The reigning National League champions. A pair of young franchises with young rosters trying to recapture glories now twenty years old. A beleaguered organization stepping into the ring already bloodied, but trying again. Two of the most shrewdly-run teams in sports. Two teams that spent just enough and developed just enough to get their seats at the table. Payrolls ranging from the 4th-highest in baseball to the 4th-lowest. Regular season records ranging from the 4th-best in baseball to only one series sweep away from .500. It’s a wide assortment of baseball which enters this Wild Card Series, a casting call where the director doesn’t quite know what she has in mind. If there’s a director here, she’s going to find some World Series contenders, but who knows which teams those will be. Over these next two or three days, the MLB playoff field will winnow from twelve teams to eight. Here’s how we’re going to get there.
AL #4 vs. #5: Tampa Bay vs. Texas
For each of these, we’re going to explore four sections. We’ll lead with the dudes—notable players on each team by regular season performance, on-paper talent, regular season impact, and where the market’s valued them; the duels—the pitching matchups expected in each game; and the desperation—where each franchise stands on the curve between ascending excitement and fading hopes. We’ll then offer some closing thoughts. We will, as always, heavily be utilizing numbers from FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
The Dudes
Tampa Bay:
- Zach Eflin
- Tyler Glasnow
- Yandy Díaz
- Isaac Paredes
The Rays are the rare team whose best player this season was also its highest-paid, with no one on the Tampa Bay roster making more than Zach Eflin’s $11M salary. That is a silly number in and of its own, shockingly low, and to be fair, all three of Eflin, Tyler Glasnow, and Wander Franco have higher average annual values on their contracts than $11M and are merely in low-paying years this year. The broader point here, though, is that Eflin was the Rays’ best player by fWAR over the 2023 season. He made 31 starts—nearly a full season’s worth—and pitched only 177.2 innings but managed, in those innings, a 3.01 FIP, meaning if you take fielding luck out of the equation, his performance was of the quality that it should have generated 3.01 earned runs per nine innings. Eflin’s greatest asset was his consistency. He never allowed more than six runs in a start, and he allowed more than four runs only three times. Every sixth day or so, Zach Eflin took the ball and gave the Rays quality innings, quietly leading the march for a 99-win team. The Rays have a lot of coming and going. It’s how they do things. Eflin was the steady presence in the middle of that infield, taking the mound with his 6’6” frame and throwing strikes.
What Eflin lacks is Tyler Glasnow’s pedigree. Eflin is physically impressive, but Glasnow is an Adonis, 6’8” with flowing hair and a sharply defined nose, throwing some of the nastiest pitches in the league. Tyler Glasnow strikes out more batters than all but 3% of pitchers, and when he does allow contact, he allows solid contact less often than all but 4% of his peers. Why did Eflin have the better year? Health. Glasnow only returned at the end of May after going down with an oblique strain early in spring training. Glasnow is going to start Game 1 today, and if it goes as more than 50% of his starts have gone, he’ll last between five and seven innings while allowing only one run or no runs at all.
At the plate, it’s Yandy Díaz who’s led the cause, taking the fWAR lead from Franco only in the closing weeks after Franco was placed on administrative leave in August. The Rays are very much a “moneyball” team, using analytics heavily and making a lot of wins out of a few dollars, but there’s a good illustration here of what moneyball really means. Yandy Díaz batted .330 this season. Yandy Díaz won the American League batting title. Batting average still often correlates with strong offensive performance. What moneyball taught was that there are a lot of ways to do it. Díaz doesn’t have the most power in the game—he hit 22 home runs this year, but that’s only around the median for qualified hitters—but he gets on base at a .410 clip, only six points lower than Ronald Acuña Jr., and he does that as Acuña does it: Mostly by getting hits. Again, the power is medium, and the speed is not there—Díaz didn’t steal a base this whole season—but at the top of the Rays’ lineup is one of the most effective hitters in all of baseball. The only cause for concern? He’s nursing a hamstring issue. Keep an eye on that.
Díaz also led the Rays in Win Probability Added, so we’ll talk about the third-most productive active Ray as our fourth dude: Isaac Paredes. Paredes finished behind Eflin, Díaz, and Franco in regular season production, the 24-year-old breaking out with a 31-home run season. Paredes is not a particularly big man—he stands only 5’11”, though he is listed at 213 lbs., not far off Glasnow’s listed 225—but he swings like one, and he can play all over the infield, finding innings at first, second, and third. The issue with Paredes is that there’s a gap between how hard he’s hitting the ball and how well it’s turning out for him, a trend which implies he’s had some good luck which should be expected to recede.
