With the playoff field in both leagues now set, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on today:
1. Wild Card Series to begin in both leagues:
The Wild Card Series is set to begin today for both leagues, with things kicking off at 1:32pm CT in Houston as the Tigers come to town after a September surge made them this year’s most surprising postseason entrant. The Astros and ace left-hander Framber Valdez (2.91 ERA) will have their work cut out for them, as they’ll face likely AL Cy Young award winner Tarik Skubal (2.39 ERA). Later in the day at 3:08pm CT, the Royals will held to Baltimore to face the Orioles in a duel between two more of the AL’s top pitchers: lefty Cole Ragans (3.14 ERA) and righty Corbin Burnes (2.92 ERA).
In the late afternoon and evening, the NL will get things started just 24 hours after the playoff field was set by a doubleheader between the Braves and Mets that sent both clubs to the postseason (and left the Diamondbacks home to watch from the sidelines). Newly-installed Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns heads back to his old stomping grounds of Milwaukee today for a matchup between Luis Severino (3.91 ERA) and Freddy Peralta (3.68 ERA), while the Braves head to San Diego without a clear starter in place. Likely NL Cy Young award winner Chris Sale (2.35 ERA) was expected to start Game 1 for Atlanta but is unlikely to be available due to back spasms, leaving the club to consider emergency options such as AJ Smith-Shawver and Ian Anderson to face off against Padres righty Michael King (2.95 ERA).
2. End-of-season pressers taking place around the league:
For teams that aren’t in the postseason mix, the offseason is getting off to an early start. Most clubs kick off their offseason with press conferences that reflect upon the prior campaign and look ahead to the coming winter, and a few clubs are scheduled to do just that today—including both World Series teams from 2023. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News noted yesterday that Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young will hold a press conference today, and the Diamondbacks announced that GM Mike Hazen and manager Torey Lovullo will do the same at 1pm CT this afternoon. On the heels of replacing Farhan Zaidi with longtime franchise catcher Buster Posey at the helm of baseball operations, the Giants are also among the teams expected to hold an end-of-season presser sometime to day, as noted by The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly.
3. MLBTR Chat today:
The season is now over for 18 of the leagues 30 teams, all of which are now looking toward Spring Training 2025 with hefty offseason to-do lists to complete. Whether your team figures to be active in free agency and on the trade market over the winter, figures to spend the early part of the offseason hunting for a new manager, or remains in the hunt for a World Series championship this year, MLBTR’s Steve Adams is holding a live chat with readers at noon CT today. You can click here to ask a question in advance, join in live once the chat begins, or read the transcript once the chat is complete.
Still rolling my eyes at the Mets for mailing it in the second game. Except for today’s starting pitcher, there’s no reason the rest of the team couldn’t put in more than a half-assed effort. Hope they get swept.
Nah, they had to fly somewhere overnight to play again today. It’s not New York’s problem that Arizona couldn’t win one more game. No need to beat yourself up so you can fly to San Diego instead of Milwaukee.
Your right AZ blew it, being a D’Back fan I look at our pitching, when you are rank 27th in MLB and 14th in the NL, and one of the top offensive teams in MLB, it just shows pitching does carry you a lot farther. Good Luck to whoever wins the WS.
If the diamondbacks had a healthy rotation they could’ve won the division, if they had a better bullpen they could’ve won the division, but stuff always happens and this team wasn’t able to overcome it
Braves and astros and Mets have all overcome their stuff
classy post dawg. Hey, who crazy is it that 89 wins doesn’t get a playoff spot? Dbacks had a nice season and will be right back next year.
Man, the Braves just cannot catch a break this year.
I’d have to say winning the 2nd game was a break
They were supposed to be an absolute juggernaut this year but just barely squeaked into the playoffs at the very last second, and that was only because the Mets kind of phoned it in after securing their own playoff spot in the first game of the doubleheader.
King Floch: Maybe the Braves juggernaut was stopped by the loss of Strider, Acuna and Riley, among others. Making it to the postseason is the goal and, despite all the injuries, they made it.
