The 2021 MLB playoffs are nearly at hand, and if the end of the regular season is any indication, the postseason is sure to give us a mad month full of unpredictable baseball. Right now, our MLB forecast model assigns eight teams at least a 5 percent chance of winning the World Series, and each […]
From the jump, it has looked perfect. On Aug. 10, 11 days after the Los Angeles Dodgers acquired Max Scherzer and Trea Turner at the trade deadline from the Washington Nationals and four days after Turner cleared COVID-19 protocols, the two slotted into their new club’s lineup together for the first time. Scherzer, no less […]
The general point of the MLB playoffs is to showcase the best teams in baseball with the World Series on the line. (No duh.) But that hasn’t always been the case in practice, even after baseball expanded its postseason over the past few decades to include an ever-increasing array of would-be contenders. Every so often, […]
For the first few months of the 2021 MLB season, the New York Yankees resembled a sputtering car. Their usually loud bats were silent to start the season en route to a 5-10 record. They pulled things together to cruise to eight games over .500 by late May, only to see themselves skid back down […]
The San Diego Padres were one of baseball’s great breakout stories of 2020, rising from a 70-92 season in 2019 to the full-season equivalent of 100 wins during the pandemic-shortened campaign. Led by the twin MVP candidacies of third baseman Manny Machado and wunderkind shortstop Fernando Tatís Jr., plus a strong pitching staff, the Padres […]