9 Bold Predictions for the 2024 MLB Playoffs

The 2024 MLB postseason bracket probably won't be set in stone until the final day of the regular season, but we're already coming in hot with nine bold predictions on how the playoffs will eventually play out.

Notably, there are no internal contradictions with these predictions, so it is possible for all of them to come true.

(Though, I believe the only scenario in which all nine can happen is if Cleveland wins it all...so...go Guardians?) With all nine, our goal was to make bold-but-not-completely-outlandish predictions regarding a postseason picture that is still very much up in the air.

Predictions are presented in no particular order, but we'll start with the player-specific ones before progressing from the Wild Card Round through to the World Series.

Predicting that there will be a walk-off hit in the postseason isn't bold in the slightest.

There were only two walk-off wins last October, but there were three in 2022 (two of them by Oscar Gonzalez) and five in 2021.

So, you can almost take it to the bank that there will be a couple.

However, predicting that a walk-off hit will be delivered by one of three specific young players just might be the boldest of all these predictions.

Those three players are Jackson Chourio of the Milwaukee Brewers, Jackson Holliday of the Baltimore Orioles and Jackson Merrill of the San Diego Padres.

Of the bunch, Holliday is easily the least likely to pull it off.

Not only is he batting .169 for the year, but with Jordan Westburg returning on Sunday from nearly two months on the IL, Holliday might not get a single start in the postseason.

Maybe they use him as a pinch hitter, though? Per Baseball Reference , he has gone 10-for-35 with an .852 OPS in "high leverage" situations.

Chourio has been considerably more clutch than that, though, sitting at 30-for-91 with a .938 OPS in those high leverage spots .

He doesn't have a walk-off yet in his career, but he is having one heck of a rookie season, batting .306 with 16 home runs since June 2.

Merrill is the one most likely to get the job done, as he has been delivering the goods all season long.

He already has been responsible for two walk-off home runs.

He has a 1.068 OPS with five home runs in the 9th inning this season, and he has been the king of clutch in extras, a perfect 3-for-3 with a walk, a sac fly and five RBI in those five plate appearances.

We'll see how the final standings shake out, but it's looking likely that Baltimore, Milwaukee and San Diego will all be playing at home in the wild-card round.

So, as bold as this prediction is, it just might come true immediately on Oct.

1.

If it happens, at least Merrill (turned 21 on April 19) can celebrate with some proper bubbly.

They'll need some sparkling cider on hand in case either Holliday (won't turn 21 until next December) or Chourio (won't turn 21 until next March) pulls it off.

To be abundantly clear, I'm not rooting for this one to happen.

My official stance is that it would be swell if Emmanuel Clase reels off seven or more innings of perfection as the Guardians knock both the Astros and the Yankees out of the playoffs.

In the spirit of bold predictions, however, Clase allowing multiple runs in a single appearance certainly qualifies.

It hasn't happened yet this season.

Clase has allowed a grand total of five earned runs and five unearned runs, but never two or more in the same appearance.

Even in his 55-for-55 season in 2003, Eric Gagne allowed multiple runs three times in non-save situations.

(He also allowed three earned runs in the All-Star Game, which was his only blown save of the year.) But Clase has consistently refused to let an inning get away from him, including getting the save in the All-Star Game.

And we already know he can bring it in October.

During Cleveland's brief run in the 2022 postseason, he logged six innings and allowed just one hit.

Not only was he not charged with any runs, but he inherited five runners and didn't allow any of them to score, either.

But even Mariano Rivera allowed multiple runs to score multiple times in an illustrious career with a 0.70 ERA in the postseason, and Clase's sensational run will encounter its first significant bump in the road.

It has been a rough, likely final season for 41-year-old, soon-to-be first-ballot Hall-of-Famer Justin Verlander.

He hasn't made a quality start since late May, spending more than two months on the IL and simply not packing the punch of yore when he has been available, posting a 6.0 K/9 over his last eight starts.

That has put Houston in a tough spot as far as its postseason roster is concerned.

Framber Valdez is surely going to start Game 1 of the wild card series for the Astros, and they plausibly could go with Yusei Kikuchi, Hunter Brown andshould they survive the first roundRonel Blanco with the rest of their postseason rotation, either relegating Verlander to bullpen duty or leaving him off the roster altogether.

If ever there has been a time to believe that sports are scripted, though, it's the possibility of the Detroit Tigers making this incredible run over the past two months, securing the No.

6 seed...and needing to deal with an old friend in either Game 2 or Game 3 of the wild card round.

