One AL Central team in the ALDS wouldn’t have been a big surprise. Two would have been a shocker. Three would have been unfathomable. But, that’s precisely what we’ve got here and an AL Central team is guaranteed to play in the ALCS because the No. 2 seed Cleveland Guardians take on the No. 6 seed Detroit Tigers.

The MLB Playoffs are an annual example of what can happen with small sample size variance, but talking about that does diminish what the Tigers have done. They held the Astros to three runs over two games at Minute Maid Park and roared back from the depths of playoff probability hell to make the postseason.

Cleveland had some moments of concern in the division race, but ultimately won it by 6.5 games over the Royals. The division chase was tied on August 27 and Cleveland opened up as much as a 7.5-game lead during the last week of the season.

Tigers vs. Guardians ALDS Schedule
Game 1: Saturday October 5, 1:08 p.m. ET (Skubal vs. Bibee)

Game 2: Monday October 7, 4:08 p.m. ET (Holton vs. Boyd)

Game 3: Wednesday October 9, TBD (Williams vs. Chaos)

Game 4: Thursday October 10, TBD (Bibee vs. Skubal) (if necessary)

Game 5: Saturday October 12, TBD (Holton vs. Boyd) (if necessary)

For what it’s worth (IMO, not much), the Guardians won the season series 7-6 over the Tigers, but were outscored 60-50. Cleveland had losses of 10-1 and 8-2 to the Tigers to explain the big run differential gap. They also haven’t played since July 30. A lot has happened since then.

The bullpens are the starting point for this series. They are both excellent. One is better. In fact, one is arguably the best bullpen I’ve ever seen. Emmanuel Clase won’t win the Cy Young, but you could argue that he should finish a lot closer to Tarik Skubal than he will. Clase had a 0.61 ERA with 47 saves in 74.1 innings of work. He actually didn’t rack up a ton of strikeouts, so his FIP and xERA were a little bit higher and those negatively impacted his fWAR, but it was one of the most dominant relief seasons in recent memory.

If we pick an arbitrary start date of 2009 and look at the last 15 years of bullpens, Cleveland’s ranks third in ERA and 24th in FIP out of 480 relief seasons. Their .267 wOBA against also ranks as the third-best. Detroit’s 2024 bullpen ranks 123rd in ERA in that sample and fifth for this season. These are two strong relief units, but Cleveland’s was the best in baseball by a significant margin.

The irony is that both of these teams are weak in the starting pitcher department. Skubal makes up for a lot of Detroit’s deficiencies, but as we are, they needed a reliever in Tyler Holton to start Game 2 for them in a full-fledged bullpen game. I’m guessing that they were holding Reese Olson back for a potential Game 3 to have a bit of length, but we even saw manager A.J. Hinch turn the ball over to rookie Jackson Jobe in a huge spot in the seventh inning of Game 2. It did not work out, but Hinch is creative and he has to be with this staff.

If the Tigers turn to Skubal in Game 1, they’ll be doing so on one day’s short of rest, as he pitched on Tuesday in Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Round. They could run back the Holton + bullpen day and feel comfortable with that. Skubal, who fired six shutout innings in his first-ever postseason start, had a 2.39 ERA with a 2.70 xERA and a 2.49 FIP in 192 innings. Team vs. pitcher stats are wholly irrelevant because the sample sizes aren’t big enough, but for those wondering, Skubal allowed one run on 10 hits over seven innings in his only start against Cleveland this season.

Olson had a 3.53 ERA with a 3.51 xERA and a 3.17 FIP, so he’s not a bad arm at all, but he missed about two months and only made three starts to finish the regular season with seven runs allowed on nine hits in 9.1 innings.

Bibee will be the Game 1 starter for Cleveland, but he, like all Cleveland starters, will have a quick hook if need be. Bibee posted a 3.47 ERA with a 3.80 xERA and a 3.56 FIP in 173.2 innings of work. He was better in the second half than he was in the first half and had a 2.64 ERA over his final 30.2 innings.

I would expect former Tiger Matthew Boyd to get the Game 2 nod. The Guardians also have Gavin Williams and Alex Cobb in the mix. I think we may see Vogt “MacGyver” this thing together, possibly using an opener in front of Williams as a bulk guy and a similar thing with Cobb, who had a finger blister last in the season and hasn’t pitched since September 1. I don’t think Cobb makes the ALDS roster, but if Cleveland advances, I think he’d make the ALCS roster where you need more starting pitcher depth.

Joey Cantillo is another long relief option after storming back onto the scene in September with a .192/.250/.274 slash against and a 2.25 ERA over his final 20 innings of work. Nothing about the pitching usage in this series will be conventional beyond the Skubal and Bibee starts.

Offensively, Cleveland’s best attribute is not striking out. While they added some good power production this season relative to last season, they put a ton of balls in play and have a lot of above average baserunners that can take extra bases and steal some bags. This is also an outstanding defensive team, if we’re examining the position player groups for strengths and weaknesses.

