Baseball is good right now, and it's going to get better in a few hours, when the playoffs begin. To celebrate, we put together a list of things we're excited to see and experience this postseason. If you're looking for your own reasons to get locked in for the playoffs, or if you'd just like to read about a long-lost ritual in which a Defector staffer tried and failed to get his small sons to kiss a photo of Bryce Harper, then please read on.
A Resurgent Giancarlo Stanton
It feels a little silly and perhaps Yankee-blinkered to call Giancarlo Stanton a forgotten star. But how else can you describe a guy who signed the biggest contract in the history of American sports, put up one of the all-time great offensive seasons, and then joined the biggest market in the country, and who now is almost an afterthought in the larger baseball consciousness? Stanton's New York tenure has mirrored the Yankees' own fortunes over that stretch: enviable at a baseline measure but disappointing by their own. Entering 2024, Stanton had enjoyed just a single excellent, mostly healthy full season in the Bronx—the others marred by injury or underperformance or second-half slumping or, like last year, an all-around stinker that, at age 33, felt like the new normal rather than the aberration.
To everyone's surprise—perhaps especially that of the GM, who initiated a mildly spiced beef with Stanton's agent over the winter—Stanton put together something like a comeback season. The power was up; the bat speed was up; the baserunning ... well, the bat speed was up. Availability, crucially, was there, with Stanton having just a single IL stint of about a month, an Iron Man performance by his standards. You're always gonna get the good and the bad with him, often within the same plate appearance, but this year there was more good than bad.
I think some amount of Stanton's bounceback can be credited to the fact that he is somewhat forgotten, in a Yankees lineup that boasts both more protection and easier scapegoats. Hitting behind Juan Soto and Aaron Judge is a dream, and Stanton received some unexpected protection from trade acquisition Jazz Chisholm and rookie catcher Austin Wells. Meanwhile, talk radio and Twitter were too distracted complaining about Alex Verdugo and Gleyber Torres for Stanton to ever become the prime target of fan ire. That shakes out positively for the Yankees, who profile much better with Stanton as their third- or fourth-best hitter than as their first or second. If the starting pitching holds up, and if Stanton paces the secondary offense with something like his usual high postseason standards, the Yankees will go as far as Soto and Judge can take them—just how they drew it up. If it's not quite what the Yankees were hoping to get for the $32 million they're paying Stanton this year, well, that's not my money. - Barry Petchesky
The Jackson Four
It's a zoomer's world; we're just living in it. For the first time in MLB history, players with the first name Jackson outnumber players with the last name Jackson. First-name Jacksons could boast just a single MLB home run prior to this year—one off the bat of Jackson Williams, a catcher who played seven games for the Rockies in 2014. This season, a super trio of rookie Jacksons combined for 49 of them.
In San Diego, Jackson Merrill has played like human sage, warding away the bad vibes of last year's Padres team with his penchant for big hits in big moments. Drafted and developed as a shortstop, Merrill's been a natural in center field, a position he happened to learn this spring. Jackson Chourio got off to a rockier start in the Milwaukee outfield, but since about early June, he's played like the real-deal star the Brewers expected him to be when they signed him to an eight-year pre-debut extension in the offseason. When he hit his 20th home run earlier this month against the Giants, taking an inside sinker oppo (and nearly to the Cove!), Chourio became the first 20-year-old in MLB history to record a 20-20 season.
It speaks to baseball's wealth of Jacksons that neither young man was the most hyped prospect named Jackson. That honor goes to Baltimore's Jackson Holliday. Holliday, a second baseman, has had an up-and-down year. (Literally: The Orioles sent him down after a disastrous first 34 at-bats in April.) But even amid the struggles, he's made some fun memories, like his first MLB home run, a grand slam against the Blue Jays. And last week, my Tigers called up baseball's top pitching prospect, Jackson Jobe, ensuring that both the AL and NL postseason races are both plenty stocked with Jacksons.
Jacksons Jobe and Merrill were just old enough to partake in their teams' respective clubhouse celebrations, but Chourio and Holliday required other arrangements. The Brewers stocked some non-alcoholic drinks in a stroller; the Orioles filled champagne bottles with water for their "baby bird." Conventional wisdom says it helps to have postseason experience in October. But I'm looking forward to watching these Jacksons prove the old guys wrong. - Maitreyi Anantharaman
Bryce Harper's Shot At A Ring
All I want outta this postseason is for Bryce Harper to get his ring.
