Jays. It’s not like Toronto is without any arms of their own (hello, David Price!), and the LA lineup can’t hold a candle to what the Blue Jays put up. West Coast rappers better be prepared for a Drake diss track.
JB: As far as regular season results go, the St Louis Cardinals have the best pitching staff as a whole not just of the year but of recent memory – a team ERA+ of 135 is almost unheard of in post-expansion play. I like to bet on pitching in the postseason, so I’ll bet on the Cardinals – but it’s worth noting that a late-season injury to Carlos Martinez sidelined one of their most impressive players for the entire playoff run. They’re getting Adam Wainwright back, though, so they’re probably going to be fine.
World Series MVP
LC: Some guy from the Cardinals you never heard of. Randal Grichuk? Stephen Piscotty? Tony Cruz? One of them will be holding the trophy at the end.
DL: Russell Martin.
DG: Josh Donaldson. Donaldson put up career highs in home runs, RBI and OPS this year and kept hitting right through September. He has no home runs or RBI in 46 career postseason at-bats, but since it’s October, that means it’s time for Billy Beane to be humiliated. And nothing would make the A’s GM look worse this season than Donaldson winning World Series MVP.
JB: Jason Heyward. Matt Carpenter would be the easily pick here, but Heyward’s been on fire to end the year and that could translate into postseason play. Or it could not. The narrative surrounding Yadier Molina, Lord and Cardinal Savior, isn’t quite what it was a year or two ago but is still such that if he has a pretty good series at the plate it’ll go to him. I’m just not sure that Yadier Molina’s going to show up this postseason.
AL Wild Card Winner
LC: Yankees.
DL: Houston Astros.
DG: Astros.
JB: New York Yankees.
NL Wild Card Winner
LC: Pirates.
DL: Pittsburgh Pirates.
DG: Pirates.
JB: Chicago Cubs.
Thing you’re most looking forward to
LC: Seeing how far Clayton Kershaw and Zach Greinke can take the Dodgers. No team has a better 1-2 combination, but the Dodgers don’t have a strong lineup or much of a bullpen aside from Kenley Jansen.
DL: Without a doubt, how the Chicago Cubs melt down this time around. Perhaps against the Pittsburgh Pirates, who could find a way to put a battering on other-worldly ace Jake Arrieta. Joe Maddon is too cool for school, and curses, so he’s going to learn the hard way by watching his 97-win season unravel before his very eyes. Somebody wearing a blue cap is going to make everybody forget about Steve Bartman, at least for a few days. Who will it be this time? The upcoming slugfest between the Jays and the Texas Rangers, who can hit with anybody, also offers up intrigue.
DG: Baseball that really matters. Even the biggest fans can admit that the 162-game regular season can get a bit monotonous. It’s easy to have some boredom seep in and begin taking selfies. Outside of the AL West and the AL wildcard spots, the playoff teams have pretty much been known for a month. But meaningless baseball is now over. Every pitch is pressure-packed, every move important. It’s almost a different sport. And it’s awesome.
JB: Alex Rodriguez getting an extended postseason run on a Yankee team without Derek Jeter hanging around to steal that spotlight. Rodriguez carried the Yankees in 2009, he carried them to the postseason this year, and I expect he’ll continue to carry them again. Too bad about the rest of that offense.
Thing you’re least looking forward to
LC: Games played on the Rogers Centre turf with dirt cutouts. This is 2015, not 1985.
DL: If I can put my fan cap on for a moment, that would be the New York Mets facing the Cardinals in the NLCS again. Really, I’d prefer to spend the rest of my life making widgets in a Soviet-style gulag than submit myself to that sort of punishment.
DG: The over-analysis of every managerial move. Each manager who made it to the postseason knows more about baseball than all of us reading this combined. But if a pitching change doesn’t work out or a starter is left in and gives up a run, fans instantly declare the manager the dumbest person who ever lived. Thankfully, most managers are too old (or too smart?) to bother reading social media.
