The MLB playoffs begin Tuesday with a familiar question hanging over the bracket: Can anyone stop the Dodgers? Los Angeles is chasing the first World Series three-peat in more than a quarter century. But “Dodgers vs. the field” is a dangerous way to think about a sport that can send its best team home in three games. The wide-open American League offers several contenders—and even a few middling teams—a plausible path to the pennant. Meanwhile, the National League is a gauntlet of teams hoping to get their chance against the Dodgers.
Here’s the case for—and against—each of the 12 playoff teams winning it all.
Milwaukee Brewers
Why the Brewers will win the World Series: They’re able to hit with runners in scoring position.
Milwaukee ranks in the top five in batting average, BABIP, and on-base percentage and is first in wRC+ with runners in scoring position this year. This isn’t a new phenomenon, either. The Brewers have been out-executing the rest of the league in high-leverage situations for most of the 2020s. Look no further than Milwaukee’s 4-1 win against Philadelphia on Wednesday night as evidence of how the Brewers could maneuver their way through the playoffs. While the Phillies went 0-for-12 with RISP, William Contreras poked a seeing-eye single to left to drive in two runs in Milwaukee’s lone opportunity.
Now, after reading that paragraph, you’re probably scoffing at me for suggesting that it’s actually good that Milwaukee had 11 fewer scoring opportunities in a baseball game that it won. I’m using this game as an extreme example of Milwaukee’s impressive efficiency. But the Brewers are putting to test the sage analytics belief that clutch hitting is random and difficult to replicate.
Why they won’t: They’re lacking power.
Technically, you could have written the exact paragraph I wrote above before each of the past five Brewers playoff appearances in the 2020s. They’ve always had the clutch gene, yet they haven’t come close to a World Series appearance. A lack of power has been the defining bug of each of the recent Milwaukee playoff teams. Since the start of the 2023 season, Milwaukee has been in the bottom third of the league in both home runs (26th) and isolated power (25th). There is no one defined way of winning playoff baseball games, but the ability to hit homers against elite pitching is an important skill that Milwaukee has lacked.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Why the Dodgers will win the World Series: No one can actually stop them.
The Dodgers could become the first team since the 1998-2000 Yankees to win three straight World Series. It’s a feat that should be nearly impossible given the difficulties of the expanded playoffs and the randomness of October baseball. MLB’s postseason is built to make certainty look foolish, but the Dodgers have consistently out-executed their opponents along the tiniest of margins. Their October heroes haven’t always been Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, or Freddie Freeman, even as those superstars have all had their heroic moments along the way. Recent Dodgers postseason runs have come down to the leaping catch of Andy Pages, or the starter turned closer Roki Sasaki, or Miguel Rojas’s Game 7 home run.
The Dodgers are entering the playoffs with more holes (more on that in a moment), and you’d certainly take the field over them. But when you size Los Angeles up against every other team, it’s hard to pick anyone else straight up against the Dodgers. There’s too much depth and too long a history of unexpected players stepping up.
Why they won’t: This roster has more holes than it did the past two seasons.
The 2024 Dodgers had a clear starting pitching weakness and covered it up with a dominant and stretched bullpen. The 2025 Dodgers had a clear bullpen weakness and covered it with converted starters filling the gaps. The 2026 Dodgers have holes that go beyond their pitching. They’re not as good defensively as they were when they won those titles, and they have declined month over month. Kyle Tucker has given them league-average production this year. Ohtani is 30 percent worse at the plate this year (by wRC+) compared with his first two seasons with the Dodgers, and he won’t be pitching in October. The bullpen has posted a league-average ERA in the second half of this season and doesn’t have as many starters to convert to relievers to bail it out.
The Dodgers have proved that they don’t need home-field advantage, or even a bye, to win the World Series. But there are more cracks in L.A.’s plot armor than there were in each of the past two seasons.
Atlanta Braves
Why the Braves will win the World Series: The offense has an impressive pedigree.
It’s been a streaky season for the Atlanta offense. To make a case for the Braves offense, you'd have to look at the back of each veteran hitter's baseball card for proof that there’s more in there than they’ve shown this year. Only a few seasons ago, this same offensive core—Ronald Acuña Jr., Matt Olson, Austin Riley, Michael Harris II, and Ozzie Albies—were breaking run-scoring records.
