There’s always next season!

The MLB season wrapped up just a few days ago, and the season is in the midst of the Divisional Series. Surprisingly, the Orioles actually made it to the playoffs by winning their division. Even finishing higher than fourth in the AL East is cause enough for Maryland to explode for a week of partying. But the Texas Rangers have already swept the Orioles 3-0, so I guess not too much has really changed. 

 

For me, it wasn’t too weird to see the Yankees out of the playoffs, as they didn’t really play well for this season. You can’t even blame it on injuries, and although they did have some, they had 24 position players bat at least once during the season, which is about the average for an MLB team this year. Simply put, their roster wasn’t too strong at the beginning of the year, and those who were on it didn’t play well. I think that both the Tampa Bay Rays and the Toronto Blue Jays had very similar seasons, although, the Rays finished 10 games above the Blue Jays. It was interesting to see the Rays dominate again without too many overly flashy players, but both teams fell in the Wild Card round. 

 

The AL Central was a disgusting division for the whole season, producing two teams with 100+ losses, only the fourth time that’s happened in the past eleven years, with the other three times being the AL Central in 2018 (again) and 2019 (again??) and the NL Central in 2022. The first-place Twins are hanging in there against the mighty Astros at 2-1 in the divisional after somehow surviving the Wild Card round. Everyone expected the Cleveland Guardians to have a good season, but they finished 10 games below .500. Somewhat understandably, longtime manager Terry Francona stepped away from the team at the end of 162. He was the Guardians’ winningest manager over their 123 seasons. Francona led them to the World Series in 2016 and on a 22-game win streak the next season: the longest streak in American League history. The replacement will definitely take some getting used to for all baseball fans. 

 

The AL West was very top-heavy again, which is not too hard to do when you have the Angels and the Athletics together in a division. The A’s finished as by far the worst team in baseball with 112 losses (they were a whopping 12-46 at the end of May after winning on Opening Day against the Angels). The Texas Rangers gave the Houston Astros a run for their money for the division title after the ‘Stros calmly swept the AL East for a while before the Rangers came storming through. The Astros did end up finishing first in the division, though. I think the Rangers can go pretty far in these playoffs. They’ll have to face the Astros or the Twins next round if they hold their lead against the Orioles. 

 

The New York Mets held last place in the NL East for a few games this season, which marked their season low; but they ended up finishing in fourth, 29 games behind the Braves. My blog about my offseason hopes for the Mets will be coming soon. The Braves have constructed a dynasty with a core that will continue to win them games until they’re all 40 years old, I’m not too happy about this as a Mets fan, especially when I know how they’ve struggled to build anything over the past 20 years. The Phillies will continue to be explosive, as they’ve shown over the games in the playoffs as of right now. As a Mets fan, after seeing some of these highlights, Citizens Bank Park might be the stadium with the best atmosphere in baseball. Disagree? Just watch Bryson Stott's grand slam in the sixth inning a few days ago – he couldn’t even keep his composure. 

 

The NL Central always represents the pinnacle of mediocrity, or they host the most vicious dogfight seen in the past century for the last playoff spot (it varies from year to year). This year, there were no crazy outliers, although the Cardinals finished last for the first time this century. I guess that’s what happens when your star catcher, Yadier Molina, retires and former ace Adam Wainwright has a serious off year. Only one team made it to the playoffs, the Brewers, but both the Cubs and Reds were very close. Cincinnati called up a lot of their prospects which drove them to have a midseason surge, but they barely missed the end result. 

 

In the NL West, the Los Angeles Dodgers dominated once again. They simply have everything figured out for success. If one of their players gets old or starts playing badly, a rookie steps up. This season, it was Jason Outman whose Rookie of the Year odds would be far lower if he had just hit for average consistently. Their pitching was not particularly dominant, although 4 out of their 5 starters had a win percentage of above .500. The Diamondbacks were a very sneaky team this season (they lead the Dodgers 2-0 in their NLDS matchup), with the definite 2023 NL Rookie of the Year Corbin Carroll leading the team. Both the San Francisco Giants and the San Diego Padres had underwhelming seasons, as they both have above-average rosters, but both failed to make the playoffs. 

 

The postseason will be incredibly fun this year, as it always is. I hope we get to see more late-inning drama as well as a lot of high-scoring games, instead of low-scoring pitching duels. Those are meant for the regular season – I’m pushing homework back to watch a 2-1 nightmare.