2018 MLB Postseason Preview
The MLB postseason is about to get underway and the battle to get here has been an interesting one.
The American League was nowhere near a massive battle as teams began to run away with their leads in division battles.
Three teams in the American league reached 100 wins this season and all three are among the best teams in the league.
It wasn’t an interesting battle near the end but as they head into the postseason it is going to make things more interesting.
The postseason is going to be a fight between some of the best teams in the league all trying to get one spot in the World Series.
It should make things even more interesting in the American League as the best will truly be playing the best.
It is not going to be an easy path for the postseason teams as they will need to go through some seriously good teams.
That is going to make these games something special as they are what the postseason is all about, great teams trying to prove that they are the best.
In the National League, it will be a different story though as four teams had to fight until the final day and beyond.
It took two tiebreakers to determine who would be playing in which round and which series in what has been a tight battle.
The NL saw some of the best battle in the MLB with teams fighting until the end to get their spots.
That should make this battle just as good as the American League with National League teams all playing close throughout the season.
They may not be the powerhouses that are located in the AL but they nobody was able to really separate themselves.
Both leagues will enter the postseason with very different attitudes towards the teams involved.
In the AL it is the best on the best while in the NL it is about the teams who have all played closely together throughout the season.
That is the environment heading into the postseason making this another in what is becoming a long line of great postseasons.
The American League holds three of the best teams in the MLB with Boston, New York and Houston all grabbing 100+ wins this year. All three could easily be the best team in the MLB but they had to fight against each other to get there. Out of all of them, the Boston Red Sox are by far the best teams with 108 wins this year. They have been one of the most consistent teams and they seem like the team to beat heading into the postseason. The New York Yankees did their best to keep up with the Red Sox but midseason fall hurt their chances of taking the division title. They seemed to recover well though as they were still able to get 100 wins and clinch a spot in the postseason behind the Bronx Bombers 2.0. Last year’s champions, the Astros didn’t seem to suffer any type of hangover as they were the second best team in the league. They came off of their first ever World Series win and they seemed to only get better being just about as consistent as the Red Sox. These three teams are the teams to beat in the American League this year but the Yankees will have a longer battle hosting the Wild Card. Looking to unseat these clear favourites are the Cleveland Indians and the Oakland Athletics. The Indians are coming in as a forgotten team as they just went about their business winning the Central division. They were a good team but weren’t the best team in the league even with 91 wins this season. The Indians have been a team that can contend over the last few years and they will take on the Astros looking to surprise everyone and trying to announce that they are still a team to watch. The Athletics are the surprise of the league this year putting together a run late in the season that got them a wild card spot. They head to New York to take on the Yankees in what looks like a clear mismatch. They will try to continue to surprise and eliminate one of the best teams in the league far earlier than expected. The American League will look to the three big teams as they are all favourites to take home the pennant and head to the World Series. They will see some other good teams as the Athletics are streaking into the postseason and the Indians are still a strong team. It will be a tough road for whoever gets through as that team will have to go through some of the best regular season teams in the MLB.
The National League was a bit of an opposite fight from the American League as the best teams fought for a long time to get their spots. Unlike in the AL, the NL saw a tight battle throughout the year and no one team really separated themselves. Two of the divisions came down to tiebreakers to learn who would play that extra game. In the AL there will be some clear favourite teams looking to take their success to the World Series but. In the NL this will be a battle of closely related teams trying to survive to get to the World Series. The Central division could be the favourites but they were one of the divisions that had to fight until the end. It was the Milwaukee Brewers who came out on top in the tiebreaker but the Chicago Cubs are right behind them. Both teams have been good this year but the Cubs have been a little more consistent with the Brewers beginning to get better in the second half. The West is similar as the Los Angeles Dodgers and Colorado Rockies have been locked in a fight for the division throughout the entire season. The West has been one of the best divisions in the league in terms of entertainment. There have been great games and plenty of teams looking for the title but it came down to Colorado and Los Angeles in the tiebreaker. The Dodgers took the win but like the Cubs, the Rockies weren’t far off. It is hard to claim which one of those teams is better and throwing Atlanta into the mix only makes things worse. That is what the National League will have to deal with throughout the postseason. The Braves were the only team to actually have a fairly easy time in the division without much of a challenge. They walked to the division title and haven’t had to play important baseball in a long time. Meanwhile, the other divisions have been playing what amounts to postseason baseball for the last month. All have been playing important games for a while and that could be a big bonus for these teams. They could be in the mode that they need to be in for the next few rounds. They also could wear out faster than a team like Atlanta because that mental strain hasn’t been there. These teams will put that to the test this postseason as they will all carry that level of play into the postseason. Like in the AL it will be a tough fight to get to the World Series but for an entirely different reason than their opposite league.
2018 World Series:
The World Series will be a matchup of two very good teams as the Cubs have found a resurgence over the past few years and the Red Sox are the best team this year. The matchup should be a good one and it won’t be an easy one for either team. This year it just seems like the Red Sox are too good this year. They have been good just about everywhere and they don’t seem to have many weaknesses for the Cubs to expose. That is the reason the Sox will be at the top of the league at the end of the postseason as they will take the World Series.
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