JB: Basically, everything about Jake Arrieta. Hearing about Jake Arrieta, seeing Jake Arrieta, watching Jake Arrieta pitch, listening to announcers talk about Jake Arrieta. If I had a vote for the NL Cy Young Award, I would vote for Arrieta. In all other aspects of my life I would prefer not to be reminded that he exists. He will probably pitch fantastically.
Player you’re most looking forward to watching
LC: Corey Seager. At the start of September, Seager was in the minors, now the Dodgers have made their top prospect their starting shortstop going into the postseason. He can really hit but he also has just 98 big league at-bats.
DL: Carlos Correa. The phenom set an Astros rookie record with 22 home runs while posting an OPS of .857, all of which will likely be enough to win him the Rookie of the Year award. As good as he’s been, and balls just fly off his bat, he’s sort of flown under the radar a bit, probably because Houston isn’t exactly a high-profile baseball town. In the playoffs, with the baseball world watching, we’ll all get to see first hand just how good this franchise shortstop is.
DG: Jake Arrieta. In just two years, he’s transformed himself from 27-year old Triple-A scrub to unstoppable destroyer of baseball worlds. He’s so dominant, that many fans of the Pirates – the team with the second-best record in baseball – believe their team has almost no shot at winning the wild card game at home. And maybe Arrieta is that unhittable. On the other hand, maybe a guy who was awful not long ago shouldn’t tempt fate by talking trash to parody Twitter accounts.
Whatever helps keep your hope alive, just know, it doesn't matter. @Cubs https://t.co/bJDN1wP0tS
— Jake Arrieta (@JArrieta34) October 4, 2015
JB: Gerrit Cole, Pittsburgh Pirates. I’ve somehow managed not to catch much of him over the course of the year, but he’s finally hit the ace potential he always had and I’m interested to see that in action during the Wild Card game.
If the Cubs win you’ll be …
LC: Bracing for the onslaught of sudden, long-suffering Cubs fans who were not Cubs fans the week before.
DL: Writing about how the Cubs completely destroyed their brand by becoming World Series champions. What do you do when your reason for living no longer exists? Win again? Become a modern dynasty? Put up three more ginormous video boards? Life is all about the journey Cubbies fans.
DG: Preparing to hate Cubs fans. Remember the Red Sox pre-2004? They were lovable underdogs that the whole nation was rooting for. Then every bandwagon fan in the world bought a Boston hat and assured us all that they had been Red Sox diehards since birth. Today, Boston fans are universally loathed. The Cubs haven’t won since 1908 – a drought far longer than Boston’s old Bambino-cursed period – and their transition from lovable losers to unbearable could be even more sudden. Don’t become the new Boston fans, Cubs Nation. Please handle your success responsibly.
JB: Buying a handle of cheap vodka and logging out of all social media accounts for the next three days.
Bold prediction
LC: RA Dickey will become the oldest pitcher to throw a shutout in the World Series.
DL: It’s the bottom of the ninth inning in Pittsburgh and Cubs are up 1-0, with two outs and Neil Walker on first base. Jake Arrieta has another no-hitter going against the Pirates, and only Walker, literally throwing his body into the baseball stands between their ace and a perfect Wild Card game. Arrieta is going into the windup with an 0-2 count on Pedro Alvarez when suddenly, and entirely accidentally, the sprinklers go off. Because the forgetful grounds crew forgot to re-program the lawn maintenance for the post-season, Arrieta is completely and totally soaked. He’s furious, so mad in fact that when Joe Maddon walks to the mound to calm him down, Arrieta literally walks him back to the dugout. In the 13th pitch of an epic at-bat, Alvarez goes opposite field in the unlikeliest of Cubs walk-off defeats of all-time … and the curse continues for ever and ever and ever.
DG: The Cubs will not win the World Series. Does this qualifying as a bold prediction or the safest thing ever said? I’m not sure. The Cubs just won 97 games, have the most fearsome pitcher and baseball and are stocked with talent. On the other hand, they’re the Cubs. These surely are interesting times. But maybe I need to make my prediction more bold. Let’s try this: the Cubs will not win the World Series ... ever. (Still not sure if that’s at all bold.)
JB: Taylor Swift’s concert for October 9 at Minute Maid Park will proceed as scheduled.
