MLB Playoff Predictions 2023: Rounding Up Experts' Picks for World Series Bracket
Sunday marked the end of the 162-game marathon that was MLB's 2023 regular season.
Just a dozen teams remain in the World Series hunt, and a third of them will be dispatched during the upcoming Wild Card round.
While all of these clubs technically have a chance to win it all, some have better odds—by a country mile—than others. So, who is the likeliest to finish this season with a champagne-soaked championship celebration? We'll let the experts answer that question by rounding up their latest picks from across the interwebs.
CBS Sports
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Six members of the CBS Sports' baseball crew broke out their crystal balls and predicted how this postseason would play out.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, four of the six back the 104-win Atlanta Braves. They paced the entire league in victories and had an MLB-best plus-231 run differential. Atlanta had five different players belt 33-plus home runs, including Matt Olson (MLB's leader with 54) and Ronald Acuña Jr. (the first ever member of the 40-homer, 70-steal club).
That does mean, though, that two of their experts went different directions. Dayn Perry picked the 99-win Tampa Bay Rays.
"While they're not quite the Braves on offense, they have a deep, balanced, and powerful lineup, but plus enough lefty-righty depth on the roster to complicate relief decisions," Perry wrote. "Their current bullpen situation plus Kevin Cash's expert use of it is ideally tailored to contemporary playoff baseball."
The most interesting pick was made by Stephen Pianovich, who went with the 90-win Philadelphia Phillies. His rationale was as simple as it can get: "I'm a Philadelphian who picked the Phillies to beat the Astros in the World Series in [my] preseason predictions. It's time to double down."
Yahoo Sports
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Five Yahoo Sports' experts made round-by-round predictions on their site. They were even stronger in their support of the Braves.
Four of the five went with Atlanta, though they did have the Braves beating three different teams in the championship round. Two picked Atlanta over the Baltimore Orioles, while the others had the Houston Astros and Toronto Blue Jays escaping the American League.
Somewhat incredibly, this column also featured the first prediction of a Los Angeles Dodgers' triumph. L.A., after all, was one of only three teams to post triple-digit wins (with Atlanta and Baltimore) and one of two, with the Braves, to clear a plus-200 run differential (plus-207).
The team squeezed 30 homers and 100 RBI out of three different players, a group that didn't include superstar first baseman Freddie Freeman. He just missed the cut with 29 homers, to go along with 131 runs, 102 RBI, a career-high 23 steals and a .331/.410/.567 hitting slash.
ESPN's Jeff Passan
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One of the best news-breakers in the business, ESPN's Jeff Passan took a break from his reporting duties to predict the playoff road ahead.
Since there is only one expert here, we can dive deeper into his playoff bracket.
Passan pegged the Phillies, Blue Jays, Rays and Milwaukee Brewers to escape the Wild Card round. Then, he delivered a few stunners in the division series with the Milwaukee Brewers besting the Dodgers and the Minnesota Twins recording their first series win in two decades while eliminating the Astros. The Braves and Rays rounded out his winners.
In the league championship series, he liked the Braves and Rays to advance, before finally crowning Atlanta as World Series champs.
"This is a rare offense with special power from top to bottom," Passan wrote. "Two years ago, when they beat the Astros, the Braves did it without Acuña. This time around, he'll be at the center of another title."
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