Biggest Winners and Losers from 2023 MLB Playoffs So Far
One must always expect the unexpected when it comes to Major League Baseball's postseason, but this 2023 iteration has been particularly full of surprise twists, turns, winners and losers.
Neither the Miami Marlins nor the Arizona Diamondbacks had any business making the playoffs with their negative run differentials, but the Snakes have won seven games and remain in the hunt for the World Series while the three leaders in run differential (Atlanta, Los Angeles and Tampa Bay) went a combined 1-8.
Well-established stars the likes of Clayton Kershaw, Craig Kimbrel, Mookie Betts, Corbin Burnes and Freddie Freeman fell apart in critical moments, while rookies the likes of Evan Carter, Gabriel Moreno, Royce Lewis, Corbin Carroll and Josh Jung have become stars almost overnight.
And after six months of teams battling for home-field advantage in the playoffs, road teams have ruled the roost as we await the dramatic conclusions of both the ALCS and NLCS.
There's plenty of postseason baseball still to come, but given what we've seen through the first two-and-a-half weeks, we've crowned the five biggest winners and the five biggest losers.
Winners: Aaron Nola and Jordan Montgomery
1 of 10
In recent years, there haven't been many dominant postseason runs by pitchers who were about to hit free agency.
However, the ones who did pull it off were handsomely rewarded for it.
After making two quality starts in the 2018 postseason, Nathan Eovaldi went from a two-year, $4 million contract to a four-year, $68 million deal.
The following October, Stephen Strasburg (five) and Gerrit Cole (four) combined for nine quality starts before signing a $245 million contract and a $324 million contract, respectively.
Could Aaron Nola and Jordan Montgomery be headed for similar fates?
No, we don't expect either one to get a deal anything like Strasburg's, let alone like Cole's. However, Nola and Montgomery have each gone at least six scoreless innings twice already this postseason. And there's still a chance we'll get a head-to-head showdown between the impending free agents in the World Series.
Of the two, Nola arguably needed this type of October showing more than Montgomery. Nola struggled during the 2023 regular season and struggled mightily in the 2022 NLCS and World Series. Yes, he is as durable as they come, but front offices may have been starting to wonder if he's worth "ace money" in free agency. His 0.96 ERA through three starts this season may have helped assuage that concern.
But it has also been a lucrative October for Montgomery, who has probably moved up the wish lists of many teams after his gems against Tampa Bay and Houston. He has quietly been rock solid for three years now and might now be the most coveted free agent pitcher outside of Nola, Blake Snell and Clayton Kershaw.
Loser: Home-Field 'Advantage'
2 of 10
For as wild as the 2022 MLB postseason was, at least home-field advantage was actually somewhat of an advantage.
Well, I suppose it wasn't an advantage in the wild-card round, where the lower-seeded (road) team went a combined 6-3. But even as NL No. 6 seed Philadelphia and NL No. 5 seed San Diego pulled off upsets in the NLDS, the home teams went a combined 11-5 in that round, followed by a 6-3 record for the home teams in the ALCS/NLCS.
But this year—for everyone other than the Philadelphia Phillies and the Arizona Diamondbacks—playing at home has been a nightmare.
Overall, the home team has gone 14-18 this postseason. Take out the 10 games at Citizens Bank Park (Phillies are 6-0 at home) and Chase Field (Diamondbacks are 3-1 at home), and it drops to 5-17.
Both the Rays and the Dodgers were 25 games above .500 at home during the regular season, but they went a combined 0-4 at home with offenses that just completely no-showed.
Similarly, Baltimore and Milwaukee each went 49-32 at home during the regular season. The only sweep either team suffered at home was, inexplicably, Milwaukee losing three straight to the Oakland A's. But they, too, went a combined 0-4 at home in the postseason.
Could we be headed for a repeat of the 2019 World Series, in which the road team won all seven games between the Houston Astros and Washington Nationals?
Winner: Evan Carter, Texas Rangers
3 of 10
Over the past few years, we've seen players get big paydays less than a season into their MLB careers.
Whether he'll play any of the remaining nine seasons on the contract remains to be seen, but Tampa Bay signed Wander Franco to an 11-year, $182 million contract in November 2021 after just 70 MLB games played.
Atlanta's Michael Harris II had almost the exact same amount of MLB experience (71 games) when he signed his eight-year, $72 million deal (with club options to possibly become a 10-year, $102 million deal) last August.
Could Evan Carter be next on that list? With even less experience?
Carter was one of the top prospects in all of baseball when the Rangers called him up in September. He then played in each of Texas' final 23 games of the regular season, batting .306/.413/.645 with five home runs.
And he was just getting warmed up.
Carter has gone 10-for-32 (.313) thus far in the postseason with eight walks to go along with his six extra-base hits. He has also made several remarkable plays in left field, this despite still adjusting to the position after spending the vast majority of his time in the minors in center field.
Will Texas sign either of its superstar rookies (Josh Jung also had a fantastic regular season and postseason) to long-term deals this offseason like the Rays did with Franco? Or will they wait until those October phenoms get too expensive like the Rays did with Randy Arozarena?