By no means are we anticipating a full-blown October of vintage Verlander.

It's not going to be a repeat of 2017 when he made five quality starts in the playoffs for a World Series champion.

But there will be a moment, possibly an entire 6+ inning start where Verlander reminds us all of his former greatness.

Aaron Judge is leading the majors with 56 home runs.

Teammate Juan Soto is fourth on that leaderboard with 40 dingers.

There's still a chance they'll become the first pair of teammates to combine for at least 100 home runs in a single season since Alex Rodriguez (57) and Rafael Palmeiro (43) mashed a bunch of taters for the Texas Rangers in 2002.

Among Yankees, only Giancarlo Stanton (26 home runs in 110 games played) and Jazz Chisholm Jr.

(10 in 42 games) can even remotely hold a candle to that dynamic duo, and even they have combined for fewer homer than Soto, let alone Judge.

And with Judge boasting 13 home runs in 44 career postseason games while Soto is at seven in 29 games, they both have already shown the ability to stay hot into October.

Basically, the longer New York lasts in the postseason, the bolder (AKA less plausible) this one becomes.

But look no further than one year ago for evidence that this isn't actually impossible.

Matt Olson, Marcell Ozuna and Ronald Acuna Jr.

each hit 40 home runs for the Atlanta Braves last season, but they combined for 43 homerless at-bats in that NLDS exit against Philadelphia.

Of course, for this to come true, it doesn't necessarily need to be a case of Judge and Soto no-showing in a short postseason run like Atlanta's trio of sluggers did last year.

It could be that Stanton, Chisholm, Austin Wells or someone else just goes nuclear in the postseason, like Adolis Garcia last year or Randy Arozarena in 2020.

"Very unlikely...that's not in the plans as of now." That's what Los Angeles Dodgers GM Brandon Gomes said last Friday to MLB Network's Brian Kenny after about a week of swirling speculations that Shohei Ohtani might be available to pitch in the postseason.

But he didn't exactly say no, did he? Gomes didn't tease us with anything like a "we'll see" or a "you never know," but there was a whole lot of "at this point" and "right now" in that brief exchange.

It sure seemed to leave the door open to the possibility, even if it isn't something they're necessarily expecting to happen.

If they do utilize that "break in case of emergency" option, got to figure it would be: Maybe it happens, though.

This is Ohtani we're talking about, after all.

Never before in MLB history had someone recorded 43 home runs and 43 stolen bases in the same season, yet he's at 53 and 55, respectively, while continuing to recover from that elbow surgery.

He was already a unicorn, and as of now, anything seems possible.

Thus far in the brief history of the 12-team postseason format, the wild-card round has produced more upsets than chalk, with five of the eight road teams emerging victorious.

In last year's quartet of clean sweeps, No.

3 seed Minnesota and No.

4 seed Philadelphia won at home while No.

5 seed Texas and No.

6 seed Arizona began their journeys to the World Series with sizable road upsets.

Let's run that 3-4-5-6 seed situation back again in 2024, shall we? There are 16 possible ways for the wild-card round to play out, with four of them creating that 3-4-5-6 condition.

That gives us a 25 percent chance of being correct here...which isn't a particularly bold prediction.

So, let's further specify that the No.

3 and No.

4 seed both come from the American League while the National League gives us the No.

5 and No.

6 seeds.

We'll see what the odds for each series end up being, but parlaying the four should end up in the +1500 vicinity.

It will probably be closer to +1200, because the odds of the NL's No.

6 seed knocking off Milwaukee will inevitably be shorter than the odds of the AL's No.

6 seed toppling Houston, even though the Brewers have been the better team and will have the superior record.

There's little question, though, that the NL's No.

5 and No.

6 seed will be considered better than the AL's No.

5 and No.

6 seed.

Though there's only room for two of the three, the Mets, Diamondbacks and Braves are all viable World Series threats.

Meanwhile the AL's No.

5 and No.

6 seed might both be AL Central teams who would have losing records were it not for their 13 games against the White Sox.

Both Houston and Baltimore ought to be able to win those series at home.

(Even though Detroit did just take two out of three in Baltimore last weekend.) If you've only been a baseball fan for half a decade, this absolutely feels like a bold prediction.

The NLCS was a No.

1 vs.

No.

2 showdown in 2020, but it has otherwise been carnage in the NLDS, resulting in a 3-4 matchup in each of 2019 and 2021, a 4-6 pairing last year and a 5-6 battle in 2022.

Both the Dodgers and the Braves were involved in all of those situations.

That was the 1-2 matchup in 2020, as well as the 3-4 series in 2021.

