Have World Series-or-bust hopes for the 2024 postseason? Here’s why your squad could be playing into November — or headed home soon.
The 2024 MLB playoffs are rolling along!
After the wild-card round ended with a Game 3 thriller, the division series matchups are set with all four Game 1s starting Saturday.
Will Shohei Ohtani’s first playoff appearance begin with the Los Angeles Dodgers getting past the San Diego Padres in the NLDS? Will the Philadelphia Phillies take down the NL East rival New York Mets? Will the New York Yankees go from the American League’s No. 1 seed to the World Series — or will the Cleveland Guardians, Kansas City Royals or Detroit Tigers get in their way?
MLB experts Jorge Castillo, Bradford Doolittle, Alden Gonzalez and David Schoenfield get you ready for it all with odds for every round, a predicted date of each team’s last game and a name to watch for all eight remaining World Series hopefuls.
Note: World Series and matchup odds come from Doolittle’s formula using power ratings as the basis for 10,000 simulations to determine the most likely outcomes.
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Jump to a team:
NYY | CLE | KC | DET
LAD | PHI | SD | NYM
ESPN Stats & Info
No. 1 seed | 94-66 | AL East champs
ALDS opponent: Royals (56.5% chance of advancing)
World Series odds: 17.4% | ESPN BET odds: +300
Predicted date of their last game: Nov. 2
If they win it all, the 2024 World Series MVP will be . Let’s not get too cute here: It has to be Aaron Judge or Juan Soto, since they’ve carried the Yankees all season. It’s hard to imagine New York winning without those two producing. Judge hasn’t been great in his postseason career (.211 average, .772 OPS); Soto was terrific as a 20-year-old for the Nationals in 2019 (especially in the World Series) but didn’t do much for the Padres in 2022. Let’s go with Judge, since he’ll have plenty of RBI opportunities if Soto is getting on base in front of him. — Schoenfield
If they go home soon, it will be because . They don’t play sound, fundamental baseball. The Yankees have premier talent highlighted by three superstars: Judge, Soto and Gerrit Cole. They can pitch and they can really hit. But they also have a propensity to get sloppy on defense, depend too much on the home run and make puzzling mistakes on the basepaths — they rank last in the majors in baserunning, according to FanGraphs. Every out and every run counts that much more in the postseason. An ability to give outs away and an inability to manufacture runs against elite pitching can haunt even the most talented teams in October. — Castillo
Ready for his October close-up: The love affair between Soto and the greater New York City metropolis prolonged through the summer and will spill into the fall. Presumptions that Soto and his massive persona would be an ideal fit for the outsized stakes of baseball in the Bronx have been validated by a dominant season overshadowed only by that of his own teammate. But as Judge can attest, Yankees legends are made exclusively in October. And though his performance in prior postseason stints with the Washington Nationals and San Diego Padres has been spotty, nobody likes the spotlight more than Juan José Soto. — Gonzalez
Why you should root for them: Even if the Yankees aren’t your cup of tea, there is no denying that dynamic duos such as Judge and Soto are a historical rarity. According to Baseball Reference’s batting runs above average metric, the five highest single-season totals for teammates have been four Lou Gehrig-Babe Ruth seasons, and the 2024 tandem of Soto and Judge. More than a simple stacking of two Hall of Fame-level hitters, there is something about the back-to-back pairing of them in the nightly Yankees lineup that is somehow even greater than the considerable sum of their parts. With Soto reaching free agency whenever New York’s postseason run ends, there is no guarantee we’ll see this again. — Doolittle
No. 2 seed | 92-69 | AL Central champs
ALDS opponent: Tigers (56.4% chance of advancing)
World Series odds: 13.3% | ESPN BET odds: +900
Predicted date of their last game: Oct. 21
If they win it all, the 2024 World Series MVP will be .Can we just pick the entire bullpen? No? Four relievers have won a World Series MVP (Larry Sherry, Rollie Fingers, John Wetteland and Mariano Rivera) so don’t rule out Emmanuel Clase. Indeed, while Jose Ramirez is the obvious choice, his game hasn’t translated to the postseason, with just two home runs in 124 at-bats. Let’s go with Clase; if Cleveland wins, it’s probably because he gets four World Series saves. — Schoenfield
If they go home soon, it will be because . The starting rotation isn’t good enough. Cleveland posted the best bullpen ERA in baseball by a substantial margin. Clase has been the best closer in the majors. Cade Smith, Hunter Gaddis and Tim Herrin might be the sport’s stoutest bridge to the ninth inning. The rotation is another matter. No. 1 starter Shane Bieber underwent Tommy John surgery after two starts. Triston McKenzie, two years removed from a breakout season, performed so poorly he was sent to Triple-A in June and hasn’t returned to the majors. Without them, Tanner Bibee (3.47 ERA in 31 starts) emerged as the top starter for a rotation that finished tied for 23rd in ERA and 24th innings pitched. The Guardians will need to piece together the pitching to make a title run. But too much reliance on the bullpen might be unsustainable. — Castillo
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Ready for his October close-up: The Guardians acquired Lane Thomas before the trade deadline hoping he would fortify an offense in perpetual need of production. August was brutal, but Thomas showed what he’s capable of amid a torrid month of September. He has been hitting mostly behind Josh Naylor, but also in front of Ramirez at times. His presence will be critical in October. The Guardians finished in the middle of the pack in OPS and runs per game this season. They need someone besides Ramirez, Naylor and Steven Kwan to produce consistently. They need the Lane Thomas who provided 28 home runs and a .783 OPS for last year’s Washington Nationals. He might have tapped back into that. — Gonzalez
Why you should root for them: 1948. That’s when Lou Boudreau, Larry Doby, Satchel Paige, Bob Feller & Co. led Cleveland to the World Series. Good times. Harry Truman was president. Jack Kerouac was gallivanting around the country with Neal Cassady. Don Draper was still living as Dick Whitman, years away from landing on Madison Avenue. The franchise has not won it all since then, giving it the longest active title drought in baseball. This team, with an offense that has contact, athleticism and just enough power, and armed with the sport’s best bullpen, is built to quench that thirst. To do so, the Guardians will have to topple some superstars — Judge, Ohtani among the possibilities — which would make it that much sweeter to watch. — Doolittle
No. 5 seed | 86-76 | AL wild card
ALDS opponent: Yankees (43.5% chance of advancing)
World Series odds: 10.0% | ESPN BET odds: +1000
Predicted date of their last game: Oct. 10
If they win it all, the 2024 World Series MVP will be . Bobby Witt Jr. would be the apparent choice, although he slowed down a bit in September after his ridiculously high level of play throughout the summer and opponents might force others in the lineup to beat them. Let’s go with Salvador Perez, the sentimental pick here. He had a nice postseason the last time the Royals were in it back in 2015, slugging .517 with four home runs for the World Series champions. He’s a better hitter now than he was then (although nobody chases more than Perez), and he won’t be catching every game this time either. — Schoenfield
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If they go home soon, it will be because . The starting pitching doesn’t mask the bullpen’s shortcomings. The Royals (barely) completed their remarkable 30-win year-to-year turnaround behind their elite starting pitching, which finished second in baseball in both ERA and innings pitched. The bullpen is on the other end of the spectrum, ranking 23st in ERA and near the bottom in win probability added. The Royals, who entered the playoffs without a designated closer, tried bolstering the bullpen by acquiring Lucas Erceg and Hunter Harvey, two right-handers with high strikeout rates, before the trade deadline.