Texas:
- Marcus Semien
- Corey Seager
- Jordan Montgomery
- Adolis García
I’d be interested in hearing a Rangers expert confirm this, but my perception is that Marcus Semien is the heart and soul of this Texas ballclub. Semien signed with the Rangers as a free agent prior to the 2022 season, and in the time since, he’s missed only one game. This year, he played in all 162, homering 29 times and driving in an even 100 runs and finishing on the edge of the top quartile of qualified hitters in wRC+, an all-encompassing offensive metric. All of this while playing defense at a 93rd-percentile level, per Baseball Savant, up the middle. Semien is a ballplayer, there every single day at the top of the Rangers’ lineup.
Corey Seager is also a ballplayer, but he’s a different breed. His offensive production this year was obscene, enough to land him seventh in baseball in fWAR despite only playing in 119 of Texas’s 162 games due to some early-season injury issues. He plays shortstop while Semien plays second base, he bats second after Semien leads off, he made $35.5M this year and the Rangers got good value. The Rangers scored the third-most runs in baseball this season, trailing only Atlanta and Los Angeles. That’s what happens when you start your lineup with Marcus Semien and Corey Seager.
The Rangers have the fourth-highest payroll in baseball, but much of that is going to Jacob deGrom and trade deadline acquisition Max Scherzer, whose combined salaries make up 90% of the total Rays’ payroll. Neither deGrom nor Scherzer will pitch this series, with Scherzer’s attempted comeback from a shoulder muscle injury hitting a setback last week and deGrom out after undergoing Tommy John surgery this summer. Instead of those two, it’s Jordan Montgomery who’s expected to make the biggest non-Seager impact in October, the less heralded trade deadline pickup making eleven outings in a Rangers uniform over the stretch run and recording a quality start in eight of them, holding his opponent scoreless through seven or eight innings in three of those eight. The Rangers signed an ace, and it didn’t work out. The Rangers traded for an ace, and it didn’t work out. The Rangers traded for another solid arm, and Jordan Montgomery has stepped into the ace role. He’s no Glasnow in terms of his potential, but he has gotten the job done again and again as Texas has weathered some storms en route to landing two games clear of the playoff cut line.
Seager led the Rangers in WPA, Seager’s the highest-paid Ranger besides Scherzer, Seager and Montgomery and Semien are the three best Rangers on paper. The fourth-best Ranger over this regular season was Adolis García, the hard-swinging outfielder who clubbed 39 home runs from the middle of the Texas lineup. There are a lot of guys in baseball these days who hit the ball hard. García is among the hardest-hitting of them all. He strikes out a lot, but when he connects, the ball travels, and he connects a lot. He strained his patellar tendon last month but continued to hit the ball well after his return a few weeks ago. This Rangers lineup is tough.
The Duels
- Game 1: Glasnow vs. Montgomery
- Game 2: Eflin vs. TBD – Nathan Eovaldi?
- Game 3: TBD – Aaron Civale? vs. TBD – Dane Dunning?
Today is Glasnow vs. Montgomery, and Eflin is listed as starting Game 2 for the Rays. Beyond that, the matchups are up in the air, with Nathan Eovaldi and Dane Dunning the leading candidates for the Rangers and Aaron Civale the leading candidate for Tampa Bay, though they could go a number of directions and have not been shy about bullpen games over the years.
Eovaldi has been an ace at times in his career, putting up a 2.79 FIP over a full season in 2021 for the Red Sox. In his first year in Texas, he’s made only 25 starts (32 or 33 is generally the number for a full season these days), but his 3.88 FIP has been solid and there’s reason to believe he’s a little better than that number. Regardless of who it is, the Rays have the advantage on the mound in both Games 1 and 2. Eflin and Glasnow are each better than any Rangers starter. Montgomery can outpitch Glasnow, Eovaldi can outpitch Eflin, but it’s a pair of matchups which favors the Rays.
With the bullpens fairly evenly matched in total (Pete Fairbanks is special, but the Rays have only one of him), the series then hinges on, on paper, the Rays’ starting pitching advantage vs. the Rangers lineup advantage. The Rangers hit the ball hard, but the Rays have so much depth and so much experience navigating single games strategically that they’re an understandable favorite here, especially after winning 99 games. The absence of Franco makes them worse, but the Rays are a very good team with a lot of flexibility to address whatever situation comes their way.
