2022 MLB Playoff Predictions and New Format Explenation
The 2022 regular season is over, and 12 teams will advance to the playoffs for a chance to fight for the commissioners trophy
A picture of the 2021 World Series Trophy (credit: Erik Drost - Flickr - CC BY 2.0)
Disclaimer: All stats in this article are as of October 4
The MLB regular season will end today, Wednesday, October 5, after each team plays their 162, and final game, of the 2022 regular season. For 18 teams that’s the end of the road, the end to their 2022 story, no more baseball games to be played. For some teams like the Washington Nationals and Oakland A’s the news isn’t shocking, they’ve been eliminated for weeks and never even really thought they’d have a chance to play postseason baseball when pitchers and catchers reported. For others, it’s a tough pill to swallow, like for the Milwaukee Brewers who juuuuuust missed out, and for the San Francisco Giants who were coming off of a franchise-record 107 wins the year prior. But for the 12 teams that passed the trials, the challenges of the regular season, they have an opportunity to achieve greatness. One of those 12 teams will put themselves in the history books as the 2022 World Series Champions. We can’t know who it will be until it happens, but we can predict.
First though, we need to understand some things,
2022 is the first year of the new 12-team playoffs for the MLB, and adding an extra team from each league to the bracket changes the structure of the playoffs.
The bracket of course still has the American League on one side and the National League on the other, the major change comes in the first two rounds of the playoffs. The Wild Card series is now a best-of-three, and there are two wild card series per league. The top two divisional winners in each league are given a first-round bye, with the third-placed division winner having to the third wild card team, a.k.a the sixth seed a.k.a the third best team that didn’t win a division in their league, the winner of that matchup will face up against the second seed, and the fourth and fifth seed will go head-to-head with the winner playing the number one seed. For the wild card round the higher seeded team hosts the lower seeded team in all games. You’ll understand it more as we go along.
For 2022, the first seed in the AL belongs to the Houston Astros and the second seed to the New York Yankees. In the NL, the first seed is the Los Angeles Dodgers, with the second seed belonging to the reigning champions the Atlanta Braves. Seeds three through six in the AL are the Cleveland Guardians, Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners, and Tampa Bay Rays, for the NL it’s the St. Louis Cardinals, New York Mets, San Diego Padres, and Philadelphia Phillies.
The Playoffs begin on Friday, October 7 with every Wild Card round beginning.
With that let’s get into the predictions.
American League Wild Card Round:
Cleveland Guardians (3) VS. Tampa Bay Rays (6)
It was new name, new me, for the Guardians as they surprised nearly everybody by winning the AL Central this year. Before the season started FanGraphs only gave them a 15.2% chance to make the playoffs and a 7.5% chance to win the division. A young team led by Jose Ramirez, Andres Gimenez, and Shane Bieber utilized the ideology of pitching and defense to win ballgames to assert themselves as the number one team in the AL Central, potentially for years to come. For the Rays, this season was probably a little disappointing, they’ve had to deal with lots of injuries throughout the season to the likes of Wander Franco, Mike Zunino, Shane Baz, Shane McClanahan, and more. Despite these obstacles, the Rays managed to grab a playoff spot, and you can’t count them out.
Although McClanahan and Tyler Glasnow will be leading the rays pitching, the offense has been below league average this past month, and over the last 10 days its been one of the worst in baseball, only able to put up a 58 wRC+ which is 42% worse than the average. That’s not going to be enough against Guardians pitching.
Winner: Cleveland Guardians
Toronto Blue Jays (4) VS. Seattle Mariners (5)
The drought is over! For the first time since 2001, the Mariners have made the postseason, putting an end to the longest playoff drought in the four major North American sports, and you know they’re going to want to make a splash. The Mariners, much like the blue jays, were led to the playoffs by an exciting young offense and good pitching.
It should be a close series, the Mariners have had the better pitching for most of the season, but recently it’s been less clear. The Blue Jays have been one the best offensive teams all year though and arguably the best over the past month. When you add in the home field advantage it seems like the series will probably go the way of the Jays, but you can’t count out the hunger the Mariners undoubtedly have after missing the playoffs for 21 straight years.