Like millions, I discovered Bryce on YouTube as a high school underclassman, hitting homers to the rafters of an MLB stadium. Hearing the clang of the ball hitting Harper's aluminum bat inside mostly empty Tropicana Field was all the scouting us know-nothings needed. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated before he got his diploma. Then he got drafted by the Nationals with the top pick in the 2010 MLB draft, a year after the Nats took Stephen Strasburg.
My hometown is known for using top picks on Kwame Browns, not Strasburgs and Harpers. But the only talk of a bust between both of them since has been in reference to their Cooperstown sculptures. Strasburg was always an enigma who hated the spotlight as much as he commanded it. But Harper was so easy to root for. The Washington Post magazine gave readers a small poster of Harper early in his career, and my mother-in-law, knowing my feelings for the phenom, had it mounted on a piece of cardboard for me. I kept the poster on the dashboard of the minivan, and my young sons and I developed a ritual during our morning drives to school where I would kiss the Harper poster and pass it back to them in their car seats ostensibly for them to kiss him, too. Only they would fake a kiss and take turns punching poor cardboard Bryce instead while laughing like madboys, and I would feign shock and horror at every beating. I knew they were really pounding on me, not Bryce. The poster's long gone, but fine parental memories of those car rides with my boys and cardboard Bryce remain.
Bryce was so great in D.C. He got his first MVP here in 2015 and won a Home Run Derby in front of the home crowd before the 2018 All-Star game. But while Harper has indeed lived up to Can't-Miss Kid billing, the ring has eluded him. The most momentous postseason at-bat of his I ever witnessed came in Game 5 of the 2017 NLDS against the Cubs, when Bryce came to the plate in the bottom of the ninth and the Nats down by a run. He struck out to end the game and the series. I felt bad for me, but worse for Bryce. He deserved better.
He deserved better a year later, too, when his contract came up and the Lerners didn't want to pay market rate. So he left for Philadelphia. I saw it coming but was still crushed. When he came back to D.C. with his new team the first week of the next season, the mayor likened Harper to Benedict Arnold in a tweet. I was at that reunion game with my sons, and was appalled at how loud the fans booed when he came to the plate. My kids booed him, too, but I told myself they were really booing me.
The Nats won the World Series that first year without Bryce. Strasburg got World Series MVP. Harper's also had a great run since leaving, with another MVP and a couple Series appearances. But, he's still got clean hands when it comes to rings. I don't want him to end up as Dan Marino in spikes. If and when the championship comes, I'll cheer like mad. I hope my kids will cheer with me. I'll tell myself they're cheering me, too. C'mon, Phillies. - Dave McKenna
The Top Of The Dodgers' Order
I love watching playoff baseball for its tension, which arrives seemingly out of nowhere. In June, watching a baseball game makes me feel like I am swinging in a hammock; in October, it makes me feel like someone is sitting across from me, methodically loading a gun.
The nine-man batting order is the mechanism that raises and lowers this tension as the game unfolds. When the 7-8-9 hitters pop up on the broadcast's "Due Up" graphic between innings, that's the time to finally let a few breaths escape my lungs. But when it's time for 1-2-3 or 3-4-5? Oh baby, now we need to lock in. Unfortunately, it is harder than it used to be to find a major-league lineup with a truly star-studded three-man sector. I grew up with Garciaparra-Ramirez-Ortiz, and now I am being confronted with top halves of the order where it feels like a blessing if there are two players with an OPS above .800 in there. Thank god for the Los Angeles Dodgers, then.
Ohtani-Betts-Freeman. Ohtani-Betts-Freeman. Ohtani-Betts-Freeman. These names have been rattling around in my head for the last few days. As with any game, a playoff contest's quality and importance is measured primarily by its participants, and it is hard to imagine three players more suited to making a game feel like the most important thing anyone could be paying attention to than Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman. Each alone is good enough to make any game feel like an event, and yet we are lucky enough to spend a few weeks watching them share the top of a batting order in high-stakes games.