If the series reaches a Game 3 and it is indeed Civale vs. Dunning, that’s a matchup that also favors Tampa Bay. Civale is no ace, but he’s a good starter. Dunning’s thought by some to still be best suited as a swingman. The longer these series go for Texas, the larger the injuries loom to deGrom, Scherzer, and Jon Gray (he went on the IL recently with a forearm issue).
The Desperation
The Rangers are in a strange spot of not having enjoyed a lot of recent success but also having a veteran core that shouldn’t be expected to perform as well next year as it did this year. That said, they’re clearly willing to spend, and their pitching should be healthier next season, and they’re in a weird boat where the rivalry with the Astros is growing nasty enough that winning the division would have been a big deal. They can’t win the division now. That ship has sailed. They would appreciate postseason success as much as anyone, but the desperation is not there with this team.
The Rays also sit in a paradoxical location, young and financially flexible and missing some stars (Shane McClanahan, their ace, was hurt this summer) but so used to playoff appearances that at this point, they want a title, even if the odds are stacked against them. The Rays have won the pennant twice in the last fifteen seasons, but they’ve yet to win a World Series, and the last two years they’ve been eliminated in the postseason’s first round. The Rays want a deep run. At the very least, they’re looking for a classic ALDS against the Orioles. Losing to these Rangers would be highly disappointing for these Rays.
Closing Thoughts
One would think a lot of this series hinges on how deep the starters go this afternoon. The Rangers need pitching flexibility more than the Rays when it comes to covering their bases, because their starting pitching is so much more thin, but the Rays need it when it comes to holding off that Rangers offense. Also? I’m curious what the atmosphere will be like at Tropicana Field. That park has been a testament over recent seasons to how just about any location is a good one for playoff baseball.
AL #3 vs. #6: Minnesota vs. Toronto
When neither of you won 90 games and the other series has a 99-win team involved, you’re the undercard. We appreciate the northern flavor here, though.
The Dudes
Minnesota:
- Sonny Gray
- Pablo López
- Jhoan Duran
- Carlos Correa
Back before there was an internet to give us memes, Monty Python shared a Black Knight who slowly lost all of his limbs in battle with King Arthur. On a related note, no one on the Minnesota Twins played in more than 135 games this year.
Pitching carried these guys, as did playing in a division which involved both the White Sox and the Royals. The Twins took what the league gave them, went 18–8 against those two teams, and played one game better than .500 baseball the rest of the year. Anyway, the players:
Sonny Gray has bounced around since leaving Oakland, but this latest stop has produced his best pitching yet, with Gray leading the Twins in production in 2023 with a 2.83 FIP over a full 32 starts. He doesn’t strike out the most batters, and he doesn’t limit his walks, but he keeps the ball in the ballpark better than anyone in the game, and it is not at all close. Gray allowed 0.39 homers per nine innings this year. The next-closest qualified guy, Justin Steele, allowed 0.73. That’s more than a 75% advantage in the number. Home runs are really important. Gray limits them. Gray has success.
Gray won’t be starting Game 1, though, and that’s because Pablo López is also an excellent pitcher. These guys are both more Montgomery and Eflin than they are Glasnow at their peaks, but López, like Gray, got the job done over and over again this year. In January, the Twins traded Luis Arráez for this guy. In a season in which Arráez flirted at times with a .400 average, López gave them the better end of the stick. López is a strikeout pitcher, but he doesn’t walk too many batters. Generally, that’s what you want to hear.
Out of the bullpen, Jhoan Duran has made his presence felt, finishing second on the Minnesota roster in WPA thanks to the leverage into which he was thrust. We will see a lot of good pitchers this series. None is as good at recording outs as Jhoan Duran. Twins manager (and recent father of twins, really steering into the bit) Rocco Baldelli didn’t do this as much down the stretch, but over the summer he leaned on Duran for multi-inning outings a handful of times. In only two of those eight instances did Duran allow an earned run. Don’t be surprised to see him called upon to strike out not just three batters but a full six.
The Twins run themselves like a small-market team, and I would argue they are a small-market team, but this mostly goes to point out that Carlos Correa is making well more than twice as much as the next-highest paid Twin. That didn’t go well this year. Correa did appear in 135 games—he was the most active Twin, and Carlos Correa is not known for his sterling health, if that gives you an idea of how this season went in Minnesota—but he was only 11th among Twins position players in fWAR. That’s only among position players. Edouard Julien, Willi Castro, Matt Wallner, Kyle Farmer, and six other lesser-named Twins did more as position players than Carlos Correa did. That’s going to need to change if the Twins are to make a run. The talent is there, but the health issues are catching up to Correa, who finished the year below league-average at the plate and spent the last two weeks nursing a case of plantar fasciitis. He’s expected to start at shortstop today, but this isn’t what you want out of your marquee player in his prime. It is not Carlos Correa’s fault, but the man is banged up, and that contract—which runs through 2028—is resembling an albatross and a half. On paper, Carlos Correa is the best position player on the Twins. On paper.
