Playoff baseball.
Pretty fun!
There is a way that the laws of statistics and reason say these playoffs should turn out.
There is also vibes.
We’re here to talk about the vibes.
American League
A wise thing to believe about the Tampa Bay Rays is that they always know a lot of things you don’t. You’re not dealing with an equal here. You’re dealing with someone who employs legions in some bunker deep beneath the sea, legions who spend their nights figuring out the optimal time a starting pitcher should get pulled so that pitcher gets angry and needs to be traded the ensuing offseason, saving salary which can then be spent on Wander Franco and more legions in some bunker deep beneath the sea. Opposing these shrewd, cunning fiends? The Cleveland Guardians.
The Guardians have things in common with the Rays—attendance woes, front office creativity, a stellar developmental system and an accompanying young team. What they don’t have in common is that they treat this like a game of baseball in 1987 rather than a math test. Usually, that doesn’t work out. But the Guards have good vibes right now. They won 92 games. They’re a heck of a lot healthier than the Rays. You want to believe in Cleveland in general, and in this Cleveland team out of all of the three. But again: Usually, the math guys win these days, and one thing the Rays’ specific math guys have done is assembled a bunch of vibe kings like Harold Ramírez who can answer even the spectacular vibes of guys like Josh Naylor. There is definitely a column for vibes on the Tampa Bay spreadsheet.
Across the bracket this weekend from Cleveland and Tampa Bay sits a little pair we like to call the Blue Jays and the Mariners. Each has been trying to get into the playoffs for a long time—the Mariners for 21 years, the Blue Jays for only two but it feels like five (pandemic playoffs, early exit) and also the Jays have had a bunch of young studs for those five years so it’s been more disappointing relative to expectations. The Mariners, despite losing for 20 straight seasons, are somehow ahead of schedule. They’ve got young, they’ve got fun, but they’re got more happy-to-be-here vibes whereas the Jays have oh-crap-we’re-finally-here-we-need-to-do-something vibes. This year’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. may not have been what he was last year, but he still hits the pants off the ball, and for as good as Luis Castillo is, this feel’s like a bopper’s series. A bopper’s series that will go to the boppers.
From there, the Rays would play the Yankees and the Jays would play the Astros.
The Astros scandal was bad. But. I think we would have gotten over it a lot faster if anyone on this team was likable. There is nothing likable about the Houston Astros. Nothing likable about their players, nothing likable about their fans, nothing likable about their manager…it’s an unlikable team. Houston, the city? Cool. Houston, the baseball team? The lamest. They’re not even good villains, like those old Yankees teams were. They don’t win enough and they don’t have enough swagger. They’re good, and they’re boring, and they’re losers. I mean…I guess I’ll say it. A lot of Astros fans are Texas A&M fans.
Were the Blue Jays entering the ALDS fresh off the regular season, we’d say the Astros’ vibes would win out. The regular season Blue Jays have been good, but a little messy, and while it’s a relief for them to be in the playoffs that’s partially because—yet again—they aren’t breaking through with this young core. The Astros, meanwhile, are good at baseball, even if they get wrecked in ethics class. They don’t have fun vibes, but they have enough vibes to routinely score more runs than their opponents.
The thing is, whoever wins this Jays/Mariners series is going to have some wind in their sails, and if it’s the Blue Jays, those sails can generate some…alright, I’m running out of nautical knowledge, but when the Blue Jays’ vibes are good, they’re great. It’s vibe momentum, really.
For Rays vs. Yankees, it’s a tricky thing. The Yankees have ridden the vibe rollercoaster this year, having the best vibes in the league and then the worst vibes in the league and now some pretty good vibes. Of everything that was supposed to work for this team, only Aaron Judge actually works, but there are other things that weren’t supposed to work that are working, and every now and then it seems like they’re having fun, and basically, they can have good-enough vibes in a pinch. Their vibe ceiling is low, but they can get the job done. And with the Rays giving off weary vibes, the Yankees probably win this one.
Then, we’ve got Blue Jays/Yankees, and if the Blue Jays survive long enough to be at this point enough accelerant’s been poured on the fire that the Yankees stand no chance. They will be vibed into oblivion.