Atlanta has the back end of the bullpen and a dominant starter, Chris Sale. But the Braves will need more offense to make a deep run. Flipping the switch is not easy, but it should be possible for this group. Atlanta’s offense can be one of the deepest in baseball, and its position player core is as experienced in October baseball as any team in the league. And they are more talented than their slash lines suggest. We’ve seen these Braves players slug in October before, so why can’t they do it again?
Why they won’t: The same offense has cratered in the second half.
The Braves offense has been the worst of any playoff team since the trade deadline. They rank in the bottom six across all of baseball in wRC+ in that period and have the worst OBP and walk rate of any playoff team. Atlanta has three everyday regulars who have been a part of its core throughout the 2020s and have not produced at all since the trade deadline. Olson is in the heart of the order and has a .279 OBP. Riley is striking out in more than a third of his plate appearances. And Albies has a .178/.248/.286 slash line.
Atlanta’s offense really hasn’t been dominant at any point this year, but the drop-off as the season has progressed is especially troubling. Three of the past four months, they’ve finished in the bottom third of the league in offensive production. Here’s where they’ve ranked in wRC+ by month, according to FanGraphs:
- March/April: Fourth
- May: 11th
- June: 30th
- July: Seventh
- August: 20th
- September: 23rd
It’s hard to imagine the Braves surviving against the Phillies’ and Dodgers’ elite starting pitching given how limited the offense is right now. They might win a series or two thanks to a stellar bullpen, but it’s not April anymore.
San Diego Padres
Why the Padres will win the World Series: Fernando Tatis Jr. gives the offense the power it previously lacked.
The Padres have exited the playoffs because of an offensive power outage in each of the past two seasons. Against the Dodgers in 2024, they failed to score a single run in the final two games of the NLDS. Last year, the Cubs edged them out in a best-of-three series in which the Padres failed to score more than a single run in each loss. Each September, the MLB pundit class claims that the Padres are the team no one wants to face because they’ve assembled a dominant bullpen. That’s true yet again in 2026, and this time could be different thanks to the offensive surge of Fernando Tatis Jr. in the second half of the season.
Tatis’s yearlong slash line doesn’t stand out as anything spectacular, but when you break the season in two, each half looks considerably different. Before July 1, he hit .280/.342/.378 with five home runs (in 84 games). Since then, he’s hit .295/.372/.563 with 20 home runs (in 76 games).
He’s been one of the best hitters in the entire sport and gives San Diego a chance to produce enough runs to make a deep run in October.
Why they won’t: Their starters don’t go deep enough into games.
The Padres will have to win four rounds of playoff baseball in high-stress environments, and they’ll likely lean more heavily on their bullpen for outs than any other team except maybe the Rays. They’ve done a remarkable job of piecing together enough starting pitchers to cover for an entire season, but it’s not clear that they have enough pitchers who can reliably go deep in a playoff setting.
Of the 12 playoff teams, San Diego is ahead of only Houston in total innings thrown by starting pitchers this season. And they were not particularly good innings. The Padres also have the second-lowest strikeout rate in baseball among starters. Michael King is a good first starter, but after him, it gets murky. Nick Pivetta hasn’t thrown more than five innings in a start since returning after a right elbow flexor strain, and he’s pitched only 34 innings in total. Robbie Ray and Walker Buehler won’t give San Diego any depth within games. It’s nice to have an elite bullpen to lean on, but it’ll probably run out of gas if San Diego has a deep run.
Chicago Cubs
Why the Cubs will win the World Series: They have the best player in the playoffs.
One player doesn’t make an entire team, but there have been very few seasons in recent MLB history in which a player has been as impactful in all facets of the sport as Pete Crow-Armstrong was in 2026. He posted a seventh season with at least 40 home runs and 40 steals. He totaled 10.6 fWAR, which is the sixth-most fWAR by a position player in a season since 2000. The only five seasons ahead of him are:
- 2002 Barry Bonds
- 2001 Barry Bonds
- 2004 Barry Bonds
- 2024 Aaron Judge
- 2022 Aaron Judge
Crow-Armstrong’s improvement against lefties at the plate this season puts him firmly at the top of the Cubs lineup, which is the best in baseball this season. His dominant range and field coverage skills help anchor the league’s best defense in center field. He was 5-for-27 with zero extra base hits in last year’s playoffs after a poor second half, and he might just light the league on fire these playoffs.