Cleveland’s weakness is that the lineup is not deep and the run producers are few and far between. The overall contact authority is really poor for the Guardians. The bottom of the order is quite bad.

However, some contact is better than no contact and the Tigers had a 22.5% K% in the 13 games against Cleveland, while the Guardians had a 19.5% K% against Detroit pitching. For the season as a whole, Cleveland struck out 20.2% of the time and the Tigers struck out 24.3% of the time.

Both NLDS will feature division rivals, as the New York Mets emerged victorious thanks to some ninth inning heroics in Game 3 against the Brewers and their prize was a flight to Philadelphia to take on the Phillies.

The Mets feel like something of a team of destiny with their big push for the postseason and then how Game 3 played out. Pete Alonso, who hadn’t hit a home run since September 19 and was potentially playing his last game as a Met, hit the go-ahead three-run homer in the ninth. The Mets added an insurance run to set up a date with the Phils.

Mets vs. Phillies NLDS Schedule
Game 1: Saturday October 5, 4:08 p.m. ET (Senga vs. Wheeler)

Game 2: Sunday October 6, 4:08 p.m. ET (Severino vs. Sanchez)

Game 3: Tuesday October 8, TBD (Nola vs. Manaea)

Game 4: Wednesday October 9, TBD (Suarez vs. Quintana) (if necessary)

Game 5: Friday October 11, TBD (Peterson vs. Wheeler) (if necessary)

The line certainly doesn’t reflect that the Phillies were a .500 team for like 45% of the season. But, this is a really dangerous team on paper in so many ways. Even with Taijuan Walker weighing them down like a heavy anchor, the Phillies starters were eighth in ERA and sixth in FIP. The important thing to remember about the playoffs is that bad pitchers don’t pitch. The Phillies don’t have to use any of the scrubs that they needed to get through 162 games. They’ll rely on the Big Three, or even Big Four, of Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Cristopher Sanchez, and Ranger Suarez.

Wheeler gets the Game 1 call after posting a 2.57 ERA and a 3.13 FIP. Nola is actually the Game 3 with a 3.57 ERA and a 3.94 FIP. Sanchez is the Game 2 guy with a 3.32 ERA and a 3.00 FIP. Suarez had a 3.46 ERA with a 3.37 FIP. Generally speaking, starting pitchers have diminished value in the playoffs because they are pulled earlier to avoid the third time through the order penalty, but the Phillies have a true advantage with their guys. It allows them to avoid exposure in the middle innings with lesser relievers.

The Phillies also bring a top-five lineup by wOBA and top-10 by wRC+ into this series. Even if I cut the sample down to July 9 through the end of the regular season from that aforementioned date where the Phillies hit 28 games over and stayed there, they were fifth in wOBA and ninth in wRC+.

But, if I do the same with the pitching staff from that July 9 date, they rank 22nd in ERA and 17th in FIP. The tough thing is parsing out the problem children in this equation. Many of them either won’t pitch or won’t be used often. Suarez was one of the culprits, but the Phillies may not need to use him if they don’t want to. It may just be a case where the fringe guys on the roster and the fill-ins due to injury that negatively impacted the numbers won’t be around.

The Mets have ridden quite a wave to this point and you have to give them a lot of credit for that. And it hasn’t been luck. This pitching staff was fifth in ERA and second in FIP. The offense was league average in the final month, so I guess that will be the spotlight element of this series.

New York should get good pitching, assuming everything remains status quo in that department. And outside of Phil Maton’s bad inning in Game 2, the Mets did get some pretty great pitching in the Wild Card Round. They’ll need the same here, not only to keep pace with the Phillies pitching staff, but also give their offense a chance.

This is a Mets offense that was a little bit above average as the season played out, but it was Francisco Lindor who carried the offense in the second half. He posted a 164 wRC+ in the second half, meaning he was 64% above league average. Jeff McNeil also had a big second half, but suffered a fractured wrist in early September and is improving, but isn’t ready to come back yet.

So, that leaves the Mets a tad shorthanded on offense, where Mark Vientos and Alonso chip in some power, but also strike out at a very high rate. Because the strikeout environment increases in the playoffs with fewer bad pitchers and more velocity across the board, it is tough to rely on players with big holes in their swings.

I think the Phillies win the series, but I don’t love the price to do so. Phillies -1.5 is +125 to win the series 3-0 or 3-1. I think that’s a pretty reasonable position to take

Game 1 ALDS winners have also won the series exactly 75% of the time in the last decade.

Five teams that bucked the trend:
2021 Red Sox
2020 Rays
2017 Yankees
2015 Royals
2015 Blue Jays

Game 1 NLDS winners have won the series 75% of the time in the last decade.

Five teams that bucked the trend:
2022 Padres
2021 Dodgers
2021 Braves
2019 Nationals
2015 Cubs

Overall, in the last decade, at least one team has lost G1 of a Division Series and come back to win it in 7 of 10 years.

Years with multiple: 2021 (3) , 2015 (3)
Years with no comebacks: 2018, 2016, 2014

There's been at least one G1 loser to advance in five straight years.