The Fatal Flaw for Every AL and NL 2024 Playoff Contender

Some Major League Baseball teams have more flawsand more glaring flawsthan others, but no team is perfect.

And when the 2024 postseason begins less than three weeks from now, those flaws could, and most likely will, prove fatal.

For several of the 13 teams still firmly in the mix for the 12-team field, quality depth in the starting rotation is the biggest concern.

While you don't need a five-man rotation in Octoberwhich is most welcome news for the Philadelphia Philliesa fourth starter will be necessary at multiple points in a World Series run.

That's a frightening proposition for a number of teams that don't even have three solid/healthy starters on their staff.

For others, bullpen woes or limited reliable hitters are likely to lead to their postseason demise.

A big thing to keep in mind, though, is that no one is great this year.

It's unlikely anyone will reach 100 wins, and the gap between the No.

5 seed and the No.

1 seed in each league is just about nonexistent.

As such, minor flaws could have major consequences, even more so than usual.

After the initial batch of honorable mentions, teams are presented in alphabetical order.

Unless otherwise noted, statistics are current through the start of play Wednesday, Sept.

11.

Beyond the 13 teams with at least a 50 percent chance of reaching the postseason, there's also a trio of American League squads who entered play on Tuesday all tied up at 73-71, three games behind the Minnesota Twins for the final wild-card spot.

We won't dive nearly as deep into their fatal flaws, but let's at least shout them out, should they make a comeback.

Boston Red Sox (Fatal Flaw: Pitching) While Arizona is very much the exception to the rule with its elite offense this year, teams who rank bottom 10 in the majors in runs allowed almost never make the postseason.

And this Boston pitching staff is flirting with the bottom five.

That's after an incredible first month of the year, too.

Since the beginning of May, only the Rockies and White Sox have hemorrhaged more runs than the Red Sox.

If they do manage to sneak in as the No.

6 seed, best of luck taking two out of three in Houston in the wild-card round.

Boston allowed at least five runs in five of its six games against the Astros this season.

Detroit Tigers (Fatal Flaw: Limited Slugging) Though it is possible to consistently win without consistently homering, it does make things a lot harder.

Case in point: Each of the past four World Series champions ranked top four in home runs during the regular season, and the last champ to rank worse than 13th in the majors in team dingers was the 2015 Kansas City Royals.

Well, Detroit is tied for 24th, though it has at least managed to hit more than half of its home runs with runners on base.

That has helped keep them on the cusp of the postseason, but making any sort of run in October will be a real challenge.

Seattle Mariners (Fatal Flaw: Offense in General) The Mariners have allowed the fewest runs of any team in the big leagues this season.

Some lot of good it's done them, though, suffering 22 losses this season in which they allowed three or fewer runs, thanks to an offense where the only player with an OPS of .770 or better is Victor Robles, who started hitting out of nowhere after getting released by the Nationals.

For what it's worth, Arizona has gone 48-9 when allowing three or fewer runs, and the Mariners would be virtually tied with the Yankees for the AL's No.

1 seed if they had that winning percentage for those pitching performances.

Fatal Flaw : Inconsistent Pitching The Arizona Diamondbacks can put up runs in bunches like no one else, leading the majors in runs scored by a wide margin and reaching double digits on 18 occasions.

However, the pitching staff leaves a lot to be desired, and it's only getting worse as the season progresses.

Prior to this week's series against Texas, Arizona had allowed 92 runs over its past 14 games.

That's nearly 6.6 per game, thanks to 14 consecutive contests allowing at least three runs.

Four of the six Snakes who have made at least five starts since the All-Star break have done so with an ERA of 5.40 or worse.

Paul Sewald also has a 5.40 ERA in the second half, losing his job as closer in late July.

But his replacement, Justin Martinez, has been leaking oil lately, too, allowing at least one earned run in five of his past eight appearances.

A.J.

Puk has been lights-out in the bullpen since coming over from Miami.

Maybe he takes over as closer down the stretch.

And at least the starts made by Zac Gallen and Ryne Nelson have been mostly solid.

