With the MLB Wild Card Round over, the top two teams in each league prepare to enter action this weekend as the League Division Series gets underway.
The MLB Wild Card Round is officially over, and it was one to remember for baseball fans as part of an incredible beginning to October.
Thursday marked the first time in MLB history that three winner-take-all games were played on the same day, while also marking the first season that three decisive Game 3s were played in the Wild Card Round since the league permanently adopted the format in 2022.
While the Chicago Cubs, New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers and Detroit Tigers have had a playoff series to prepare themselves for this weekend, the Milwaukee Brewers, Toronto Blue Jays, Philadelphia Phillies and Seattle Mariners have spent the week playing intrasquad games while awaiting their opponent.
The LDS under the current playoff format revives a yearly rest vs. rust debate, with the top four teams doing all they could to stay sharp during the first round of playoff action.
In all four series’, the pressure noticeably shifts towards the division winners with home-field advantage, who both hold stronger records and have had the opportunity to rest their roster and optimize their rotation.
With just one day off for Thursday’s Game 3 winners before Division Series play begins, here’s a look at how I see the upcoming round playing out for the eight remaining teams:
ALDS: Toronto Blue Jays vs. New York Yankees
While the Yankees may have the most illustrious playoff history in all of North American professional sports, Saturday will still mark a first as these two division rivals square off in the postseason for the first time ever.
The division champion Blue Jays are almost certain to be without perhaps their best hitter in Bo Bichette for the series, but baseball’s best contact-hitting lineup still has plenty they can do damage with.
Toronto got stellar campaigns from role players Alejandro Kirk and Addison Barger while stars Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and George Springer posted incredible seasons.
The Yankees are surely riding a high after beating the Red Sox in a playoff series for the first time since 2003, though plenty of questions remain for an unsteady bullpen that got to sit for almost all of the Yanks’ decisive Game 3 thanks to a heroic outing from rookie Cam Schlittler.
Though it’s unclear how Toronto will stack up their rotation, there are plenty of options – Chris Bassitt, Kevin Gausman, José Berríos, Max Scherzer and Shane Bieber are among the hurlers that could see either a start or action in long relief in this series.
The Yankees boast a top three of Max Fried, Carlos Rodón and the aforementioned Schlittler, who can’t be expected to post another eight shutout innings in a playoff game. With that said, New York remains well equipped to match Toronto’s rotation.
Although Toronto has a relatively unremarkable bullpen headlined by an inconsistent closer in Jeff Hoffman, the Yankees’ pen remains a vulnerability for the club, one that is more likely to be exposed by the high-average hitting Blue Jays.
While it’s easy to see this series going both ways, Toronto’s relentless offense, even without Bichette, may be too much for a taxed New York pitching staff to handle over the course of a week. Blue Jays in five.
ALDS: Seattle Mariners vs. Detroit Tigers
A strong finish to the season for the Mariners locked in their first AL West title since 2001, which also means this is the first time Seattle has held home-field advantage in a playoff series since that historic season.
Already a solid club at the deadline, Seattle is arguably the most complete team of the field after bolstering their offense with Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suárez at the trade deadline.
Though Seattle was hot to finish the regular season, Detroit has exorcised the demons of the end of their regular season with a series victory over the Guardians, in many ways erasing the meaningfulness behind their historic collapse in the AL Central.
The M’s also boast a well-rested starting rotation that hit its stride in September and a bullpen that has been among the league’s best all season long – though it’s hard to ask for a better weapon that what the Tigers have in ace lefty Tarik Skubal.
While Detroit has scuffled perhaps more than any other team in baseball down the stretch, their lineup can still do plenty of damage, particularly with a hot Javier Báez at the bottom of the lineup, who went 5-for-11 in the Wild Card Round.
Even if the Tigers are able to win Skubal’s Game 2 start, I still think Seattle’s deep lineup filled with home run power and a formidable bullpen headlined by one of baseball’s best closers in Andrés Muñoz will be enough to get Seattle back to the ALCS for the first time since 2001. Mariners in four.
NLDS: Milwaukee Brewers vs. Chicago Cubs
Similar to the two ALDS matchups, baseball fans are treated with a postseason first as the two regional rivals square off in the playoffs for the first time ever.
It’s hard to find a Division Series matchup with more heat and drama than what currently exists between the Cubs and Brewers. Always one of baseball’s more notable rivalries, the hatred took a step up after manager Craig Counsell left the Brewers for the Cubs prior to the 2024 season.
The Brewers have promptly responded by winning the NL Central in each of the last two seasons, though the Cubs have a tailor-made opportunity to swing the rivalry back in their favor in this series.
With a 97-65 record that was the best in MLB, the Brewers will be handing the ball to ace Freddy Peralta for Game 1 in Milwaukee, with Quinn Priester, Jacob Misiorowski and former Cub Jose Quintana among the arms that the Brewers could use as starters or long relievers in this series, with plenty of rest to optimize their use.
While the Brewers have the edge with starting rotation, speed and bullpen, the Cubs also bring some tangible and intangible advantages to the series. In addition to being a club with noticeably more slug, the Cubs are one of the few teams in baseball that had a better defense than Milwaukee in 2025, a trait that could prove to be critical against the NL’s best contact-hitting team.
Additionally, with the two clubs located less than a 90-minute drive apart on Interstate 94, one can expect plenty of visiting fans in this series – but that dynamic will almost certainly heavily favor Chicago. After years of outnumbering Brewers fans in their own ballpark, it’s fair to expect close to a 50-50 crowd in Milwaukee for this series, putting a damper into the Brewers’ home-field advantage.
It’s hard to not see this series going the distance – the Cubs narrowly won the season series 7-6, and a similar back-and-forth dynamic in this series feels inevitable. Yet with the momentum of having played a critical series this week on top of a golden chance for a statement victory in the team’s biggest rivalry right now, it feels like the Cubs may have some extra gas in the tank to get this series over the finish line. Cubs in five.
NLDS: Philadelphia Phillies vs. Los Angeles Dodgers
The only one of the four LDS’ where it isn’t the first postseason meeting between the two teams, this series marks the sixth time that the Dodgers and Phillies are crossing paths in October, the first since the 2009 NLCS.
That last tidbit feels a bit strange, considering these two teams have been among the NL’s elite in the 2020’s thus far, long appearing to be on a collision course for when the stakes are the highest.
The defending World Series champion Dodgers were the lone Wild Card Round team to sweep their series as they dispatched the Cincinnati Reds 2-0, though it didn’t come without display of weakness, with the Los Angeles bullpen jeopardizing big leads in both games.
Though the 83-win Reds were unable to fully capitalize on the laundry list of Dodgers shortcomings in relief, the Phillies appear much better positioned to take advantage. With a lineup built equally out of contact and slug, there are very few breaks when the Dodgers will have to face both the NL batting champion in Trea Turner and the NL home run champion in Kyle Schwarber.
Of course, one can’t act as if the Dodgers are just going to get walloped in this series – and they’re doing what they can to stop that possibility right away, with Shohei Ohtani set to make his postseason pitching debut in Philadelphia on Saturday for Game 1.
While the Dodgers’ rotation of Ohtani, Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto can easily go toe-to-toe with Philly’s starters, Philadelphia’s bullpen appears to be much better prepared for the series, with closer Jhoan Duran waiting in the ninth inning.
With the Dodgers having perhaps the sport’s greatest player of all-time and the most playoff-seasoned roster, it’s impossible to ever count them out in a playoff series. Yet it’s also clear that the margin of error against a more well-rounded Phillies team may be too small for the Dodgers to fully overcome. Phillies in five.
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