Toronto:
- Kevin Gausman
- Bo Bichette
- Erik Swanson
- George Springer
Aces matter in October, and they can do a lot for you in the regular season as well, as has been a common theme here in the American League portion of these previews. Kevin Gausman is an ace. Again, he is not Glasnow in terms of single-game potential, but the man shows up every start and gives his team a great chance to compete. That should hold as true as ever this afternoon against López in Minneapolis. Gausman is a strikeout machine. Only Spencer Strider struck out more guys this year than Gausman (López was fourth, so if you don’t like strikeouts, maybe watch Rangers/Rays). Like so many of these guys, he limits walks well enough and he keeps the ball in the park well enough. His thing, though, is strikeouts. That’s a good way to be. There isn’t a lot that can go wrong once a batter has struck out.
Leading the Blue Jays away from the mound, both on the field this year and on paper, is Bo Bichette. Bichette was his usual steady self at the plate, swinging early and making things happen as one of the best-hitting shortstops in the league. He is not the Jays’ best hitter, but in the context of his position, he does the most. It’s hard to find a shortstop with that kind of bat. Unfortunately, since Bichette’s return from a quad strain early in September, he’s only been a league-average hitter. That’s not what the Blue Jays need—or rather, if that’s what the Blue Jays get, others will need to step up.
An unsung hero of this Toronto team has been Erik Swanson, who finished tenth among all pitchers in Win Probability Added, meaning his contributions—in the context of their situation—made the 10th-biggest impact of any pitcher in the game. That doesn’t mean anything close to him being the 10th-best pitcher, and it’s not a predictive stat at all, but Swanson had a huge impact on this Toronto season, and while he’s not the closer, he should be expected to pitch some big innings this week, and perhaps over the weeks to come. Erik Swanson is good. If you would like to talk baseball with a Blue Jays fan, lead with that (I don’t really know what Blue Jays fans think of Swanson—often, baseball fans of a particular team have a tendency to overweight the bad performances from relievers and underweight the good).
We mentioned Bichette’s injury status, saying the Blue Jays may need others to deliver. Among those others is George Springer, the highest-paid Blue Jay and one of the better Blue Jays hitters on paper but hardly a league-average guy this year. Springer is in the stage of his contract—the third year of a six-year deal—where the price is starting to pass the performance, with the problem being that the Blue Jays didn’t get enough games out of him the first two years to bank some value on that end. It’s in no way been a disaster of a deal for Toronto, but the Blue Jays signed a strong-hitting veteran outfielder to help anchor their lineup, and now would be a great time for that batter to deliver.
The Duels
- Game 1: López vs. Gausman
- Game 2: Gray vs. José Berríos
- Game 3: TBD – Joe Ryan? vs. TBD – Chris Bassitt?
It’s hard to say who has the advantage on the mound today, because Gausman and López are both Cy Young-quality pitchers, but that nets out to a Blue Jays advantage overall, owing to the strength of the Toronto lineup. It’s going to be a good one, and it’s one where if one lineup can crack one starter, they’re going to hold a huge leg up. I don’t know if a three-game series is more similar to a one-game playoff or a five-game series, but I think it leans towards the former. This is not a marathon. This is a sprint.
Tomorrow, the Twins expect to see old friend José Berríos, whom they traded to the Blue Jays in 2021 at the trade deadline in exchange for a pair of top prospects (at the time—they’ve receded a little in the years since). Berríos is no Sonny Gray, but he’s good enough to give the Blue Jays plenty of a chance. The hardest way for the Twins to win this series involves losing Game 2.
On Thursday, one would guess it would be Joe Ryan for the Twins against Chris Bassitt for the Blue Jays, but it’s possible we could see Yusei Kikuchi for Toronto instead, and there’s a lot to be said for the idea of using your third starter in relief in Game 1 or Game 2. You play to win the game.
Ryan, for the Twins, has been fine since returning from the IL at the end of August following a groin strain, but he hasn’t been the guy he was in April and May since, well, April and May. For a minute there, he was mowing guys down, but he’s settled into competent serviceability. That’s not a bad place to be as the third starter on the AL Central champion, but it’s concerning for Minnesota, especially with Bassitt finishing the season on a tear after struggling over its first few months.
