The MLB postseason is off to an exciting start, with many Cinderella stories and record breaking games. The wild card series kicks off the postseason and they are a three game series. The first ended in surprising fashion with the fourth seeded San Diego Padres beating the first seeded New York mets. Starting pitchers Max Sherzer and Chris Bassit imploded in their two starts, Sherzer allowing seven runs, and Bassit allowing three runs. In both of their starts the rest of the team was unable to climb out of the pit the starters created, so the Mets would lose the series. The other national league wild card series was between the Philadelphia Phillies and the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals were the higher seeded team, but the Phillies managed to win. The Cardinals won the first game, but in the second their pitching let them down by giving up six runs. In the third game of the series the Cardinals were let down by their offense, as they scored no runs. So, the Padres would go on to face the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Phillies would go onto face the Atlanta Braves. In the American League (A.L.)  the Cleveland Guardians beat the Tampa Bay Rays in two games. The Rays’ offense let them down as they only managed to score one run in the two games. The other A.L. wild card series was between the Seattle Mariners and the Toronto Blue Jays. The Mariners beat the Blue Jays in two games thanks to them scoring a whopping 14 runs in the two games. The Mariners would go on to face the Houston Astros, and Guardians would fly to New York, to face the New York Yankees. 

The playoffs remained very exciting with the National and American league divisional series (NLDS and ALDS) being filled with incredible moments. This next series was a best of five games. The Padres would continue there and beat the Dodgers in four games. The Padres team as a whole played really well, but Manny Macahado definitely stuck out posting a 1.111 OPS (on base% + slugging%). The starting pitching also was very strong, with none of the starters in the three games they won allowing more than three runs. Blake Snell had a particularly good outing, pitching 5.1 innings and only allowing one run. At this point the padres have beaten the first and third best National league teams while just barely clinching a wild card spot. On a side note, the Washington Nationals won the 2019 world series while entering the post season with a similar status to the Padres. Current Padres star Juan Soto was on the Nationals team, Juan may end up being a part of two Cinderella stories. The other NLCS was between the Phillies and the Braves. The Phillies would precede to beat the Braves in four games. The 2x MVP Bryce Harper played extremely well posting an unreal 1.592 OPS scoring four runs and driving in five runs. The Braves had the second best record in the National League during the regular season, so the Phillies, who like the Padres barely clinched a wild card spot, were not expected to win. The Padres and Phillies will now face off in the National League Championship series (NLCS) , the result of which will determine which team goes to the world series. Moving on to the ALDS, there are not really any Cinderella stories here; however, there were some extremely exciting games. The Astros would sweep the Mariners, beating them in three games. Although this series was a little once sided, game three was record breaking. It was the longest postseason game in history. This game lasted for a whopping 17 innings, with the first score of the game being in the 17th inning. Nobody was hitting. Jose Altuve went 0 for 8, Julio Rodriguez went 1 for 7, and Yordan Álvarez went 0 for 7. The other ALDS was between the Yankees and Guardians. This series was a little more evenly matched with the Yankees winning in five games. Both teams played well throughout the series, with the Yankees winning the final game thanks to home runs from Aaron Judge, Anthony Rizzo, and Giancarlo Stanton. So the Yankees and Astros will have a rematch ALCS, as they faced each other in 2017, the Astros winning, but later it was revealed they cheated.

My Prediction for the rest of the playoffs is as follows. The Astros will beat the Yankees in the ALCS and the Padres will beat the Phillies in the NLCS. The Yankees just barely beat the Guardians while the Astros swept the Mariners. Although I believe the offense on both teams is adequate, the Astros pitching is supporier. The Astros three best starters all had under a 2.6 ERA (Earned Run Average) throughout the season. As only one Yankee starter had an ERA under 2.6 (remember the lower the ERA the better). In the national league I think the Padres will beat the Phillies. Both teams played at similar levels throughout the regular season, and although the Phillies have beaten some very good teams, it can not compare to beating both the Dodgers and Mets. I think the Padres will then beat the Astros in the World Series. The Padres have proven they can beat teams who were better than the Astros during the regular season, as they beat the Dodgers, and have players like Blake Snell and Manny Machado who are red hot right now. As for the offseason, the Mets and Yankees both are in tricky situations. Granted the Mets are in a trickier one. A ton of the Mets players are free agents. Three of their starting pitchers are free agents, two of their relief pitchers, and two position players. The starting pitchers are Jacob DeGrom, who has been the best pitcher in baseball over the past five years, along with Chris Bassit and Taijuan Walker, who both had very solid seasons this year. The best closer in Baseball Edwin Díaz is a free agent this year, and Adam Ottovino, a very solid pitcher are both free agents as well. In addition to the pitchers Brandon Nimmo, an all-star caliber center fielder, is a free agent, and Daniel Vogalbach, slightly under all-star level, are free agents. It would take an absurd amount of money to sign these players, so the Mets may not want to sign them all, and diminish the great team they had this year. As for the Yankees Aaron Judge is a free agent this year. Aaron Judge had a historic season this year. He hit 62 home runs and had 1.111 OPS. It is probably safe to say that Aaron Judge had the best season since Albert Pujols in 2009. Unfortunately Judge has gotten hurt at many points throughout his career, and he turned 30 this year. He did not get hurt this year, but it is very possible that he will get injured frequently over the next few years given his age and past. Also Judge may only have 3-5 good seasons left in his career, as the prime age for playing baseball is between 25-30. Many teams are going to try and sign him, I do think the Yankees will end up getting him, but it will be for a exorbitant amount of money. However, we can only watch and see if all these predictions are even close to correct, baseball is a crazy sport, as illustrated by the Cinderella stories talked about in this article, anything can happen.