For one more day, it is still September—a fine month, all told, but not the undisputed king of Baseball Months. And yet, because the MLB playoffs begin today, and because every bit of baseball played from now until the end of the season will be of the superior, luxurious Playoff Baseball variety, it is at least figuratively October. In hopes of preparing readers as the season narrows and tightens toward an ending, we have gathered here to celebrate the things, great and small, that we are most looking forward to in the postseason to come.
No One Knows
I like to be tricked. I like the warm front-to-back flush in my brain that follows seeing something that I know can't be true, but also can't credibly deny. I don't remember a time before that feeling was something I sought out, and in trying to think back to the first time I felt it—some unusually evocative filmstrip presentation in elementary school, a song playing out of a little radio while I pushed Matchbox cars around on a carpet—I realized that I was at the graying edge of the very earliest things that I remember. It's the feeling you get when you're being told a story and you realize, as that story describes some sudden turn, that you are not just hearing it but in it enough to really feel it.
There were moments during the New York Mets' postseason run last year when I felt like I was somehow too big for my body. While I felt in that moment that something real and cool was happening for the team I care about—that they really had seized the mandate of heaven for some time—that belief was less transporting and disorienting than the feeling of surprise, of being tricked. Some of this is surely about having spent a concerning amount of my life caring about the Mets, but I've come to think about the baseball season as a long and mostly benign joke being played on me: an elaborate setup, with the appropriate shaggy-dog format, that is now approaching its punchline.
A lot of what has fascinated me about baseball, as a fan, is how much there is to know. As a kid, I wanted to learn it all, but while I am still eager to know as much of it as I can, I find myself now more interested in the parts that I probably can't know. I watched a lot of baseball this year, certainly more than enough to develop a bunch of mostly indefensible opinions about a number of mostly insignificant things and intermittently become insane, and I enjoyed all that about as much as I usually do. Or, if I am being honest, a little bit less than that, due to a rough experience with what people now call "sequencing," but which mostly refers to the way that teams put or just find their runs of luck throughout the season.
This did not go well for the Mets, for reasons that were often infuriating to watch, but that strange course to what was in the end a perfectly rational outcome was a good reminder of how much of what happens in a season is just shit, happening. The postseason compresses and heats that essential fact of the game until it is very volatile; the most important thing is to get there, and then to hang on for as much of the sequence as possible. I've watched enough baseball in previous years to know that most of what I've learned will very soon be useless—the attrition and randomness will make it that so, or just mess with it in a way that warps it until it is unrecognizable.
Whatever confidence I have that the broader shape of all that understanding accurately reflects what I saw and felt during the season—which, at this point, amounts to a sense that some teams Have That Something and others have less of it—is canceled out by my faith in the shape of the broader thing. There is a turn coming, a twist or a drop. I can't really even imagine it, but I know that this is the part that's beginning. I know this feeling, even if I don't know the punchline yet. - David Roth
No Ghost Runners
I surprised myself with how quickly I embraced the changes to Major League Baseball. I've been a baseball fan my entire life, and as such developed the requisite crotchety mindset early on: Things in the past were better, the future is full of dweebs, too many stats, and so on. But I think the game's most newly implemented changes are good, and have made it easier for me to convert my baseball-averse friends into sickos. The pitch clock really does make the game feel so much faster. The bigger bases are fun because stealing is fun. The lack of sticky stuff means more hits, which are also fun. The extra-inning ghost runner is a rare but delightful treat.
The ghost runner only really matters if the game has high stakes; otherwise, it is just a helpful way to lock in a more responsible bedtime for all involved. I've seen several this year. When the Philadelphia Phillies clinched a playoff berth last week, one of the important runners was a ghost runner. For the uninitiated, these ghost runners are only used in extra innings. If the game is tied after nine innings, the last batter to make an out is placed on second base. This encourages small ball—bunt him over, sac fly, and you've got the lead— but also theoretically makes the game wrap up faster if the bats are a little dead and the bullpen a little depleted. During the regular season, I like the ghost runner mostly because I get tired. There are so many games, and we have to play tomorrow! Let's just get this one over with.
And so it is with hearty enthusiasm that I now thank the ghost runner for his service and escort him out to the fucking street. There's no place for this sort of thing in the playoffs. The playoffs are not about gimmicks. The playoffs are about stress, and the stress should last forever!