They better hope that high-powered offense shows up in October, though, because it's not likely to be the pitching that carries them through what would presently be a path of San Diego and Los Angeles to reach the NLCS again.

Fatal Flaw : Hitters Not Named Marcell Ozuna In fairness, it's not all the hitters.

Matt Olson's batting average is way down from last season, but he does at least have a dozen home runs dating back to July 27.

After Ramon Laureano's career as a Major League hitter looked all but finished earlier this season in Cleveland, he has been a revelation since landing in Atlanta, posting an .821 OPS.

(Major 2021 Eddie Rosario vibes in that regard.) And in the 57 games prior to suffering a broken hand, Austin Riley was batting .292 and homering at a 162-game pace of 45, becoming one heck of a second fiddle to Marcell Ozuna in that lineup.

As a general rule, though, Ozuna has been awesome, while the rest of the lineup has been mediocre, at best.

Prior to a rare offensive explosion Tuesday against the Nationals, Atlanta had scored just 76 runs in its past 21 games.

Jorge Soler has done a whole lot of nothing since coming back from San Francisco.

The catcher tandem of Sean Murphy and Travis d'Arnaud has collectively been a black hole as of late.

Both Orlando Arcia and Michael Harris II are hovering around the Mendoza Line over the past three weeks.

And for the year, Atlanta is now 29 runs behind the next-lowest-scoring offense with at least a 10 percent chance of making the playoffs.

The good news is they can pitch quite well.

Atlanta has held 19 of its last 24 opponents to three runs or fewer, hanging on for dear life to a playoff spot even while the Mets have been scorching hot.

If they do get in, though, the Braves are liable to get bounced in the wild-card round by a combined score of like 4-1 in those two (or three) games.

Fatal Flaw : Starting Rotation This would be a drastically different story if someone hadn't turned Baltimore's injury sliders all the way up before the season began.

The Orioles lost Kyle Bradish, John Means and Tyler Wells for the year after a combined total of 15 appearances, and they aren't sure (at least publicly) whether Grayson Rodriguez (out since July 31) will be able to return as a starter in time for the postseason.

At least Dean Kremer has pitched pretty well across his last five starts while Albert Suarez (despite a recent dud against the White Sox) remains a pleasant surprise.

However, not trusting either of those arms to start Games 3 or 4 of the postseason is why the Orioles went out and got Zach Eflin and Trevor Rogers ahead of the trade deadline.

To that end, Eflin has been great and should be Baltimore's Game 2 starter behind Corbin Burnes.

Rogers was a disaster, though, making four starts with a 7.11 ERA before getting sent down to Triple-A Norfolk, where he has been even worse (7.94 ERA in three starts).

Also, uh, is Burnes alright? Once a top candidate for the AL Cy Young, he has a 5.89 ERA and just a 7.1 K/9 over his last seven starts.

Immediately after five consecutive starts in which the average velocity on his fastball was at least 96.0 MPH, he has been hovering at 94.5 MPH over his last three appearances.

Both for Baltimore's sake and for the sake of this impending free agent's bank account, here's hoping it's just a blip before a strong finish, because the O's could get swept out of the ALDS for a second straight year if their big offseason acquisition is running on fumes.

Fatal Flaw : Most of the Lineup Through its first 90 games, Cleveland was 57-33 and had one of the highest scoring offenses in the big leagues.

With 445 total runs scored, they clocked in at 4.94 runs per game, just barely behind the Phillies (4.97), Dodgers (4.99), Twins (5.00remember when they could score?), Yankees (5.02) and Orioles (5.12).

In their next 53 games, however, the Guardians went 24-29 and were darn near dead last in runs scored per game at a rate of 3.70.

Only the White Sox (2.80) and Rays (3.65) have been worse.

What the hell happened? Well, let's look at a few splits.

Daniel Schneemann, Will Brennan, Tyler Freeman and Angel Martinez were each providing at least some positive value through the team's first 90 games, but all four have a wRC+ at least 30 points lower and a negative fWAR since then.