The Desperation
The Twins are desperate. Not for a World Series title, and not even to win this series. The Twins are desperate for a postseason win. In a single game. Just one, honestly. The Twins have lost 18 straight postseason games, a streak that stretches back to 2004. It boggles the mind.
If the Twins do win that one game, they will of course want another (if you give a mouse a cookie…), but I don’t think anyone in Minnesota harbors too serious of illusions about what this team can do. They’re here because the AL Central exists. Split the Central between the East and the West, and the Twins don’t make the playoffs. There’s a path where López and Gray could simply throw shutout baseball for seven or eight innings apiece five or six times each and take the Twins to the brink of a title, but that’s a lot to ask of two men, and that path exists for most of these teams. Most of these teams have two very good starters.
The Blue Jays are ready to break through. They made the ALCS in 2015 and 2016, but they took a step back in the years that followed, and while their recent youth movement has earned them 91, 92, and now 89 wins the last three years, they have not won a playoff game themselves over that timeframe, and they even missed the playoffs in 2021. They aren’t needing a title, but they need to get through this round of the playoffs. They need a playoff presence, not merely a brief stay.
Closing Thoughts
There’s been a little heat wave in Minnesota the last few days, with a projected high of 91° necessitating the cancelation of the Twin Cities Marathon on Sunday. Today, the high is in the 80’s, with a chance of a storm as a cold front prepares to move through ahead of colder temperatures tomorrow and Thursday. All of that is to say: If the broadcast says it’s hot, that’s only hot in context. It’s a nice day.
Beyond that? Not a lot else to say. It’s going to be very sad if one of these teams does get swept.
NL #3 vs. #6: Milwaukee vs. Arizona
Brandon Woodruff is out with a shoulder injury, and that sucks. Woodruff is an ace’s ace, one of the biggest reasons for the Brewers’ success these last six years. Without him, the Brewers are still a good baseball team, but they are not what they were, and for reasons we’ll get to below, this is a particularly hard year to swallow that pill.
Here’s who’s left standing.
The Dudes
Milwaukee:
- William Contreras
- Corbin Burnes
- Devin Williams
- Christian Yelich
The Brewers got a whole lot out of the William Contreras trade.
When Atlanta acquired Sean Murphy, it needed some way to capitalize on Contreras’s value, and with the A’s happy with their own post-Murphy situation at catcher (Shea Langeliers graduated the minor leagues as a top prospect), Milwaukee got involved, turning the thing into a three-way deal the overall purpose of which was to land Murphy with the Braves. In a funny twist, Contreras then proceeded to outperform Murphy this season by more than a win’s worth of value, matching his production rate at the plate but doing it over a much larger sample. Just 25 years old, William is looking like the better of the two Contreras brothers, and that is not a knock on Willson Contreras. It’s hard to measure up to your younger brother when he was the best catcher in baseball in 2023.
Pitching to Contreras, every fifth day and also today, is Corbin Burnes. Burnes is a little like Glasnow in that at his peak, he is unbelievably good. Unlike Glasnow, the issue with Burnes hasn’t been injuries. He’s completed a full season’s worth of starts each of the last two years after winning that Cy Young in 2021. Burnes just hasn’t been quite as impressive these last two seasons as he was that year or in the shortened 2020 campaign. At his best? Same guy. He went eight shutout innings four separate times this year. But his strikeout numbers have dipped and he’s had to work harder for them, sacrificing more walks in the process. In a single game, he’s probably the fifth-best starter among the eight teams playing this round. In 2021, he was one of the best single-game starters in history.
Also pitching to Contreras, two or three times a week but probably today, is Devin Williams, the heir to the Josh Hader throne at the tail end of the Milwaukee bullpen. We mentioned earlier how highly Erik Swanson ranks on the WPA chart. Devin Williams is even higher, checking in at fifth. Over the last four seasons combined, he leads the majors. Devin Williams impacts games like few others. You cannot expect to score off of Devin Williams. You should rarely hope on it.
Among the more intriguing characters here is Christian Yelich, who’s bounced back from a tough three-year stretch to recapture much of his previous form. The power hasn’t returned—he only went deep 19 times this year—but his steals are back up (28 stolen bases) and his OBP and slugging percentage are both better than they’ve been since 2019, while his defensive numbers have returned to passability after a very bad 2022. It’s been easy to make fun of Yelich’s contract, but he’s been more than worth the money this year, and for as good as Contreras is, it’s going to be Yelich around whom the Diamondbacks gameplan the most.