I never want playoff baseball to end. I love it. I want every series to play every available game. I want the games to be full of tension and last forever. I never, ever want November to come. I hope more than one game goes into the 10th inning tied. Hell, I hope games go into the 11th or even 12th tied. It's so dramatic! Will this almost certainly give me, personally, a heart attack when it involves my team? Yes, but it's worth it. That's what October is all about: tension, terror, and the bright terrifying glimmer of hope. I'll take as much of that as I can get. - Kelsey McKinney
Dave Roberts, Scapegoat In Training
The very best thing about this baseball season is that every team is profoundly flawed, sufficiently so that none has a legitimate and easily defended chance to win. It was the Detroit Tigers before their wheels came off after three of their players celebrated hits by doing Donald Trump's stupid little dance. It seems like it should be the Milwaukee Brewers, until you look at their power numbers. It was the Toronto Blue Jays, until gravity set in. The Marlins were in the playoff race until last Thursday, for the sake of the gods. Whoever wins this will qualify as a surprise winner, because no team has any reason to believe it should be them, other than the mandated and entirely inner-directed confidence athletes must have to avoid becoming baristas.
Except, of course, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Their expectations are based on their most recent success, the duration of absurd expectations and money spent, and a roster with more recognizable names on it than any other in the sport. They have exceeded the league's $241 million tax threshold by an amount that is greater than the 26-man payrolls of 25 other teams, and 16 total team payrolls. They've gone all in in the one way owners understand, and also in the one way that makes owners impatient, meddlesome, and unforgiving. They've kicked in with the zeal of an emirate, and so expect emirate results forever.
And that means one thing above all others: The manager is in trouble.
This makes no sense in the case of the Dodgers, of course, for all the obvious reasons. Dave Roberts has been in place for a decade now, and has the best winning percentage of any manager in big-league history; the only four with higher percentages were Negro League managers. His teams have won their division every year but one, and in that season they won 106 games. He has two titles, albeit one from the memory-holed COVID year, and has never had an issue with any important player that has lingered beyond the moment. Roberts is also 53 years old, and has proven malleable and amenable to the ways that Andrew Friedman has run the club. By any sensible measure, he should last another 15 years in the job, health and ownership stability permitting.
Ah, but that's old-folks thinking. This year's Dodgers assembled their poorest record (93-69) with their highest payroll, went all in on the Shohei-will-save-us strategy, used eight more pitchers than the Colorado Rockies, and barely held off the power-deficient San Diego Padres for the NL West title. They have only one other regular, first baseman Freddie Freeman, whose season output matches his 2024 production; their bullpen, which was key to their World Series win last year, has been plainly shambolic. In a playoff bracket with no clear favorite, they are simply one of many—Cleveland at three-and-a-half times the cost.
That's where Roberts really could be in trouble: if the Dodgers don't get three-and-a-half-times-the-cost results. These are lousy times for coaching tenure, as American teams of all types adopt the patience levels of their European soccer brethren and sistren. Every day is a new referendum, coaches are a dime a gross, and blame is mostly a matter of assignment rather than absorption.
This means that if the Dodgers turn out to be no better than the Seattle Mariners or Chicago Cubs or, worst of all in regional terms, San Diego Padres, someone will have to pay for that, and it won't be Tommy Edman, Michael Conforto, or Charley Steiner. Well, it might be Edman and Conforto. But it may also be Roberts, if only because the Dodgers, who have made far fewer managerial changes in the last 70 years than any other team in any other league, will need to justify all that money spent. It would be a silly thing to do, but many stupider things have happened—on something like an hourly basis, now, and not just in Denver. - Ray Ratto
I Believe In The Seattle Mariners, Part II
I can make no claims to being a lifelong Seattle Mariners fan, but in the past few years, the Mariners have gone from go-to midnight baseball viewing to a whimsical American League team of genuine note, to authentically having an impact upon my mental health, often negatively. A team dramatically falling short at the finish line can be whimsical, sure. But if many of the reasons for falling short are because of the fundamentally capitalist whims of John Stanton and Jerry Dipoto's 54-percent machine, then that whimsy will carry with it a large whiff of depression.
In some respects, the Mariners rocketing their way out of yet another late-season collapse and into a comfortable AL West win can be attributed to whimsy (positive), like the Fun Differential-powered squad squeaking into playoffs. There is the Etsy witch aspect. There is a switch-hitting catcher nicknamed "Big Dumper." There is the little dance that all the players gather together to do when they win. In a year when all of baseball was blessed by Ichiro, they were blessed by the Ichiro jersey retirement ceremony.
In other respects, it is just because the Mariners have been good, and because when they have not, they have been good enough. The team finally bolstered the roster at the deadline, albeit in ways that limited longer-term commitment in the classic Dipoto fashion. A late-season series against the Houston Astros was a terrifying last opportunity to screw it all up, and the Mariners swept. Swept! Talk about a vibe shift. The offense of second-half Julio Rodríguez has been enough to make him the best center fielder in baseball, period. Cal "Big Dumper" Raleigh, who is, again, a switch-hitting catcher, had 60 damn home runs. That's my MVP. Also: Bryan Woo.
