The three 100-win teams in the National League are out. The American League's top seed swept its way into the ALCS, but the No. 2 team has been pushed to the brink of elimination.
The new postseason format, intended to reward the best teams with fewer games, hasn't muted the effectiveness of randomness on short series. The AL still has a shot at mostly chalk outcomes if the Yankees can complete their comeback against the Guardians in Game 5 tonight, but the NLCS will feature the teams with the league's fifth- and sixth-best records.
The early exits for apparent powerhouses like the 111-win Dodgers and 100-win Mets have their markets ruing the pointlessness of the previous six months -- the 101-win Braves are a little more chill, having just won it all -- and the variety of outcomes has players, managers, and executives around the league wondering if further tweaks are needed. I don't see any way around the math saying the longer the postseason gets, the harder it gets for any one team to cement any kind of destiny.
As somebody who prefers to see a smaller postseason, I'm not really a fan of the randomness, but it's reassuring to see the fields limited to teams that really tried. Even if the Padres and Phillies fell short of 90 wins during the regular season, there's no doubt that they shot for greatness over the course of the previous winter, and the trade deadline for that matter. The same can be said for the Blue Jays and Mariners in the AL Wild Card field. The Guardians are the only team that kinda wandered its way into October from the sidewalk on a whim, but their mettle was tested enough by winning their division, as weak as it was.
The randomness of this year's outcomes reinforce the idea that every postseason team should consider itself a serious contender until they're eliminated, but that's at least partially because the standards for making the postseason remain relatively high due to the composition of Major League Baseball in 2022. As Rob Arthur showed for Baseball Prospectus, the league is stratified between teams who have figured something out, and teams that are wandering, and the former field is large enough to rope in six compelling teams. The White Sox were not one of them, because they've slipped into that other group.
Spare Parts
Bruce Levine says the Cubs are interested in the idea of adding José Abreu on a short-term deal. It makes sense if Abreu likes the city and unfettered playing time for a year or two, but it doesn't check the box of a contender. Between the first baseman pool lacking headliners and the number of (pseudo-)competitive teams getting little from the position last season (Astros, Red Sox, Marlins among others), he should some say in what constitutes the best situation for him.
"Hell if anybody knows," to answer the question posed by the headline, but Jon Morosi relayed positive reports from the White Sox's interviews with Astros bench coach Joe Espada and Royals bench coach Pedro Grifol, while Mark Feinsand included another potential candidate.
We've talked about the way Michael Kopech wasn't able to put a stamp on his season one way or another, but James Fegan takes a look at the other internal candidates to shore up the rotation in this piece. I hadn't really considered Jimmy Lambert an option, and while I'm skeptical he could maintain his effectiveness over five innings on a regular basis, he considerably improved against left-handed hitters, which was another major stumbling block to starting.
On one hand, the Twins' pitching staff should be in better deeper shape this winter compared to last, what with Kenta Maeda coming off Tommy John surgery and Tyler Mahle getting a full offseason to recover from rotator cuff weakness. On the other, the Twins have gotten burned by doing the minimum to their rotation, and they just fired their head athletic trainer. It's hard not to see the parallel tracks with the White Sox.