Sports are at their best when they make you feel lucky. When a thought like I can't believe I get to be alive for this enters your head, that is the greatest gift that an athlete, team, or game can grant you. I truly cannot believe I am lucky enough to be alive at the same time as Shohei Ohtani, and that I finally get to see him in a playoff game, and that Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman are standing behind him in a lineup. I might never have it this good again. - Tom Ley
Watching The Phillies With People I Care About
The Phillies were not good for most of my life. This is true for most of the franchise's history, as well, but I figured my luck would turn around once in a while. It happened once, in sixth grade, when the Phillies won the pennant before being unceremoniously walked-off in the World Series. Also, a bunch of teens got together to egg the house of the closer Mitch Williams for giving up the walkoff homer. I wore a "NO FEAR" headband (just like Williams did) for a photo we sent to him to show we still loved him. I must've received worse punishment from my classmates than the two kids the cops caught of the group that egged his house.
Time moved on, and the Phillies eventually had a bit of sustained success for once. A lot, actually! I bought a bootleg shirt off a guy when they won the 2007 NL East on the final day of the year. I celebrated in a "RED MEANS GO" t-shirt when they won the World Series in 2008. I ceased speaking to my Yankee fan friends during the 2009 I-95 World Series. (I wanted to call it the Thomas Edison Rest Stop Gazebo Series, but it didn't catch on.)
Things slowed down over the course of the next decade, but it was OK! Because in those five golden seasons between 2007 and 2011, I watched a lot of games with friends I never knew cared about sports. After a Game 3 victory in the first round of 2011, one of my closest friends exhaled loudly. "Man, baseball is stressful," she shouted. "I think I get it now." She even called it "fun." This is a person who went to Oberlin. Another Oberlin grad and I screamed at the TV as we saw the end of the Phillies' run: Ryan Howard's torn Achilles as the Cardinals bounced the Fightins out of the NLDS in 2011.
I have fond memories of watching good games, too. My friend Jon and I got my first, and last, ever warning about noise from a neighbor while screaming when the Phillies came back against the Rockies in 2009. In 2022, I got to reconnect with some old friends for a few games; one was the unlikely Game 1 comeback against the Astros in the World Series. I still get tears in my eyes thinking about my wife jumping up and down after J.T. Realmuto's home run.
Some of our other friends were not as into it, but they’ll come around. After all, it’s been two years. They now know a lot of the players. They can tell Jason Kelce from Kyle Schwarber. But even if they can't, and even if the Phillies lose in the NLDS again … I'll live. The people I watched it with will make it all worthwhile. - Dan McQuade
The White Sox Theory Being Tested
Of all the ways to project playoff series baseball, there is one immutable truth, and it is this: Nobody had the Diamondbacks making the World Series a year ago. Project that.
It is well known in hockey and becoming better known in basketball that the more teams a sport invites to its postseason, the more unlikely the final outcome will be. This may not work in soccer, where Spain wins everything and Real Madrid wins everything else, but the precious seedings fans obsess about in the last month of every season mean less and less, no matter what math you may try to apply. You're better off sitting in the corner and drinking, and when someone asks you what you think, simply say, Buy me another drink and we'll discuss.
So here is the new analytic tiebreaker, foolproof until proven otherwise, which should be no later than a week from Thursday. Put simply, it is this: How did your team do against the White Sox?
The logic is simple. If your club cannot be trusted to routinely beat the underwear off the worst MLB team in 125 years, it cannot be trusted to beat the good teams, ever. The White Sox did not just measure their own rampant inadequacies from the owner's suite on down, they also served to measure the inadequacies of those they played. Beat the White Sox? That's on them. Lose to the White Sox? That is entirely on you.
Which is why we can immediately eliminate the Cleveland Guardians and all the Naylor children they employ. These whack-a-mole impersonators lost to the White Sox five times in 13 tries. FIVE! They almost got swept in a four-game series in May, back when the Sox were still only losing seven out of every 10 games rather than four out of five. Never mind Cleveland's history—no World Series since 1948, the only team to lose to the Cubs in a World Series in 116 years—their contemporary performance is what damns them here. They have no chance, because they do not deserve one. If they'd shown the requisite self pride when it mattered, they'd be laughing at the Yankees in their rearview mirror. Instead, they set fire to the old adage: You win a third of the games you play, you lose a third of the games you play, and your finish depends on the ones in the middle. The White Sox finished 18 games behind the low end of this truism. Lose to them five times, and you have earned a certain reputation. Bet your children's college fund with confidence on this one, and if the line moves, bet your children too. The gods and godlets have spoken.