Lane Thomas barley batting .200 since the Guardians traded for him hasn't helped matters, either.

Save for Bo Naylor and the breakout of Jhonkensy Noel, Cleveland's entire offense has been either slightly worse or drastically worse than it was through July 9.

By some miracle fueled by an elite bullpen and solid outings from the recently added Matthew Boyd and Alex Cobb, they've managed to hang onto first place in the AL Central.

But with the offense in its current state, winning a best-of-five ALDS against Houston and a best-of-seven ALCS against either Baltimore or New York will be quite the challenge.

Fatal Flaw : The First Inning Remember when the Astros were 12 games below .500 early in the year, immediately digging themselves a deep hole from which they had to recover? They've kind of been doing that to themselves all season long.

For the year, they have a plus-86 run differential, good for seventh-best in the majors.

But in the first inning, they've been outscored 94-67.

Frankly, both sides of that split are concerning.

They've had both Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez batting in the first inning of basically every game this season, often with Alex Bregman in the top third of the order, too.

Kyle Tucker, Yainer Diaz and Jeremy Pena have also each made at least 48 plate appearances in the first inning.

Yet, they're averaging below half a run scored in that inning.

Kind of hard to believe.

But the 94 is the more problematic part, with Houston's pitching staff posting a 5.38 ERA in the first inning this season.

Hunter Brown and Spencer Arrighetti have been the biggest offenders, each allowing more than 20 first-inning runs.

(Nine of Arrighetti's came last week against Cincinnati.) But only Framber Valdezseven first-inning runs allowed in 25 startshas been particularly reliable out of the gates.

They have a 4.25 ERA or better in every other inning, which has allowed them to win 31 games in come-from-behind fashion.

Giving up first-inning runs is no way to live in October, though.

Fatal Flaw : The Bullpen Let's start with the good news: There were two teams for whom we identified the bullpen / save situations as the fatal flaw heading into last October.

Those teams were Texas and Arizona.

Things worked out pretty well for them, as a select few relievers rose to the occasion in a colossal way for an entire month.

More good news: Will Smith was on the roster for each of the past three World Series champions, and he is currently employed by the Kansas City Royals.

However, carrying a shaky bullpen into October is traditionally much more of a death sentence than a blueprint to a World Series, and this Royals 'pen is about as shaky as it gets.

Lucas Erceg has been mostly solid since coming over from Oakland, and former starters Kris Bubic and Daniel Lynch IV have both fared relatively well in their recently newfound homes in the bullpen.

That trio plus Sam Long just might be enough to protect some late-inning leads.

For the year, though, Kansas City has gotten somewhat routinely shelled in the 7th-9th innings, with an ERA that ballooned to 4.72 with seven more earned runs allowed in Monday's loss to the Yankees.

Quite the 180 from when the Royals went to the World Series in both 2014 and 2015 with closer Wade Davis leading the charge.

He posted a 0.97 ERA during those regular seasons and allowed just one earned run in 25 innings of work between those two postseasons.

Fatal Flaw : Pitching Health The Dodgers are the betting favorite to win the World Series, but has there even been a betting favorite (in the wild-card era) that felt like less of a sure thing to even survive its first postseason series? It's because the pitching staff has been a walking hospital ward.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto did finally return to the mound Tuesday night after nearly three months on the shelf with a triceps injury, pumping occasional 97 MPH gas in a solid four-inning outing.

But how potent will he be in October? And with both Gavin Stone and Tyler Glasnowthe only pitchers to log at least 90 IP for the Dodgers this seasonon the IL and expected to be out until at least the final week of the regular season, what is the NLDS rotation going to look like around Yamamoto? Jack Flaherty has been great for the Dodgers, but even he twice had to skip some starts earlier this season with back issues while with Detroitwith the Yankees ultimately declining to trade for him because of his medical history.

Yet, Flaherty feels like the lone anchor of the rotation right now, with both Walker Buehler and Bobby Miller struggling mightily and Landon Knack really just holding down the fort until someone (maybe Clayton Kershaw?) gets healthy.

