NL Playoff Picture: If Not The Cubs, Then Who?

Currently holding the best record in the National League by a long shot, the Chicago Cubs are in a very enviable position as the Major League Baseball winds down this weekend.

I think.

As much as we all love seeing a good broken curse (I mean, everyone loves the Red Sox these days, right?) the likelihood that the regular-season champion of a given league will advance to the World Series, let alone win it, is fairly slim.  Just ask the Braves teams of the 1990’s how far regular-season success gets you.  It has happened often, especially since the advent of the wild card playoff berth, that the regular-season crown means very little in terms of accumulating rings.

For example, last year’s league champions were the Boston Red Sox and the Arizona Diamondbacks.  While the Red Sox managed to carry their excellence through to a World Series title, their opponent was a Colorado Rockies team that needed the help of a one-game playoff in order to attain their wild card playoff berth after scorching through the end of the season on a tear and continuing their hot play through the NL Playoffs.

Starting in 2001 with the Diamondbacks’ World Series win over the New York Yankees, there has been at least one wild card representative in every world series with the exception of 2005, including the 2002 World Series featuring two wild card teams, the Anaheim Angels and the San Francisco Giants.  Eight of the 14 World Series competitors during that time were wild card teams who just eeked their way into the playoffs after failing to win their division.  In all during that time span, only four regular-season league champions have made good on their top playoff seed.

With two—possibly three—aces, the first rookie catcher ever to start the All-Star Game, one of the most powerful lineups in the league, and a back end of the bullpen that strikes fear into the hearts of opponents before blowing them away with unbridled power, the Cubs find themselves as the clear favorite in the National League.  There is very little debate regarding this statement. So, with the playoffs upon us, the question that must be asked is: if not the Cubs, then who will be able to make it through the playoffs and into the World Series as the National League representative?

With Saturday's results in the books, we now know two of the three challengers--the division champion Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies--with the wild card still to be determined between the New York Mets and the Brewers.  So, who will be the team to get hot and make a run for the pennant?

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