Next, you can eliminate Atlanta, because the Braves are one of only two teams to lose more games (two) to the White Sox than they won (one). (The other was Washington, and the less said about that family-pack of pork products the better.) The Braves, though, scored only four runs in three games against the White Sox, which is maybe even more damning than the record. Those are data points that get people fired, and then worse, get them hired by the White Sox.
After that, it's Houston, who won only four of six rather than the industry standard of seven in six. They even got shut out, which was a feat the Sox also managed against the Braves. I mean, if you're not beating these listless whelps, you're not trying. Maybe they should have banged on some metal garbage bins to give themselves a chance against Jonathan Cannon. What, too soon?
We must sadly include the Tigers here as well, even if we give them the mulligan of the hangover loss after they clinched their playoff spot. They ended up going a paltry 10-3 against the Sox, and that is its own condemnation. You want to be taken seriously, don't lose the Sunday game after you've sobered up.
All the other playoff teams comported themselves with a reasonable level of dignity against baseball’s most undignified team, most notably the Royals (12-1); the Orioles and Yankees (6-1); and the Dodgers, Brewers, Phillies, Mets, and Padres (all 3-0). They saw the White Sox, put their feet up on them like a dingy ottoman, left a burning cigar and a half-eaten egg-salad-and-anchovy sandwich in the chair cushion, and swiped their beer on the way out, as any proper team would. One of them will win the World Series, and the White Sox are why. - Ray Ratto
Bandwagoning
The temperature is dropping, slowly but surely, in Philadelphia. The sunny days of summer are being ushered out by gray skies and consistent drizzles, and my sweaters are getting ready to make their return to my wardrobe. Autumn is in full swing, and for the second year in a row, I will be experiencing Red October as an interloper.
I moved to Philadelphia last September, just in time for the Phillies to follow up their run to the 2022 World Series with a disappointing—in so much as a late playoff run can be considered disappointing—crash out in the NLCS. I famously went to one of the Phillies' playoff games last year, and hated the experience thanks to the futility of the Marlins, but otherwise, I got swept up in living somewhere with a baseball team I could support in some minor way as the leaves began to turn.
Prior to living in Philly, I had lived in New York for 16 years, and there was no way I could ever hop on the Yankees bandwagon (I have some self-respect) or support the Mets; of all of the NL East teams, the Mets were the ones that annoyed me the most as a Florida/Miami fan. The Phillies elicit no such emotions from me.
And so, after a season in which I saw the Phillies' dominance in person a few times—this is the best team of the three recent playoff sides, in my opinion—I am ready for them to do it all over again in the playoffs. They've got four starters who can all swing a series, even with my countryman Ranger Suárez's recent struggles; he was a legit Cy Young candidate in the first half of the season, and it's not impossible that he puts it back together for a few important starts.
On offense, the Phillies are pretty much the same that they have been in this run of success: They're going to live and die by the big bats, and those big bats are very fun to watch. A relatively healthy Bryce Harper in playoff mode is an obvious attraction, but Alec Bohm, Kyle Schwarber, and (to a lesser extent) my sweet himbo Nick Castellanos can all catch fire, and Bryson Stott might be the most clutch non-Harper hitter on the roster. The bullpen might be a bit of an adventure at times, but it's better than it has been in recent years (around league average this season, by my untrained eye), and Craig Kimbrel is thankfully someone else's problem now.
As much as Philadelphia fans can be A Lot, and as much as I do have a twinge of guilt in supporting any NL East team not employing Billy the Marlin, what the hell. I'll jump on the Red October bandwagon with more gusto than I did as a new resident of this city last year, and I hope for the sake of my very nice neighbors that the Phils go all the way. At the very least, this will give me a light incentive to watch baseball less dispassionately than I have for pretty much the last 20 years, thanks to the Marlins' whole ... deal. And if the Phillies fall short once more, then I can do what any self-respecting bandwagoner has the right to do following a big crash: Disavow that I ever supported them, and move on with my life as basketball season starts back up. Let's go Heat! - Luis Paez-Pumar
Tarik Skubal Becoming The Guy
The Tigers facing Justin Verlander's current team in their first postseason series since 2014 is a potentially bittersweet moment, given all the success he's enjoyed since leaving his original club. But Detroit's hopes rest on a new Verlander, Tarik Skubal, who starts Game 1 after producing a presumed Cy Young season.