Far be it from me, a relatively uninitiated Mariners enjoyer, to begrudge a long-suffering fanbase their pessimism; they earned it through their trauma, and they can do with it whatever they want. But having a team that's fun enough to root for and good enough to have legitimate hope for is a rarity, and the Mariners are there. Not only have they made the playoffs, but they finally wrested the AL West title from the accursèd grasp of the Astros, who didn't even make the postseason.
Even though the MLB playoffs are a raging crapshoot, I believe in the Seattle Mariners. I refuse to temper expectations; if I suffer in the mud for it, then at least I went down willing to feel it. I hope Cal Raleigh hits a ton of home runs, from both sides of the plate. I hope the broadcast manages to show Andrés Muñoz's closer entrance. I hope Matt Brash gets to throw a bajillion absurd sliders. I hope Josh Naylor manages to waltz his way to a multi-steal game or two. I hope Bryan Woo throws six innings in a playoff game. In the wise words of a baseball sage: Now that they're here, the Seattle Mariners might as well go win the whole fucking thing. - Kathryn Xu
Luis Arráez Must Justify His Existence
Luis Arráez's whole deal is a lot more interesting when he is batting .354. That version of Arráez can even be fun, lousy though he may be in the field, and plodding though he may be on the bases, and utterly punchless though he may be as a slugger. The Arráez of 2023 was a delightful little weirdo, leading an overperforming Marlins squad into the playoffs one baffling 70-mph two-strike single at a time. To be sure, that Arráez was a pipsqueak, ranking in baseball's third percentile for hard hit percentage and in the first percentile for average bat speed. That this formula should not produce a batting champion—or any other kind of champion—was virtually all of what made it interesting. The hits themselves were otherwise the baseball equivalent of wheat germ for dinner.
The 2025 version of Luis Arráez is no fun at all. There's no one out here shopping for an off-brand Sal Frelick, much less for one that can only play first base, for crying out loud. A puny contact-hitting first baseman who puts up Mark Grudzielanek numbers at the plate can, quite frankly, go to hell. I demand a first baseman who looks like he should have a protesting Olive Oyl slung over his shoulder: huge round muscles, goofy little pinhead, two tiny little malevolent eyes less than one centimeter apart. Even the good version of Arráez—a shrimp, but an uncommonly productive one—just does not belong over there; this one, the version with the OPS+ of 99, is a disgrace. That the Padres did not empty their pockets at the deadline for an actual first baseman is reason enough to worry that their owner's wealth might be tied up in a Ponzi scheme. The best version of Luis Arráez was a poor man's Tony Gwynn; this version of Luis Arráez has made me retroactively hate Wade Boggs.
Arráez has never really distinguished himself in the postseason. Prior to his arrival in San Diego, he'd failed to win a single playoff game in seven tries, although in 2019 he put up numbers in an ALDS loss to the Yankees. Last season, his first try with the Padres, he went 7-for-31 with zero walks and zero extra-base hits in seven games against the Braves and Dodgers. This week, San Diego will face the Chicago Cubs. I'm inclined to root for the Padres in this matchup due to the Cubs being a Ricketts operation, but it would please me greatly, in a shit-hearted way, if Arráez falls on his face. Weirdly, the second most interesting thing Arráez could do this postseason is bat .489 and lead the Padres to the World Series. Anything in between will be unacceptable. - Chris Thompson
How About An Anthony Volpe Redemption Arc?
I’ve always been drawn to hated players and hated teams, so there is little mystery in my interest in Anthony Volpe, the hated starting shortstop for the hated New York Yankees. Before he was hated, the 24-year-old New Jersey native was the team’s beloved top prospect, billed as a franchise bat with enough pop to excuse a fringy glove at short. Volpe’s actual Major League career to date has taken a slightly different shape. In his three years with the Yankees, he has never been even an average hitter; in his rookie season, he became the youngest shortstop to win a Gold Glove.
This year, though, his game is all fringe. His defensive metrics make him one of the worst qualified shortstops in baseball, and he’ll end his third season with another wRC+ in the mid-80s. The departure of former infield punching bags Gleyber Torres and DJ LeMahieu has allowed Yankees fans to train their full ire on Volpe, and boy, are they all in. In their defense, he’s giving his haters lots of material to work with. Against the Nationals in August, the Yankees batted around in a 41-minute, 77-pitch inning; Volpe made two of the outs. But the hate can reach comic heights sometimes. Consider this Daily Mail headline from a few weeks ago: “Yankees fans in meltdown after Anthony Volpe goes public with stunning new girlfriend.” Typically, when fans melt down upon learning of a celebrity’s new girlfriend, it’s because they’re sad the celebrity isn’t single. These fans just found Volpe undeserving of a stunning girlfriend’s love, and they were obnoxious enough about it that the Daily Mail noticed.