Why they won’t: Their pitching staff is terrible.
Given that the Cubs have the best offense and best defense in baseball, you’re probably wondering why they finished 14 games behind Milwaukee in the NL Central. Well, outside of the rebuilding Nationals, Royals, and Athletics, the Cubs have the worst pitching staff in the league this year. Their bullpen finished the season with a negative fWAR. The team plugged some injury holes with the addition of Kevin Gausman at the trade deadline, but Chicago’s starting rotation is still light-years behind Milwaukee, Atlanta, and Los Angeles at the top of the NL playoff field.
Chicago’s team ERA is just mediocre thanks to the quality of its defense, but there is no defense against home runs. And the Cubs allowed homers at the third-highest rate in the league.
The 2006 Cardinals are the closest comp to these Cubs. They won the World Series despite ranking 27th in pitching fWAR at 7.8. That’s still better than the Cubs’ numbers this year.
Philadelphia Phillies
Why the Phillies will win the World Series: Their starting rotation is on the right track.
The Phillies are scrambling to assemble their pitching plan right now because they had to use Zack Wheeler just to make the playoffs on Sunday, and Jesús Luzardo is working his way back into pitching shape. Wheeler would start a Game 3 on Thursday, and Luzardo will work out of the bullpen this week. The lack of a set rotation will hurt the Phillies’ chances in the first week of the playoffs.
However, winning the World Series requires an entire month of baseball. And if the Phillies can survive until next week, their rotation could quickly take shape and become one of the best run-prevention units in the sport. Luzardo and Game 2 starter Cristopher Sanchez should both finish in the top five in NL Cy Young voting. Wheeler has a dominant playoff track record and has amassed more fWAR than any other pitcher in the 2020s. Aaron Nola’s season-long stats look very mediocre, but he pitched to a 3.12 ERA after July 1. The Phillies got the second-most fWAR from their starters in the league, and they’ll have to carry them.
Why the Phillies won’t: They have the worst offense in the playoffs.
The Phillies are one of two teams (along with the Dodgers) to make the playoffs in five consecutive years. Six of the starters from their 2022 NL pennant run—Bryce Harper, Bryson Stott, Alec Bohm, Kyle Schwarber, Brandon Marsh, and J.T. Realmuto—are in the starting lineup in 2026.
But the Phillies offense has quietly fallen off a cliff in 2026, and it’s their biggest hindrance in fielding a competitive playoff lineup. Not only did the Phillies have the league-worst offense in September by wRC+, but they were also 28th in that stat over the course of the full regular season. The Phillies have lost in past Octobers because their bats went cold. Now, they’re just permanently cold.
Tampa Bay Rays
Why the Rays will win the World Series: They’ve been the AL’s best team all year.
The three best teams in the American League all play in the AL East. The Rays have waltzed to the league’s top record this year, having handily kept the Yankees at arm’s length in the division race, and now will be well rested and awaiting whoever survives the best-of-three war at Yankee Stadium this week. It’s a major advantage for Tampa to be rested, especially given how aggressively Kevin Cash likes to manage his bullpen.
The Rays nearly won 100 games this season, far outstripping their projected win total of 77.5 games. It’s a remarkable overperformance, and it’s not dissimilar to the Blue Jays last season. Many skeptics (including me) counted Toronto out when it faced the Yankees in the ALDS, but the Blue Jays’ offensive and defensive advantages helped them out-execute New York. The Rays put a ton of balls in play. And while they don’t hit for power, Tampa Bay will have constant traffic on the bases and will put pressure on opposing pitching staffs. If that offensive profile sounds familiar, it should. It’s the same formula the Jays used to grind down every opposing staff they faced en route to an AL pennant.
The National League’s top teams may look better on paper this season, but that was true last year too, and Toronto got about as close as a team has ever gotten to winning the World Series without clinching it.
Why they won’t: They can’t always manufacture their way out of a power outage.
The Rays’ ability to put the ball in play and keep pressure on a defense has carried them to the top of the American League. But that style asks them to string hits together against pitchers who are especially difficult to hit. In October, a two-run homer can do in an instant what three innings worth of singles, walks, and stolen bases can do for the Rays. Tampa Bay doesn’t have as many players who can change a game with one swing as their potential opponents do.