Arizona:
- Corbin Carroll
- Zac Gallen
- Ketel Marte
- Merrill Kelly
Ronald Acuña Jr. Mookie Betts. Corbin Carroll. The comparison is not out of place, Carroll not in that layer of the atmosphere just yet but the best rookie baseball has seen since Aaron Judge in 2017. A blend of power and speed just like those two, Corbin Carroll finished third in baseball in steals while driving 25 balls out of the ballpark. He was second only to Bobby Witt Jr. in triples. He was seventh in the majors in runs scored. He did this all despite being only 22 years old until late in August, and despite playing half his games at Chase Field, which is an average environment for run scoring but a bad one for long balls. Corbin Carroll is not just baseball’s best rookie. He’s one of its best players.
On the mound, Carroll is complimented every fifth day by one of the sport’s great workhorses, a man who managed a 3.27 FIP despite eating the second-most innings in the game. You wouldn’t guess it, given he checks in at a mere 6’2” and 189 lbs. and sports below-average velocity, but Zac Gallen has blossomed into the kind of pitcher around whom you can build a staff. He doesn’t do any one thing spectacularly well, but he makes good starts, like a point guard who doesn’t have the best jump shot and doesn’t break the most ankles but runs the offense perfectly. Gallen’s median start this year, by game score, was an eleven-strikeout, one-run performance across six innings. Zac Gallen is a machine.
Like the Rays, the Diamondbacks don’t pay any one player a ton of money. Their highest-paid player brings in only $11.6M right now. That is quite the contract, as the veteran Ketel Marte is third on the Diamondbacks in fWAR, third in WPA, and third in projected impact on this series, trailing only Carroll and Gallen in all three areas. Like Bichette, Marte pairs solid middle infield defense with a good bat, forming one pain in the ass of a 1–2 punch batting after Carroll. If Burnes gets through today’s first inning without allowing a run, it will have been an accomplishment. These guys make things happen, and it’s hard for pitchers to focus on Marte at the plate when Carroll’s dancing around on the bases.
The fourth wheel on this cart is Merrill Kelly, Gallen’s sidekick in the rotation whom the Diamondbacks picked up before the 2019 season after Kelly’s four-year exile in Korea. He was a solid rotation arm that year, but he’s blossomed into one of the better starters in the game in the seasons since, hitting 200 innings last year and managing a 3.85 FIP over thirty starts this year. He’s cooled down a little. The NL West is a tough place to pitch, with the Dodgers and Padres sporting intimidating lineups and the Rockies forcing you to pitch now and then at Coors Field. Kelly has navigated most of those challenges well. When you can do that, pitching against one of the worse offenses in baseball isn’t too big a challenge.
The Duels
- Game 1: Burnes vs. Brandon Pfaadt
- Game 2: TBD – Freddy Peralta? vs. Gallen
- Game 3: TBD – Wade Miley? vs. Kelly
The Diamondbacks weren’t able to wrap things up early enough to rest Gallen and Kelly this weekend, so rather than throw either on three days of rest, they’re stacked up to start Games 2 and 3. In the 25%-ish scenario where the Diamondbacks sweep the series, this could set them up spectacularly for Game 1 against the Dodgers, but the downside is bigger: They’re throwing Brandon Pfaadt out there today against Corbin Burnes.
Pfaadt debuted this year as one of baseball’s best prospects, and the results were fine but not good. He managed a 5.18 FIP, just above replacement level, and he had issues keeping the ball in the yard. He’s been better over the last few months, with a 4.35 FIP across twelve starts since rejoining the rotation full-time in July, but if you’re looking for a starting pitcher today who’s not like the others, it’s Pfaadt.
Freddy Peralta is a straightforward choice for Game 2, but he’s very well-rested and the Brewers are in a boat where the opportunity to seize Game 1 might be one they feel they can’t miss, so if today’s game goes to extras or if it’s tied when it’s time for Burnes to be removed, keep an eye on whether Craig Counsell goes to Peralta. I haven’t seen comment either way on whether or not that’s a possibility, but the fact they aren’t listing Peralta as the Game 2 arm might point to that (it could also point to some health concerns for Peralta—I haven’t heard anything about that, but he was given a lot of extra rest at the end of the season, which could just be rest but could also indicate he’s nursing something nagging).
Wade Miley and Adrian Houser are the options after Peralta, each a reliable presence but more suited for the back of a rotation than the front. Houser just started Sunday, though, so he’s probably slated for Game 1 of the NLDS if the Brewers can get there.
