The 2024 MLB playoffs are set to begin this week and here are some storylines to watch for this October.
The Cleveland Guardians come into this postseason with a record of 92-69, the second-best in the American League. Backed by its stellar bullpen, the Guardians have a chance to win their first World Series since 1948.
Cleveland’s 75-year title drought is the current longest drought in Major League Baseball, and the second-longest drought in America’s four major sports, with the longest being 76 years by the Arizona Cardinals.
The Guardians were also one of three American League Central teams to make the postseason, along with the Detroit Tigers and the Kansas City Royals.
Both the Royals and Tigers snapped long postseason droughts, with the Royals making the playoffs for the first time since 2015 and the Tigers making it for the first time since 2014.
The Tigers being in the spot comes as a major surprise to the baseball world, as Detroit yielded just a 0.2% chance to make the playoffs on August 10th with a record of 55-63.
The Tigers went on a 31-13 run to end the season with a record of 86-76 to backdoor into the playoffs off the back of ace pitcher and Cy Young award candidate Tarik Skubal.
The Royals find themselves competing in October for the first time since 2015 when they defeated the New York Mets in five games to win the team’s second world series.
The Houston Astros are the most recent team to win a World Series among 2024 playoff qualifiers, winning the fall classic in six games over the Philadelphia Phillies in 2022.
The Astros have also made seven consecutive American League Championship Series, dating back to the 2017 playoffs. In that time, Houston has won two World Series titles and appeared in four World Series.
The New York Yankees found themselves atop the American League standings and will look to add the team’s record 28th World Series title this October.
The mighty Yankees are a team synonymous with winning, but have fallen from grace over the past decade, failing to win or appear in a World Series for the past 14 years.
This is tied for the longest streak without a World Series appearance in the team’s history and the second-longest World Series drought in team history.
The 2010’s decade was also the first decade without a World Series appearance for the Yankees in the team’s history.
Like the Yankees, the Los Angeles Dodgers are another team in baseball that has become renowned for winning.
This past offseason, the Dodgers committed over $1 billion in free agency, and that spending helped them lock up the National League’s No. 1 seed. Of that $1 billion dollars, $700 million was given to star designated hitter Shohei Ohtani.
Ohtani will almost undoubtedly be given his third MVP award of his career after this season, and will get his first taste of playoff baseball with his new team.
The San Diego Padres are a story similar to the Tigers. The Padres weren’t playing their best baseball in the middle of the season, but got hot in the second half, and had the NL’s best record after the All-Star break.
The Padres went on to have a 43-20 record following the All-Star break, and nearly played spoiler for the Dodgers, narrowly missing out on an NL West crown.
The Padres and the Milwaukee Brewers are the only teams in the 2024 playoff field who have not won a World Series in their teams histories.
The Phillies have been one of the better stories in the past two Octobers. Philadelphia went to a World Series in 2022 as the lowest seed in the National League, losing in six games to the Houston Astros.
The Phillies then went on to lose in the National League Championship Series to the Arizona Diamondbacks in seven games the following year.
The New York Mets and Atlanta Braves narrowly made the MLB playoffs, each team earning their playoff spots on the last day of the season.
The Mets have the fourth longest World Series drought among this year’s playoff field, with their last win coming in 1986. The Tigers, Guardians and Orioles are the only teams with longer droughts in this year’s playoffs.