There’s also less margin for error on the pitching side than their record might suggest. Shane McClanahan is their most dominant starter, but he will miss the ALDS due to forearm tightness. That leaves the Rays without one of the starters they'd counted on to headline their October rotation, at least for the first series of what they hope is a long run. Drew Rasmussen, Nick Martinez, and Freddy Peralta give Cash options, as does fireman Griffin Jax. Nobody is better at finding useful innings in unexpected places. But asking Cash to solve every close game without his best arm, and asking the offense to piece together runs, is a hard way to live in October.
Cleveland Guardians
Why the Guardians will win the World Series: They have a balanced offense.
Cleveland is the big winner of the American League’s imbalanced bracket. Despite having the 10th-best record of the 12 playoff teams this year, the Guardians won the AL Central and will have a bye, followed by home-field advantage in the ALDS against either the 11th- or 12th-best playoff team. It would be impossible to ask for a better path to the ALCS, making the Guardians favored to get to baseball’s final four.
However, reaching the ALCS and winning that series and the one after that are two vastly different feats. The Guardians offense has been the source of their downfall in years past. And while this is not a good offense, it is better than it was in years past. Cleveland ranks 10th in wRC+ since the trade deadline. Chase DeLauter and Travis Bazzana have both been well above league average. Steven Kwan is in the midst of a hot stretch. And Jo Adell has added some auxiliary power.
The Guardians have had a contact-first offensive profile for years. Now, they have more lineup depth and versatility to make a real run at the World Series title. And the stars out of their control have aligned perfectly to gift them a dream draw.
Why they won’t: José Ramírez is back, but he isn’t playing well.
The Guardians badly need their star man to find his offensive form again. Ramírez has not been a productive hitter at the plate since returning from his hamate surgery in late July. He’s posted a .296 OBP and a .598 OPS and actually weighed down the Cleveland offense, which has otherwise been above league average without him.
Ramírez has had one of the lowest hard hit rates in the lineup since his return, and the power outage isn’t uncommon for players returning from hamate surgery. He’ll still be at the center of opposing game plans against this lineup, but he hasn’t had the production this year to back up his well-earned reputation.
Houston Astros
Why the Astros will win the World Series: Yordan Alvarez will take over October again.
Alvarez bookended the Astros’ World Series–winning playoff run in 2022 with two monstrous home runs. First, he hit a walk-off home run against the Mariners’ Robbie Ray in the first game of the ALDS to give Houston a dramatic 8-7 victory. Even though the pitching had failed, Alvarez was able to flip the game with that one pulled fly ball.
Houston was a dominant no. 1 seed and didn’t lose a game until the World Series. But when the Astros needed Alvarez again in the World Series’ closeout Game 6, he hit a titanic three-run home run in the sixth inning against the Phillies. He didn’t win World Series MVP, but he deserved playoff MVP.
If Houston overcomes the history and odds of its underdog statistical profile, it’ll be because Alvarez goes nuclear in October. He came up short of the Triple Crown this season, but he finished with a 181 wRC+. The next best hitter in baseball was Pete Crow-Armstrong, at 157. No hitter came close to Alvarez’s offensive production.
Why they won’t: They’re one of the worst playoff teams ever.
The Astros made history on Sunday by winning the AL West at 81-81. It’s the first time in MLB history that a team won a division with a record of .500 or worse. And now they get to host a wild-card series! Underlying metrics suggest that the Astros were lucky to win that many games, too. Their –32 run differential—the second worst of any playoff team in the modern era—suggests that they should have been a 78-win team.
When the Padres won the NL West in 2005 at 82-80, they were promptly swept out in the NLDS. The Astros are favored to win their home series against the White Sox, but it’s hard to see a team that’s this mediocre all around making a deep run.
New York Yankees
Why the Yankees will win the World Series: No one in the American League can match their starting pitching.
The Yankees might need only three starting pitchers to get through most of the AL playoffs. The hard part for manager Aaron Boone might be deciding which three. Cam Schlittler just finished his Cy Young–caliber season with a 1.95 ERA. Max Fried gives New York another ace from the left side. Gerrit Cole has experience leading an October rotation, and Carlos Rodón just threw eight scoreless innings against Tampa Bay. Rodón might begin the wild-card series without a start. That is an absurd amount of pitching to have in reserve.