Overall? The Brewers have a big advantage in Game 1. If Peralta’s at full strength, Game 2 is a good match. Game 3 is where the Diamondbacks take control, but don’t forget about Devin Williams. The Brewers might not have the best overall deck in this series, including hitters, but they have the best cards to play.
The Desperation
The Brewers’ situation is that these have been the six best years in franchise history and they’ve only made it past the Division Series once. That’s a scary thing, and while Woodruff and Burnes are both under club control through next year, the Cubs, Reds, and Pirates are all rising and one would guess the Cardinals were a lot better on paper this year than they were on the field, something which often foreshadows some positive regression. David Stearns is moving on to the Mets, and while the Milwaukee front office is built in his image, that’s a hard transition for a franchise to undergo. Before the Woodruff injury, there was already a sense that too many opportunities had been missed.
The Diamondbacks are in the honeymoon period. They have Corbin Carroll, and he’s not alone in the youth movement down there. Chances like this are fleeting, but it’s hard to feel that anything’s do or die when you’re in the position Arizona is in.
Closing Thoughts
William Contreras is an excellent catcher overall, but his one area of vulnerability is that he isn’t great at catching runners stealing. That could be a problem against the team with the second-most stolen bases in the game. Baseball Savant’s ‘pitcher running game’ page isn’t working today for me, so I can’t check how good Burnes is at holding runners, but I’m curious how that piece of the game is going to go. The Rays and Rangers are the best teams playing one another, but this is looking like the best series.
NL #4 vs. #5: Philadelphia vs. Miami
The Phillies won the Wild Card Series last year, and the rest was nearly history. This year, they’re back with a better roster, but they’re playing a team who bested them 7–6 across their 13 regular season meetings.
The Dudes
Philadelphia:
- Zack Wheeler
- Aaron Nola
- Bryce Harper
- Trea Turner
Zack Wheeler isn’t going to win the NL Cy Young, and that isn’t the biggest crime in the world, but the only reason he won’t win it is because voters care less about how well pitchers pitch and more about how many runs cross the plate while they’re on the mound (oddly, they also don’t care about how much those runs meant). Wheeler was, though, the best pitcher in baseball this year, and not just in the National League. Zack Wheeler was a better pitcher than Gerrit Cole, too.
Wheeler doesn’t strike as many batters out as Gausman or López, and he walks a lot more guys than Eflin, and he allows more home runs than Sonny Gray. Wheeler doesn’t eat as many innings as Gallen, and you wouldn’t take him over Glasnow in a single game. Wheeler’s thing is that he does everything well, and he does it well enough to make up for the innings gap between him and Gallen (which is partially a function of the Phillies giving Wheeler more rest than the Diamondbacks, necessarily, gave Gallen). Wheeler’s median start? Seven innings, five strikeouts, one walk, no home runs. Put this man in front of Milwaukee or Arizona’s defense and he would have won the Cy Young going away.
Backing up Wheeler is the traditional ace of the Phillies’ staff, Aaron Nola, who had a bad year this year and was still one of the fifteen best pitchers in the game. Nola’s FIP jumped from 2.58 last year to 4.03 this year. Over his last six starts, though, it stood at 2.66. It’s not a binary “which Nola shows up” question, but when Nola is good, Nola is great, and if the Phillies get great Nola to go with great Wheeler, they’re going to put the hurt on some teams over this next month.
We talk about WPA a lot on this site, partly because we view it as the natural endpoint of all arguments in favor of bWAR over fWAR (this is a nerdy baseball thing, but it’s the same discussion as the one which will cost Wheeler this year’s Cy Young). By WPA, Bryce Harper was the second-most impactful player in the game in 2023, trailing only Acuña. Harper was not the best player in baseball, but Harper had a good habit of coming through, and while he might not have been the best, a .900 OPS is pretty damn good. In other facts which make me shake my head in wonder: Bryce Harper is only 30 years old.
Harper is only barely the Phillies’ highest-paid player, making a couple hundred thousand dollars more than the guy Philadelphia gave an eleven-year contract this offseason. That guy is Trea Turner, and the ups and downs of his season have been well-chronicled (the short version is that he was hitting badly, then Philadelphia gave him a debatably sarcastic standing ovation and he immediately started raking) but the current question is whether his bruised tricep is going to affect him this week after he was hit with a pitch in a weird spot on Saturday. Regardless of his health, a lot of eyes are going to be on him. Even if he hadn’t been such a storyline, even if he didn’t have the huge contract: The guy is just a ton of fun to watch. He’s fast. He’s smooth. Those are captivating characteristics.