National League
In the NL, today’s action starts with the Cardinals and the Phillies. For the college basketball fans in the room, the Cardinals are kind of like one of those low-major teams who won thirty games but never played anybody. Not that the Cardinals actually didn’t play anybody—the baseball schedule doesn’t quite work like that—but they were in the NL Central. The NL Central is terrible. I watched a lot of NL Central baseball this year. I don’t know why I kept doing that.
What the Cards have going for them is the sheer good feeling behind their ancient Pujols/Wainwright/Molina trio, two thirds of which is of upright moral standing and not a gigantic douchebag. The other third? Douchebag. Can’t hit anymore, either, but enough of a jackass that he’ll probably have a two-home run game tomorrow in Game 2 because fuck me, right? I hope Yadier Molina goes to prison one day. Pujols? Love the guy. Wainwright? Honestly not a lot of feeling there. Mostly a quiet sense of wonder. Molina? If I go to Hell and he’s not there I’m calling bullshit. Not because I think he should be damned eternally, but because nothing would torture like having to eternally hang out with Yadier Molina.
The Phillies, meanwhile, have Kyle Schwarber. All that is good and holy. The best of all of us. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to be enough. It’s looking like evil vibes will prevail. There is no Nick Foles in Philadelphia right now.
The more central vibe story comes across the NL, where the Mets play the Padres. Both of these teams have bad vibes right now. The Mets won one hundred games and have bad vibes. The Padres had one of the best rosters ever assembled and have bad vibes.
For the Padres, the bad vibes are more perpetual. Something is deeply wrong with the San Diego Padres, and I suspect the Chargers noticed this and that’s why they fled. For the Mets, well, as we recently wrote, they’re tricking everybody. What the Mets are going to do will always be the most painful thing possible. They’re not going to just go lay down and die. They’re going to look incredible for a couple weeks and then lay down and die.
From there, we get the Mets playing the Dodgers and the Cardinals playing Atlanta.
Atlanta’s vibes are questionable. On the one hand, they just keep winning. Aside from one month this spring (and a couple months last spring, I guess, but that weakens my point), they have spent the last two or three years exclusively winning. Winning, winning, winning. On the other, they—like the Rays—are banged up, and there’s a sense that sweeping the Mets to win the NL East was their Super Bowl. In the who-wants-it power rankings (shit, I meant to do a who-wants-it power rankings), Atlanta’s fairly low on the list. Still, Brian Snitker is enough of a simple genius to beat St. Louis. There’s a chance Brian Snitker is Gandalf disguised to look like a baseball lifer.
The Dodgers are like the Astros, except their individual players (aside from Freddie Freeman, who’s kind of lame) are likable. They keep winning but you don’t watch the team and go, “Wow, what a bunch of rock stars.” There’s something lacking there. And since Mets fans would probably quietly accept defeat at the hands of baseball’s best franchise, there’s no way the Mets lose this series. We’re getting New York vs. Atlanta for the NLCS, and if you’ll recall where we’re at during this moment in the AL narrative, the Subway Series hype is all over the place. Rob Manfred is praying to the very god he swore to oppose that he’ll get a Subway Series. Fans everywhere are biting the bullet, cheering for the Mets and Yankees to come together and save baseball.
But, you know, we already said the Yankees are going to lose.
Is the most painful thing for the Mets to lose to Atlanta? Or is the most painful thing for the Mets to lose to the Blue Jays in the World Series after making all their people think they were actually going to do this?
That’s an answer you’ll have to discern for yourselves.
Fuller Notes Tomorrow?
Yeah, we’re gonna have to do weekend notes again. Going back to D.C. for a wedding, flight takes off kind of soon. One day, we will not have to do weekend notes. Until then, stop by tomorrow to hear about the Senators and college football and Burnley (might only talk about one of those things, but you’ll have to click to find out which).
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Viewing schedule:
12:07 PM EDT: Rays @ Guardians, ESPN
2:07 PM EDT: Phillies @ Cardinals, ABC
4:07 PM EDT: Mariners @ Blue Jays, ESPN
8:07 PM EDT: Padres @ Mets, ESPN
I’ve already told you my thoughts on these. Literally all of my thoughts.
7:00 PM EDT: Nebraska @ Rutgers, FS1
You think we’d miss this?
8:00 PM EDT: Nuggets @ Bulls (Preseason)
We said we were going to pay attention to the Bulls. It’s time to cash those checks.