The Mariners and Blue Jays faced off against each other seven times this year and the Mariners won 5 of those 7, but only one of the wins came away from home. Each team has been able to do damage against each other’s pitching too.
It’s a bit of a toss-up, probably the most evenly matched Wild Card series, but I have to give the slight edge to the Blue Jays
Winner: Blue Jays
National League Wild Card Round:
St. Louis Cardinals (3) VS. Phillidelphia Phillies (6)
The Phillies have been a new team since Rob Thompson took over as the manager mid-season. The Phillies went from a team on the outside looking in, to a team that managed to snag the final playoff spot even with reigning NL MVP Bryce Harper injured for a large portion of the year.
The Cardinals though have two legitimate MVP candidates this year in Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado.
Neither team has been lighting the world on fire offensively as of recent, and it’s hard to say which lineup you like better heading into the playoffs. Pitching is pretty similar too and you could easily say you would rather have the Phillies starters over who the Cardinals will roll out in a best-of-three series. Where the teams really separate though is defense, the Cardinals are fourth in the MLB in Outs Above Average (OAA) with 23, and the Phillies are 29th with an OAA of -37, the Cardinals also have 68 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), and the Phillies have -31.
In the playoffs, you have to play good defense, and the Phillies’ defense just isn’t up to par. This is something the Phillies need to work on if they want to move forward.
Winner: St. Louis Cardinals
New York Mets (4) VS. San Diego Padres (5)
The Mets were in control of the NL East for almost the whole year, but a weekend sweep by the Atlanta Braves pushed them down into a Wild Card slot. The Mets have had a great season but losing out on the division is not a good way to end the season.
Still, the Mets won 101 games, have a great lineup, a bullpen that can match up with the Padres, and one of the best starting rotations in the league, even if they don’t use Jacob deGrom and save him for the division series.
The Padres aren’t slouches, but they just don’t have the offense to match the Mets or anyone to match Max Scherzer.
The Mets are making it hard on themselves if deGrom does in fact not pitch, but it’s their series to lose, plus if the Mets don’t win in two I’m sure deGrom will pitch to move the Mets forward.
Winner: New York Mets
American League Division Series:
New York Yankees (2) VS. Cleveland Guardians (3)
The Yankees are very good at defense, the Guardians are very good at defense. The Yankees are very good at pitching, the Guardians are very good at pitching. The Yankees are very, very good at hitting, the Guardians are about average, and that’s really the big difference between these two teams. I said pitching and defense win games earlier in this article, and that’s true, but eventually, you need to hit.
As the Guardians move forward bolstering their lineup will need to be a priority to get past teams like the Yankees.
We saw what happened in the regular season, the Yankees one all but one of their six meetings with the Guardians, and there’s no reason to think something different should occur in the playoffs.
Winner: New York Yankees
Houston Astros (1) VS. Toronto Blue Jays (4)
The Astros are coming off of a 106-win regular season, yes their division was easier than the AL East, but the Astros are a very good team, and it’s time we accept that. Yes, they cheated in 2017, but that was five years ago, they’re not cheating anymore, and they’re still playing at the same level.
The Blue Jays would be coming off of the Wild Card round, meaning they would have already used at least their one and two starters, meaning they might not be able to pitch in games one and two of this series.
The offense would have an advantage over the Astros though since they’ve had consistent at-bats in round one. That could be big as the Blue Jays’ offense is already slightly more productive than the Astros.
Yet, starting on the back foot pitching-wise against one of the best rotations in the MLB when your own team’s full rotation hasn’t been nearly as good is going to be extremely difficult for the Blue Jays. Probably too difficult to overcome.
Winner: Houston Astros
National League Division Series:
Atlanta Braves (2) VS. St. Louis Cardinals (3)
The reigning World Series winners the Atlanta Braves’ first roadblock to a repeat is the Cardinals. The Cardinals and Braves faced each other 7 times this year, the Braves won the season series 4-3, so this series should be close.
If you look just on paper, you might think that the Cardinals are better, and although they are very good they just don’t win like the Braves. The two teams are relatively close to each other in most categories, the Braves bullpen is much better than the Cardinals, but still, in most categories, they are fairly similar. Yet, the Braves won 101 games in the toughest division in the NL, the Cardinals won 93 in the easiest.