Miami:
- Jesús Luzardo
- Luis Arráez
- Tanner Scott
- Josh Bell
The Marlins are a weird roster, even weirder than those of the Rays, Diamondbacks, and Brewers, the other bottom-12 payroll teams playing this week (the Orioles actually have a lower payroll than the Rays, if you were wondering why so many owners are asking their front offices to explain the value of free agents to them again). They sacrificed Sandy Alcantara’s arm on the altar of the postseason chase, Luis Arráez is limping around but still slapping balls into the outfield, Josh Bell made this list, and Johnny Cueto is vaguely involved. The Marlins can never be normal.
Jesús Luzardo, who completed the transition from stud prospect to bust prospect to stud 25-year-old in rapid fashion, leads Miami into this series. He’s a high strikeout, high-ish walk, high-ish home run guy, but he was the Marlins’ MVP on the regular season and he’s their best rostered player on paper this week. Don’t expect shock and awe from him—his best start of the year was only seven innings—but be prepared for a good outing. One way to explain this Marlins team is that everyone involved gives them a chance to win, and they’ve capitalized on that chance more often than not.
As mentioned, Arráez is limping, carrying around a sprained ankle he aggravated late in September. He is still one of the hardest players in the game to get out, with a .326 career average near the top of all active hitters. The Marlins have either managed to get him some rest or felt forced to rest him these last few weeks, and with their roster already holding a lot of guys you’d like to DH, don’t expect him to fill that slot. When he’s healthy, he’s the prototype of a playoff leadoff hitter. You want batting title champions leading off in the playoffs.
Tanner Scott is an interesting character, fifth in all of baseball this year in WPA, trailing only Acuña, Harper, Betts, and Carroll—four of the biggest stars in the game. Scott tied with Félix Bautista for reliever fWAR, throwing a massive 78 innings and appearing 74 times yet managing to seemingly not tire down the stretch, with a 1.97 FIP in September. He isn’t as big of a name as Devin Williams or even Jordan Romano, the Blue Jays closer, but he is a factor.
The highest-salaried Marlin is deadline acquisition Josh Bell, to give you an idea of what stands out as a big name on this team (Jazz Chisholm Jr. is the actual biggest name behind Alcantara, but he is a long way from free agency and didn’t have a great regular season himself). Bell is there, and he occasionally still bops. I’m sorry. There isn’t much more to say about Josh Bell. Carlos Correa is a bad contract. Josh Bell is a fine contract but just another guy on these Marlins, who can maybe be described as a more mediocre, dumber version of the Rays. Plenty of people who follow baseball closely are confused about how the Marlins got here. Plenty didn’t even notice the Marlins were about to make the playoffs until it happened. The Marlins are so weird.
The Duels
- Game 1: Wheeler vs. Luzardo
- Game 2: Nola vs. Braxton Garrett
- Game 3: TBD – Ranger Suárez? vs. TBD – Edward Cabrera?
Johnny Cueto was something of a surprise omission from the Marlins’ playoff roster just now, making it look like it’ll be Edward Cabrera if this series goes three games. Cabrera is fine. The Marlins are not deep in their starting pitching.
In Game 2, it’s going to be Braxton Garrett, and he’s had a breakthrough year, managing a 3.68 FIP while making 30 starts. He was never expected to be in the core of a playoff rotation, yet here he is. Again: The Marlins, everybody.
For the Phillies in Game 3, the options are most likely Ranger Suárez and Taijuan Walker. Suárez is the better of the two, but he has somewhat recent relief experience and Walker doesn’t.
Overall, everything in this series favors the Phillies. Even Tanner Scott isn’t enough to outweigh the Phillies’ bullpen, headlined by Craig Kimbrel and José Alvarado. The Phillies are going to be favored in this series.
The Desperation
Losing this series would be a failure for the Phillies. Losing to the Braves would be disappointing, but it’s hard to expect to beat the Braves. The Phillies are a good–not–great team. They’re trying to find the right recipe, and it’s not quite there yet, but it’s believable enough that they could break through here and make it happen that expectations are to get to the NLDS and then compete. They have one of the five or six best rosters in the sport.
The Marlins should be happy to be here, and I’d expect that they are. They aren’t in the ascendant position of the Diamondbacks, but that’s just because they don’t seem to be on a traditional, linear path. They’re a wildcard, in addition to being a Wild Card.
Closing Thoughts
Again, the Phillies are the favorites here. But the series is only three games. Plenty can happen in a three-game series.