And Albies. And Murphy. And Harris…
In 2021 Atlanta was supposed to be a juggernaut, then they had injuries and squeaked in
Go Brew Crew! RIP Mr. Rose. That dudes numbers were absolutely incredible. What a remarkable individual.
You can call Pete rose a great player, you can’t call him a great man
So were OJ Simpson’s
Slider, one bet on ballgames. The other mercilessly slaughtered two innocent people. I fail to see the connection.
other than hits and OBP, Rose’s numbers don’t stand out to me as all that elite
Other than yards and touchdowns, tom brady’s numbers dont stand out as all that elite
Obviously Rose was elite at singles and doubles. But not in the category statistically of a Tom Brady (comparing among sports Tom Brady’s numbers are Ted Williams numbers). Hits and OBP are not the same value as yards and TDs.
Rose’s lifetime OPS* is 118. He had a decent (not great) OBP and batting average (especially early in career), but didn’t steal much at all especially a detriment for a lead off hitter. He played a lot of years and stayed healthy, so he was elite (like Brady) in terms of longevity.
Actually I misspoke above. His career OBP of .375 isn’t at all elite, he didn’t walk much. He also averaged about 3-3.5 WAR per year, that’s not all that exceptional for a hitter with his reputation as one of the greatest.
He averaged over 200 hits for 15 years straight along with a .388 OBP…it’s all about those peak years…
Brady won 3 mvps and always led the league in something, a better comparison is say Mike mussina
Brew……………
Even OBP ranks #229.
Yes, people say he was the greatest hitter based on # of hits. If that is the case then they MUST consider BA and he is tied for 178th. His only truly elite starts are hits most games played, most POA and most AB
Those that like more modern stats…… career oWAR is 30th
His oWAR, rWAR and fWAR totals were good but you’d expect that with a productive player who played 2.4 decades. He kept playing on, and playing fairly badly for a decade, chasing Cy Young’s record perhaps
Yeah, he had an great stretch for sure. But his last 10-12 years were really bad
Braves going all the way. They have Soler and Duvall.
I am guessing Ian Anderson game 1.
When was the last time Anderson pitched a MLB game?
Hope it’s AJSS for 4-5 innings followed by Lee, Bummer, Jackson……….yikes. What a thing to hope for.
Who do the braves have for game 2 or game 3
Probably fried then López right?
“What a remarkable individual” is not “about his numbers.”
Sale and Skubal haven’t won the Cy Young Award, though they each won a pitching Triple Crown in their respective league — wins, strikeouts, ERA. That’s more impressive than anything Ohtani did. And Sale took the NL strikeout title by one whiff.
(Despite the media hype, Ohtani didn’t come close to the NL stolen base title.)
There’s been many pitchers who have accomplished a pitching triple crown. There is now ONE who has a 50/50 season.
I like the fact that the MLB is spotlighting a player. Other leagues do this with their best players and MLB, in the past missed the boat.
Yeah, the first 50-50 season in baseball history is not impressive. Dummy….
Geeks worship uber-metrics. Ordinary people understand the simple things. A batting Triple Crown is average, HR, RBI — and Ohtani came up 4 points short of the NL batting title.
National Sports Media push “anything for a factoid”. 50 HR/50 stolen bases in the same season is not impressive at all.
bait used to be believable.
Something no player has done in the long history of baseball is not impressive. Doubling down on being an idiot….
Yeah, he had an incredible season regardless. But 50-50 definitely made it more incredible and locked up quite possibly a unanimous MVP….
Losing Sale yesterday was rough, good thing John Holmes was able to step up and fill that hole.
Wild Card Predictions:
Royals beat the Orioles
Astros beat Detroit
Padres over Braves
Brewers over Mets
I’m with you except The Orioles should handily take the Royals. We’ll see!
O’s are not in a good spot. Haven’t looked good in a couple months. I hope we steal 2 but I think 2025 is looking a lot better than 2024. Been feeling that way for a while.