93 wins is still very impressive, it was a great season for the Cardinals, but when you look at these two teams, you expect the Braves to win.
Winner: Atlanta Braves
Los Angeles Dodgers (1) VS. New York Mets (4)
The Dodgers had the best regular season in franchise history winning 111 games, the Mets didn’t do too bad either though with 101. If the Mets are able to save Jacob Degrom for this series then that would be huge, but I can’t confidently say that they will be able to do that. I think the Dodgers big arms meeting the backend of the Mets rotation might be too much for New York to handle.
Even if the Mets can save deGrom will it really be enough?
The Dodgers have the best offense in baseball, the Mets are close but still aren’t quite on the same level. The Bullpen is one of the best in the game, way better than the Mets for sure, and the Dodgers rotation has just been unbelievable from 1-5. It’s a harsh reality for Mets fans, even after an amazing season where they won 101 games, they still don’t seem that close to the mighty Dodgers.
Winner: Los Angeles Dodgers
American League Championship Series:
Houston Astros (1) VS. New York Yankees (2)
I have the two juggernauts of the AL facing each other in the ALCS, the winner moving on to the World Series, both teams trying to prove they can go all the way. The Astros haven’t won a World Series since the 2017 World Series which was the subject of their cheating scandal. The Yankees haven’t won since 2009, and need to prove to a soon-to-be free agent Aaron Judge they can compete when it matters most.
This season the Astros took the head-to-head against the Yankees 5-2. Over the course of the season, the Yankees have had the better offense, the Astros have had the better pitching, and different defensive metrics say different things about each team but most favor the Yankees.
It’s close, and it really could go either way, but the Astros are closer to the Yankees offensively than the Yankees are to the Astros starting pitching-wise. Plus with the season head-to-head, it starts to look like the Astros will be heading back to the fall classic for the second year in a row.
Winner: Astros
As for ALCS MVP, that’s much harder to predict, but I’ll go with Justin Verlander
National League Championship Series:
Los Angeles Dodgers (1) VS. Atlanta Braves (2)
Since June 1, the best two teams in the MLB have been the Braves and the Dodgers and they meet for a 2021 NLCS rematch.
Last year in this same series the Braves beat the Dodgers and went on to win the World Series, the Dodgers haven’t forgotten and they want revenge. Many thought it wasn’t possible for the Dodgers to get better than last year, but they did in part by signing Freddie Freeman, who was a huge part of that Braves team. And despite losing Freeman, the Braves might have gotten better too.
Even though the Braves got better too, this time around the Dodgers just seem too big to fail.
We all have grown to expect the Dodgers to choke away their season in October, but this team just seems too good to not make the World Series.
However,
The Braves know how to beat the Dodgers, the Braves know how and when to be scrappy, they seem to play with more heart, and most importantly, they know how to topple powerful offenses.
The Braves have pulled it off before, and I expect them to upset the mighty Dodgers once again in the NLCS, with rookie Michael Haris II taking home the series MVP trophy.
Winner: Atlanta Braves
World Series:
Houston Astros VS. Atlanta Braves
A rematch of last year’s World Series, but who will come out on top this time?
Last year the Braves defeated an Astros team that underperformed in the World Series. Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, and Yordan Alverez all had disappointing series, the Braves still executed, but I don’t think the Astros big bats will allow the same thing to happen so easily this time around.
The two teams are on the same level as each other offensively.
Pitching-wise, for as good as the Braves starters have been, the Astros starters have just been able to execute better. The two teams both have great bullpens, but the edge goes to the Astros.
Defensively the Astros are better too.
The Braves are definitely hungry to win another World Series, to be the first franchise since the Yankees in 1999 and 2000 to win back-to-back World Series.
But the Astros have to be more hungry though.
The Astros are tired of losing in the World Series. Tired of people saying they can only win by cheating. They are ready to prove a point.
these Astros will defeat the Braves in 7 games, with Jose Altuve who had a career year offensively during the regular season winning the World Series MVP.
World Series Champions: Houston Astros
Will these predictions be correct? Probably not, I was probably too much on the side of the higher seeds in this prediction. That’s alright though as these are just predictions, the reason these teams go out and play is that you can never really know what’s actually going to happen.