What better time for redemption than October? Volpe’s last postseason was quietly excellent: In Game 4, he gave the Yankees their biggest hit of the World Series with a go-ahead grand slam. And he might just be rounding into form. A couple weeks ago, manager Aaron Boone told reporters that Volpe had been playing through a partial labrum tear since May. Soon after, Volpe went public with a stunning new cortisone shot in his left shoulder. He’s been on fire ever since. Maybe baseball’s short memory will bring beleaguered Volpe some peace this fall. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll look forward to the fan meltdown anyway. - Maitreyi Anantharaman
Can The Tigers Stop Being Losers?
They call Detroit "Motown," but not because the Tigers have any momentum going into the postseason. This long-dormant franchise escaped hibernation with an exhilarating conclusion to the 2024 season, then hit the ground running with a couple of shockingly dominant months to start this year. But after the all-star break, regression took back nearly everything they'd earned, first through a mid-July slump and then with a cover-your-eyes awful September in which the team went just 7-17. If it weren't for the Astros' simultaneous second-half slouching, and the creation of a third wild card slot that appears specifically intended to reward mediocrity, there'd be nothing to do but complain about how badly the Tigers blew the AL Central. As it stands, however, they've scored a visit to a Cleveland squad that seems to have their number. At least they're in the field.
If you're looking just at the full season's statistics, the Guardians would project as a tasty first-round appetizer for a World Series hopeful. They're the only team remaining with a negative run differential, and the other 11 aren't even close. Their batters rank 29th(!) in the league in OPS. They lost star closer Emmanuel Clase because all those gambling commercials (allegedly) really do seem to work on some people. And their starting rotation features a guy named "Slade." But as Detroit grew weaker, Cleveland only got stronger, and they blazed through the last few weeks of the season with shutdown pitching and an offense that isn't embarrassed to manufacture runs exclusively through infuriating displays of tinyball. They've won all these games in such weird and surprising ways that they've even terrorized seasoned baseball writers into seeing their obvious deficiencies as examples of "a really well-run organization":
Given the way that the Detroit hitters have stumbled, and also how the relievers have crashed, and the additional fact that even soon-to-be back-to-back Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal couldn't take a game off these Guardians the last two times he's tried, it's not too hard to believe that current trends will continue for a few more days. The team that's been great recently should beat the team that's been terrible over the same time frame. For Tigers fans, it's tempting to resign yourself to that fate, and that's where my mind was at when they took another loss on the chin against Boston on Sunday, while the Guards walked it off (again) in their game versus the Rangers.
But my mindset turned while in the shower on Monday morning. First I was appreciating just how nice it would be to have a couple of baseball games to be super invested in during some workday afternoons. Then I got to thinking about Skubal being slated to start on Tuesday, and how invulnerable he's been in the majority of his showings. And I thought about how, last year, the hitters only really needed two worthwhile innings to take the necessary pair of games off Houston. Then I remembered the feeling I've had the couple of times in the past week that Will Vest has closed out a game with a shutdown ninth: Oh, yeah, winning is a thing that can happen. The good memories of this team, and a few of the ghosts from long ago, all kind of stacked up into a tower of positivity that was at the very least sturdy enough to convince me of this: It's not impossible for the Tigers to win two of the next three. - Lauren Theisen
Getting To See 11 Teams Lose
Many people think the postseason is about crowning a champion—about winning. No. The most frequent and tangible joy of watching the playoffs is reveling in the downfall of others. Why should you, a disinterested third party watching two clubs vie for glory that should rightfully be your team's, be expected to have a rooting interest? You can simply root for each and every team's downfall instead. Do this, and you will be rewarded 92 percent of the time, an unexpected benefit of the expanded postseason field. You'll never find better odds.
Oh, the Brewers are a feel-good story of nobodies and castoffs? Get the hell out of my postseason—I came to see famous guys. Oh, the Dodgers have a bunch of famous guys who are cool and pay them what they're worth? It'll be extra-sweet when they paid all that money to lose. One perk of being a hater is that you do not need to be logically consistent in your hating.
The Red Sox are ontologically evil. The Padres? If I wanted to see a bunch of singles, I'd go on Hinge. The Reds? Sorry, fake playoff team, and any series they play in is automatically less real. Get these damn Guardians out of my face: a lineup that features seven below-league-average OPS guys might be a charming, how-are-they-doing-it story in September, but October is no month for flukes. Nor for Cubs.
Feel free to set your own criteria, no matter how esoteric or personal. For example, I somehow follow a lot of Blue Jays fans on social media, and many of them are especially annoying about it. I look forward to the day when their hopes and dreams are crushed. I will not publicly rub it in, of course, but rest assured I live for that shit.
If one could only find happiness in one's own team winning a championship, well, that would prove to be a pretty miserable life, by the numbers. True enlightened fandom achieves satisfaction from the pain of others. I do have an actual rooting interest in the playoff field, but it never hurts to have nearly a dozen backup plans. Schadenfreude Season has arrived! - Barry Petchesky