The Yankees lead the AL playoff field in quality starts this year. The only AL team at their level of starting pitching depth right now is the Red Sox, whom they’ll face in a three-game series at Yankee Stadium beginning on Tuesday.
The starting pitching failed the Yankees against the Blue Jays last October, but the current Yankees rotation is a massive upgrade over both the 2025 and 2024 iterations. Instead of Clarke Schmidt and Luis Gil, New York has Schlittler, a soon-to-be Cy Young winner, and Fried, a World Series champion.
Why they won’t: Aaron Judge’s health is dubious.
Judge and Boone talk as if they’re preparing for two different Octobers. Boone says that the Yankees are planning for a wild-card series without Judge, who has a strained right calf. Judge says he’s trying to be ready for when the playoffs begin.
The Yankees have spent much of this season finding ways to win without their captain, and they may be able to continue to do so in a short series against Boston. But ending a 17-year World Series drought without him will be difficult.
And having Judge back in the lineup would only be the first step. He missed most of the summer with a fractured rib before his calf injury sent him back to the injured list. The Yankees need him to be healthy enough to take his best swings against October pitching, and he won’t have any time for a ramp-up process if he does return. He’s missed 84 games this season.
It’s become convenient to say that Judge isn’t a good playoff hitter. His career .822 playoff OPS would still be a boost to the lineup, which has been league average since the trade deadline. Without him, the drought will probably continue.
Boston Red Sox
Why the Red Sox will win the World Series: Their bullpen is built for October.
Boston’s bullpen isn’t at the top of the strikeout charts and doesn’t lead in stuff metrics. But it’s elite because it gets ground balls at a league-high rate and keeps the ball in the park. Preventing home runs late in games is massively important in October, and the Red Sox have one of the best late-game run-prevention units in the league.
San Diego is missing key arms, so Boston might have the best back end of any bullpen in the playoff field. Aroldis Chapman is still a flamethrower in his late 30s, and Garrett Whitlock has been dominant against hitters on both sides of the plate, posting a 1.72 ERA in a setup role. Erik Miller and Greg Weissert give Boston two different looks in the middle innings. That depth gives the Red Sox a path through close games without one reliever covering every difficult matchup. If Boston can get a lead into the sixth, it has the arms to make that gap feel insurmountable.
Why they won’t: The offense is running out of healthy and performing players.
The Red Sox are built around pitching and defense, but they’ll need to score runs at some point in October. But Boston doesn’t have a reliable centerpiece for its offense, which ranked 28th in wRC+ in September. Mickey Gasper’s hot streak came to a screeching halt with a biceps injury that will keep him out at least 10 days. So if you were hoping for the offense to get hot in the playoffs, that’s not likely to happen. Roman Anthony and Adley Rutschman have the pedigree and could break out in the playoffs, but neither has been hitting much better than average over the past month.
Chicago White Sox
Why the White Sox will win the World Series: They have the power of vibes, friendship, and youth.
The White Sox had the lowest projected win total in the AL before the season. They were expected to win roughly 67 games, and instead they’re finding themselves in the playoffs—after breaking the modern-era single-season MLB loss record two years ago, at 41-121. Munetaka Murakami’s celebration videos have become a viral hit. The White Sox have the youngest lineup in the playoffs, and it’s full of players who have never experienced playoff baseball before. Their youthful energy could explain why they’ve had the best offense in the AL (106 wRC+) since the All-Star break. They’re powering to the finish offensively, they’re ahead of schedule, and if they win a wild-card series, they will bring playoff baseball back to the South Side.
Why they won’t: The pitching isn’t as far ahead of schedule.
The White Sox will be at a disadvantage in starting pitching in basically every game they play this postseason. Chicago’s young arms have not progressed at the same rate as its young bats, and the result is that the starters rank 27th in fWAR. They don’t strike many batters out, they allow homers at a top-five rate, and they have basically no playoff experience. The pitching situation is so ominous that it’s not even clear who will start in Game 1. Sean Burke (3.78 xERA) was Chicago’s best starter during the regular season, but he pitched on Friday and will likely pitch Game 2. After him, there’s a significant drop-off to Davis Martin (4.69), Erick Fedde (4.79), and Anthony Kay (5.05).