They were also the top two seeds who were upset in each of 2019, 2022 and 2023.

If Atlanta manages to sneak in as the No.

5 or No.

6 seed, perhaps it happens again.

But if I can make what isn't actually a bold proclamation at all, I think at least the Phillies will take care of business in the NLDS, with the Dodgers (provided they hang on to win the NL West and secure a first-round bye) likely doing the same.

With L.A., the health of the rotation is the major concern.

However, getting a first-round bye and presumably getting to deploy both Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Jack Flaherty for Games 1 and 2 at home (and Yamamoto again at home for Game 5, if necessary) should be enough to get over that initial hurdle.

The Phillies are in a much different boat, with the tough decision being the order in which they want to stack their four aces.

Zack Wheeler is all but certain to start Game 1, and they'll probably wait until Game 4 to use Ranger Suarez, considering he hasn't been anywhere near as impressive over the past three months as he was in the first three.

But they should roll with Cristopher Sanchez in Game 2, given he has a 2.05 ERA in 16 starts at home as opposed to a 5.02 ERA in 14 starts on the road this season, which would mean saving Aaron Nola's $172M contract for Game 3.

Must be nice.

Either way, the Phillies win their NLDS as the favorite, after back-to-back years of upsetting Atlanta in that round.

This shouldn't be a particularly bold prediction.

The odds are the same as rolling doubles in Monopoly: 1 in 6.

For whatever reason, though, it has been a rare occurrence over the past decade.

It started in 2014 whenin the most recent 162-game season without a 100-win teamNo.

5 seed San Francisco knocked off No.

4 seed Kansas City.

In each of the subsequent five Octobers, one of the No.

1 seeds made it to the World Series, but the other did not.

2021 saw No.

3 seed Atlanta upend No.

2 seed Houston.

The following year, No.

1 Houston took care of No.

6 Philadelphia.

And last year was No.

5 Texas over No.

6 Arizona.

The lone exception to the rule came in 2020, when No.

1 seeds Tampa Bay and Los Angeles both made it to the final round of that 16-team bracket.

Buckle up for another exception this year, though, in what is the most wide-open postseason field in recent memory.

The most likely combo would be the No.

1 Yankees against the No.

1 Dodgers/Phillies.

But maybe it's the red-hot Mets against the red-hot Tigers as mutual No.

5 or No.

6 seeds.

Or Manny Machado going back to his old stomping grounds when the No.

4 seed Padres take on the No.

4 seed Orioles.

(Though, if our previous 3-4-5-6 wild-card round prediction is correct, this one could only ring true if it's No.

1 vs.

No.

1 or No.

2 vs.

No.

2.) We won't know which possible combinations would fit the bill until the final bracket is set, but we can already guarantee they'll all feel plausible.

While last year was an absolute nightmare for the teams that tried to buy a ringthe Mets, Yankees and Padres all missed the postseason in spite of having the three highest payrollsthe big spenders had much better luck this time around.

Atlanta (fourth-highest payroll) might fall a bit short, thanks in large part to its litany of crucial injuries.

However, the rest of the top six in 2024 spendingMets, Dodgers, Yankees, Phillies and Astroswill/should be in the playoffs and possibly the five biggest favorites to win it all.

(The Mets' betting odds might not crack the top five since they'll be a wild card team, but they've been hot for months and certainly feel like one of the best candidates.) If that luck continues, congratulations to MLB on all of its forthcoming ad revenue.

Even though Houston isn't a huge market, going Yankees-Astros on one side and perhaps Dodgers-Mets on the other would be a ratings dream.

But could we end up with a lower-spending champion for a change? Per Cot's Contracts , since the Marlins won it all in 2003 with an Opening Day payroll that ranked 25th highest, the only World Series winners with a payroll that ranked in the bottom half of the league were the 2015 Kansas City Royals and 2017 Houston Astros, both of whom were 17th that year.

Beyond the aforementioned big spenders who will be making a luxury tax payment at some point this offseason, the other candidates in descending order of Opening Day payroll rank are San Diego (14th), Arizona (15th), Seattle (17th), Minnesota (18th), Kansas City (21st), Milwaukee (22nd), Cleveland (23rd), Detroit (25th) and Baltimore (26th).

Of the bunch, Cleveland, Baltimore and San Diego have the best chance, and it sure would be something if the Padres won it all the year after trading away Juan Soto and shedding darn near $100 million from the payroll.

Anything is possible this October, though..

This article has been shared from the original article on bleacherreport, here is the link to the original article.