Skubal, a ninth-round pick, has been stuck with this franchise since debuting as a 23-year-old in 2020, when he put up a 5.63 ERA in seven starts. He clearly had great stuff but was extremely vulnerable to the longball as a youngster; as he began to put together more consistent outings, injuries dragged him down across '22 and '23. This year, however, was the sparkling gem everyone believed he had in him: unparalleled among American League pitchers in strikeouts, ERA, WAR, ERA+, and wins. With his pinpoint control and a nasty ability to mix a weightless changeup with a scorching fastball, Skubal's superiority as a starter is by far the main reason the Tigers are still playing.
I've been a little less earnestly happy about this sudden Tigers success than most fans I know. I look forward to their games. I've loved inviting new TV announcer Jason Benetti into my brain. I get excited by their resilient wins. But I still feel resentful toward ownership, meaning failson Chris Ilitch, for the misery of the last several years, which were marked by a fear of free agency and a willingness to absorb a downpour of losses. Even this year, with the front office selling at the deadline, there was a plausible concern that Skubal might be dealt to a team that was actually trying. The club later denied this had ever been a possibility, but you couldn't blame a scarred fanbase for worrying.
Here's one way to look at the Tigers: In a particularly mediocre year for the American League, this franchise running at half-speed played the White Sox regularly enough and got lucky often enough that an oversized postseason could just barely accommodate their 86 wins. But at the same time, those 86 wins aren't an empty number. I saw Skubal pitch a 2-1 gem against Boston when I visited home over Labor Day, and I realized that he was the new live focal point for a franchise that could have been completely adrift without Miguel Cabrera. I saw the team pull off another magic 4-3 comeback over Tampa on Thursday afternoon, and afterward I couldn't get the phrase "They let the cats get hot!" out of my head. For the first time that I can remember, my mom actively initiated a trip to a baseball game, and she was rewarded with history in multiple ways on Friday night.
I'd love for some new playoff memories to overwrite the listlessness of the 2012 World Series sweep, the cruelty of the 2013 ALCS, the brutally sudden exit of 2014, and the empty losing that followed—a stretch in which I forced myself to, like, semi-ironically root for Nick Maton to stay in the starting lineup. I can almost feel it sneaking up behind me, this realization that I truly believe in this team that looks so out-of-place on the postseason schedule. I don't have any desire to feel justified in my cynicism. I'd like for these players to overcome the odds. It all begins with Skubal. - Lauren Theisen
A Head Full Of Baseball
I do have a personal stake in these playoffs: I want the Phillies to win, and I want Shohei Ohtani to succeed personally and professionally. But—and this is one of the least unique experiences in sports—I almost wish I didn't. If the Phillies lose, it can destroy my mood for the next 24 hours; I am spending the lead-up to the playoffs in abject fear that Ohtani will catch the Dodgers' playoff underperformance bug.
There is an alternative. Not to brag, but both the Phillies and Shohei Ohtani are going directly to the Division Series. This means that until this weekend, I am temporarily free from the tyranny of deep, possibly unhealthy emotional attachments. I had a classic little "I just hope both teams lose" mini-series on Monday; on Tuesday and Wednesday, I'll be guaranteed to have baseball on from 2:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. with little concern about my own investment.
My clearest rooting interest is with the Tigers-Astros series, which I will spend cheering for my coworkers' wonderful cats and AL Triple Crown winner Tarik Skubal. After that, it gets distinctly fuzzier. The Royals have Bobby Witt Jr., who I hope will do some cool things. The Orioles have a whole suite of crazy-ass white boys including, most importantly, a switch-hitting catcher, which is one of the best buzzphrases in baseball. The Brewers have taken in my beautiful Rhys Hoskins, who has many defining features like being pro-union and despising the Mets.
I don't have anything much to look forward to with the Padres, but that's fine too. Even if the Phillies go to the World Series—I am not jinxing anything, and even if I were, I don't believe in jinxes—I will miss the early stretches of the postseason, when games just seem to be on all the time. No waiting through empty baseball-less days only for one game the next day. It's the same operation as NFL Sundays or tennis tournaments in kind time zones: a series of more or less neutral-value games whose primary merits are their existence, that you can watch until your brain blurs. No thoughts, just baseball. - Kathryn Xu