Through it all, they've somehow managed to remain in the mix with the Phillies for the NL's No.

1 seed.

But they are just now adjusting to life without Stone for the first time, which might be the straw that breaks this perpetually injured camel's back.

Fatal Flaw : Starting Pitching On the surface, Milwaukee's starting rotation looks solid.

They don't have household names like Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff from recent years, but Freddy Peralta, Colin Rea, Tobias Myers, Aaron Civale and Frankie Montas each has a sub-4.00 ERA this season in a Brewers uniform, with first-year big leaguer Myers leading that charge with a mark of 2.93.

Only Seattle and Atlanta have allowed fewer runs than Milwaukee's pitching staff, and no team in baseball has a better run differential (+135) right now.

The underlying numbers aren't quite as promising, though.

Save for Montas, who has made just seven starts with the Brew Crew, the starters each have a FIP north of 4.00.

On the one hand, that's a testament to how much better than average this defense has been.

Brice Turang is leading the majors in defensive runs saved .

Blake Perkins is top-10 on that list, despite only playing in 106 games.

Joey Ortiz has been impressive as a rookie at the hot corner.

Willy Adames has committed 17 errors, but his range at shortstop has been valuable.

Those guys have all contributed in a big way to Milwaukee having by far the best ERA vs.

FIP split in the majors.

Fielding will be crucial to their success in October.

All the same, Milwaukee doesn't have a single pitcher worth at least 2.5 WAR this season on either FanGraphs or Baseball Reference , and that lack of an ace may well be their downfall.

Fatal Flaw : Short-Handed Offense At full strength, Minnesota's offense might rank top-five in the majors.

Beyond the big three of Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa and Royce Lewis, both Jose Miranda and Matt Wallner have had breakout age-26 seasons, Ryan Jeffers is one of the top slugging catchers with 20 home runs, the ageless wonder Carlos Santana also has 20 dingers and both Trevor Larnach and Willi Castro have been solid staples.

They've played 20 games this season with at least seven of those nine in the starting lineup, averaging 6.3 runs in those contests.

Full-strength Minnesota is an unverified, theoretical concept, though.

They've played zero games this season with that starting nine, and precisely one game (more than three months ago) with eight of the nine.

And over the past two months, they've played just six games with seven of those nine hitters at their disposal, constantly waiting for multiple key hitters to return from the IL.

They did recently get positive updates on both Buxton and Correa, after a month without the former and two months without the latter.

If those two stars can get healthy while Lewis both stays healthy and snaps out of the funk he has been in for more than a month, the Twins become a much more legitimate threat to do some damage in October.

As is, though, they've lost 15 of their past 22 games, as they simply do not have the pitching prowess necessary to overcome consistently mediocre offensive outputs.

Fatal Flaw : Being the Mets The Mets have won 18 of their past 26 games, making it difficult to point to anything in particular as a disaster waiting to happen.

The bullpen, as a whole, could certainly be better.

Harrison Bader and Francisco Alvarez playing nearly every day and batting a collective 17-for-137 (.124) dating back to August 9 could prove problematic.

The recent loss of Jeff McNeil for the year to a fractured wrist doesn't help matters.

None of it has slowed them down yet.

They're still the Mets, though, coming up on 38 years since they last won a World Series.

This isn't actually the most cursed franchise in the playoff picture.

Cleveland's World Series drought is twice as long, already at 75 years of pain.

Neither the Brewers nor the Padres has won a World Series since each becoming a franchise in 1969when the Mets won the first of their two rings.

But even the most bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Mets fan in the world is probably already dreading the possible scenario where they make it to the World Series, only to get swept by the Yankees, followed shortly thereafter by Juan Soto signing a lifetime contract with the Bronx Bombers.

Because that's the type of thing that could-only-and-always-seems-to happen to the Mets.

Maybe this is finally their year, though.

They sure have looked the part with an MLB-best 55-31 record dating back to June 3.

Fatal Flaw : Too Dependent on Two Hitters Yes, you could play this game with a lot of teams.

