The final week of September means we have reached the final week of the 2023 MLB regular season — and come this time next Monday, the playoff picture will be crystal clear. Before that day comes, though, we’ve got quite a lot of chaos to sort through. Much of that will happen starting tonight, when a string of crucial series gets started with the Astros and Mariners duking it out for AL West (and AL Wild Card) supremacy.
We didn’t want to have to wait that long, though, so we thought we’d go ahead and make some predictions in the meantime. Come look into our crystal ball, and see how we foresee things looking when the dust settles at the end of the week and we turn our eyes to October.
MLB playoff bracket: Predictions as of September 25
American League
No. 1 seed: Baltimore Orioles (AL East champs)
No. 2 seed: Texas Rangers (AL West champs)
No. 3 seed: Minnesota Twins (AL Central champs)
No. 4 seed: Tampa Bay Rays (first AL Wild Card spot)
No. 5 seed: Toronto Blue Jays (second AL Wild Card spot)
No. 6 seed: Seattle Mariners (third AL Wild Card spot)
The Twins are locked into the three seed, and Baltimore feels like something close to that in the top spot: Baltimore not only has a three-game lead over the Rays in the loss column entering the week, but they also have a friendly schedule (home against the Nationals and Red Sox) and the tiebreaker by virtue of taking the season series over Tampa. Barring some totally unforeseeable collapse, the O’s will be the AL’s top seed, while the Rays while slide down to the first Wild Card spot.
After that, your guess is as good as mine. So much of this comes down to how the AL West shakes out, and I think Texas will hold on to the division title after their big weekend against the Mariners. The Rangers’ upcoming series against the lowly Angels feels like a trump card; they’re the only team among the big three out west that will play a non-playoff contender this week, and that should make the difference and allow Texas to bank enough wins to protect its 2.5-game lead. That means the Rangers grab the No. 2 seed, while Houston and Seattle are left to battle it out with Toronto for the final two postseason spots.
The Blue Jays, again, have a scheduling advantage, with a three-game set at home this week against the mediocre Yankees before taking on a Rays team that might not have anything left to play for by the time this weekend rolls around. That should safely ensconce Toronto — who has a two-game lead in the loss column on the Mariners and Astros — in the second Wild Card spot. Which brings us to the million-dollar question, with one postseason berth remaining: Seattle or Houston? The answer will likely come starting tonight, as these two teams face off for a critical three-game set at T-Mobile Park. I’m going with the Mariners, just barely, and largely because of how sketchy the Astros’ starting rotation has looked of late. Seattle’s pitching will carry them to a series win, and they’ll do just enough against Texas this weekend — while Houston contends with a D-backs team that will be fighting for its own playoff positioning — to make it to October for the second year in a row.
National League
No. 1 seed: Atlanta Braves (NL East champs)
No. 2 seed: Los Angeles Dodgers (NL West champs)
No. 3 seed: Milwaukee Brewers (NL Central champs)
No. 4 seed: Philadelphia Phillies (first NL Wild Card spot)
No. 5 seed: Arizona Diamondbacks (second NL Wild Card spot)
No. 6 seed: Miami Marlins (third NL Wild Card spot)
Unlike the AL, there’s zero divisional drama here: The Braves, Dodgers and Brewers will almost certainly end the year one, two and three in the standings. (With a 3.5-game lead and a nice closing schedule, including the Nationals this weekend, Atlanta’s grip on the top seed appears fully safe.) Philly, too, is more or less locked into where they currently are, with the division out of reach and none of the other Wild Card teams able to mount much of a challenge this month.
After that, things have begun to sort themselves out after it seemed like we could be headed for something like a four- or five-way tie a couple of weeks ago. The D-backs keep on winning, with a series this week against the moribund White Sox that should allow them to build some much-needed cushion heading into a huge weekend matchup with the Astros. That friendly bit of scheduling, combined with tiebreakers over the Cubs and Marlins, has me keeping the Snakes in the fifth spot.
You’ll notice that I have Chicago dropping from that fifth spot, where they reside entering play on Monday, to out of the playoff picture entirely. Maybe I’m just overreacting to the Marlins’ late-game magic; in a vacuum, I’d certainly argue that the Cubs are the better team than Miami. But the Fish get the Mets and Pirates this week, while Chicago has to travel to to the Braves and Brewers — no fun, even if both of those teams are more focused on lining their rotations up for the postseason. The Cubs’ starting pitching hasn’t shown that they can hold up to that kind of gauntlet, even with Marcus Stroman back, and I think Miami will eke out enough wins to steal a very unlikely playoff spot. (It helps that the own the tiebreaker over Chicago thanks to winning the season series, four games to two.)
