2019 Baseball Playoff Preview

The baseball playoffs start tomorrow, and sadly, I will not be able to see hardly any of it, since my current schedule has me working evenings. This season kind of slid by, and I've only been paying close attention for the last month or so, learning about players who have monstrous numbers that I had never heard of before.

For this preview I start with one team that is not here, the defending champion Boston Red Sox. Last year I wrote that they seemed to me the best team of the century so far, and with pretty much the same team they fizzled this year. In a classic case of "what have you done for me lately," GM Dave Dombroski was fired. I'm sure he will surface elsewhere and take some other team to the World Series. The same for Joe Maddon, departed manager of the Cubs, who failed to take them to the playoffs this year. The Cubs, long doormats in the league, have very high expectations now. If Maddon doesn't stay retired, I expect he'll be taking another team to the playoffs soon.

For the ten teams remaining, everything points to a rematch of the 2017 Series, in which Houston bested the L.A. Dodgers in seven games. Both teams are the class of their respective leagues. But, of course, anything can happen, and great teams are tripped up all the time. Certainly the New York Yankees will have something to say in the A.L., while one can't count out the Atlanta Braves in the N.L.

The Wild Card games have a couple of intriguing match-ups. In the A.L. Tampa Bay goes to Oakland, and the A's have had some bad luck in the post-season. The genius of Billy Beane as GM hasn't been validated with a pennant, and I expect them to best Tampa Bay. But the A's would then have to face the Astros, and with such great pitching (Verlander, Cole, and Greinke) I don't see the Astros losing. The Yankees will face the Twins, and these two teams have the highest home run totals of any teams in baseball history, so expect the ball to go flying out of the yard. But the Twins always seem to draw the Yankees, and never win. I don't expect them to this year.

An Astros-Yankees League Championship would be great, with the Astros pitching against the Yankee batters. But the Astros have some bats, too, and the Yankees starting pitching has been suspect all year. Houston should prevail.

In the National League, the Nationals of Washington host the Milwaukee Brewers in the Wild Card game. The Brewers, expected to fold after the season-ending injury of their best player, Christian Yelich, instead won 18 of 20 to secure a playoff spot, but faltered a bit at the end when the Cardinals offered them the division a silver platter but they couldn't take it. The Nationals seem snake bit in the post-season, and I think the visiting Brewers will win.

They would then take on the Dodgers, and the two had a great series last year. I expect the Dodgers to win again. The Braves play St. Louis, who limped into the post-season, and I think Atlanta will take them. I then think the Dodgers have too much for the Braves.

So who would win an Astros-Dodgers series? For the Dodgers it would be their third pennant in a row, and only one team has lost three World Series in a row, the Detroit Tigers of 1907-08-09 (this was the Tigers of Ty Cobb, who never went to another Series). To avoid that ignominious distinction, I have a hunch the Dodgers will pull it off this year. But the key player may not be putative MVP Cody Bellinger or starting pitchers Clayton Kershaw or Hyun-Jin Ryu, but closer Kenley Jansen. It is rare for a team to win it all with spotty relief pitching (the Red Sox managed to survive shaky work by Craig Kimbrel last year because they had decent leads going into the late innings) but Jansen has had a difficult year, blowing eight saves, which is high for him. If Jansen can close the door, I like the Dodgers' chances.

The Dodgers haven't won a World Series in twenty-nine years, which is the longest stretch for them since their inception to 1955, when they won their first title. The smart money may be on Houston, but the gambler in me says the Dodgers.