Take Bobby Witt Jr.

and Salvador Perez out of the Royals lineup, and that offense becomes pedestrian, at best.

Same goes for Atlanta with Marcell Ozuna and Matt Olson, Cleveland with Jose Ramirez and Jhonkensy Noel and Minnesota when any combination of Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton and Royce Lewis is unavailable.

But it's most blatantly clear with the Yankees, where both Aaron Judge and Juan Soto entered play Tuesday will an OPS north of 1.000 while the rest of the team had a combined mark of .684.

There are a few noteworthy guys in between those two extremes.

Jazz Chisholm Jr.

has been outstanding since his arrival from Miami.

Giancarlo Stanton missed more than a month with an injury, but he has homered at a 162-game pace of 40.

Austin Wells has an OPS of nearly .900 dating back to July 4.

It's not nearly the "Judge, Soto or Bust" scenario so many of us have been painting it as all season long.

Beyond that quintet, though, every Yankee with at least 20 plate appearances has an OPS below .700, including near-everyday staples Gleyber Torres, Anthony Volpe and Alex Verdugo.

Though they've gotten a decent amount of help lately, it still feels like Judge and Soto will need to carry this offense through Octoberand to enough of a degree to make up for the fact that they don't have a closer, which is probably the true fatal flaw here.

Fatal Flaw : Outfield The Phillies sure look like the team to beat.

Of the four starters they'll actually use in the postseasonAaron Nola, Cristopher Sanchez, Ranger Suarez and Zack WheelerNola has the *worst* ERA with a mark of 3.41 that ranks seventh-best among qualified National League starters.

All four of the relievers they'll use when protecting a leadJeff Hoffman, Orion Kerkering, Matt Strahm and Carlos Estevezhave a sub-2.20 ERA.

Assuming Alec Bohm (on the IL with a hand strain) is good to go for the postseason, it's hard to argue with most of the offense they'll be bringing to the table.

But where things could get a bit hairy for the Phillies is with Johan Rojas' offense as the center fielder and Nick Castellanos' whack-a-mole offense and roundabout defense as the right fielder.

At any rate, that combo was a colossal problem for the Phillies in last year's NLCS, going a combined 4-for-46 with 17 strikeouts in that seven-game loss to the Diamondbacks.

With any luck, the version of Castellanos that clubbed five solo home runs in a three-game stretch last October will show up when the Phillies need him the most.

Take out those three games, though, and he's a career .165 hitter with one home run in 32 postseason games.

Fatal Flaw : Hitting Southpaws Of the 13 teams with at least a 20 percent chance of making the playoffs, 12 have an OPS against left-handed pitching of at least .716.

Philadelphia leads the way at .800, thanks in large part to both Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber sitting at north of .900 in those left-on-left battles, but all the likely playoff teams are faring well against lefties.

Except for the Padres, that is.

With a .695 OPS against southpaws, they aren't exactly terrible .

That's still more than 100 points better than the White Sox, at any rate.

But it's definitely an issue, and one that has gotten even worse since Jurickson Profar started cooling off two months ago.

For the year, Profar has a .315/.400/.525 triple-slash against lefties.

But in 31 plate appearances since the beginning of August, he has just five hits, two of which were infield singles.

Manny Machado and Donovan Solano have fared reasonably well against lefties, but both Fernando Tatis Jr.

(.670 OPS) and Xander Bogaerts (.662 OPS) have struggled in what should be favorable right-on-left matchups.

And the left-on-lefts is where it gets ugly, with Luis Arraez, Jackson Merrill and Jake Cronenworth slugging a combined .314 against southpaws.

The good news for the Padres is that neither of Arizona's left-handed starting options (Eduardo Rodriguez and Jordan Montgomery) is even remotely living up to his big salary, and the only left-handed starter on Los Angeles' 40-man roster (Clayton Kershaw) is both injured and a shell of what he used to be.

Should they run into the Brewers in the NLCS, there's a team without any left-handed starters.

Could be a major problem against the Phillies, Braves, Mets, Yankees or Astros, though, each of whom has multiple southpaws in the rotation..

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