.png?w=256)
Loser: Virtually Every Attempt to Slow Down Yordan Alvarez
4 of 10
In Game 1 of the ALCS, Jordan Montgomery captured lightning in a bottle, striking out Yordan Alvarez not once, not twice, but three times on curveballs, as the Astros were shut out for just the third time since late June.
Other pitchers have been, uhh, just a little bit less successful against the force of nature that is Playoff Yordan.
Alvarez set the tone early with a pair of homers in Game 1 of the ALDS against Minnesota.
He added another in Game 2.
One more in Game 3.
By the time he took both Nathan Eovaldi and Aroldis Chapman yard in Game 2 of the ALCS, Alvarez had six home runs in 25 trips to the plate, boasting a 1.701 OPS.
He then racked up six more hits and five more RBI in Games 3-5 as the Astros stormed back to take the lead in the series. (However, all six hits were singles, so his postseason OPS dropped to a still outrageous 1.422.)
Even though Houston didn't play in the wild-card round, Alvarez leads all players in both home runs (six) and RBI (13). And if the Astros can advance to the World Series, all-time single-postseason records officially will be in danger of being broken.
David Freese holds the RBI record with 21 in 2011, while Randy Arozarena reigns supreme with 10 home runs during the 2020 postseason. Neither record is safe with the way Alvarez has been hitting these past two weeks.
Winner: Minnesota Twins. Finally.
5 of 10
The Minnesota Twins finally snapped what felt like an eternal drought.
After 18 consecutive playoff losses dating back to the 2004 ALDS, not only did the Twins win a game, they won a postseason series.
Behind the strength of a pair of Royce Lewis home runs (the rookie hit four total dingers in the postseason) and what was debatably the best starting rotation in the majors this season, Minnesota held Toronto to just one run between those two wild-card round victories. Both Sonny Gray and Pablo López pitched great, neither one allowing so much as an extra-base hit.
And though they ultimately came up short in the ALDS against Houston, they put up a respectable fight against what has been the AL's juggernaut over the past seven years.
The Twins almost stormed back from a 5-0 deficit in Game 1. They did win Game 2 in Houston against Framber Valdez. But having a lineup filled with guys who strike out far too often doomed them in the end.
We'll see if they can build upon this and become an even more legitimate contender in 2024. Replacing Gray (free agent) in the rotation will be tough, but the rest of this year's 10 most valuable Twins all should be back next season.
And this is purely speculation from a distance, but if Joey Votto wants to play one more year for a team that could actually use him on a regular basis, Minnesota would be a great fit. Both Donovan Solano and Joey Gallo—who made a combined 100 starts at first for Minnesota this season—are hitting free agency, and DH Byron Buxton is perpetually injured.
Loser: Los Angeles Dodgers. Again.
6 of 10
Eight teams lost within the first two rounds of the postseason, but only the Los Angeles Dodgers left everyone collectively thinking: Wow, that was embarrassing.
With all due respect to the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Dodgers were supposed to be the ones sweeping that series.
LA had a +207 run differential during the regular season. Arizona's was -15. The Dodgers had won the five most recent regular-season meetings by a combined margin of 21 runs and finished 16 games ahead of the Diamondbacks in the NL West standings.
But none of that mattered.
Clayton Kershaw gave up six runs in one-third of an inning, while the Dodgers scored six runs in the entire series.
Mookie Betts went hitless.
Freddie Freeman's lone hit was an infield single.
Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, as the Dodgers were eliminated for the second successive year by a divisional foe who they were clearly better than for the vast majority of the prior six months.
They've now won at least 100 games in each of the past four 162-game seasons only to get eliminated in the NLDS in three of those years. And in the exception to that rule, they needed some ninth-inning magic in both the wild-card game against St. Louis and the do-or-die Game 5 of the NLDS against San Francisco in order to avoid an early exit in 2021, too.
Even though they won the World Series in 2020, the Dodgers not being able to get it done in October has become a full-blown thing that's going to be brought up again next year, no matter how much they spend this offseason and no matter how many games they win during the regular season.
Winner: Rangers
7 of 10
The obvious application of this winner designation is the Texas Rangers.
They've fallen apart here in the past few days, but they started out 7-0 in the postseason, just like the Astros did en route to last year's World Series title—one win shy of the record the 2014 Kansas City Royals set by starting out 8-0.
Even more impressive: All but one of those seven victories came on the road, as they won Games 1 and 2 of each series against Tampa Bay, Baltimore and Houston as the lower-seeded team.
The Rangers had a pair of six-game winning streaks in September, but seven in a row, in the postseason, almost entirely away from home is remarkable.
The less obvious application to those outside of the tidal wave of Phillies supporters is Ranger Suárez.
While Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola have gotten all sorts of love for their combined five quality starts, Suárez has the lowest ERA of the bunch at 0.64, allowing just one earned run (an Austin Riley solo homer that barely cleared the fence) in his 14.0 innings of work spread across three starts.
The Phillies have scored at least four runs in every other postseason game, but they have given Suárez very little run support, scoring just seven total runs in the three games he started. (When he tossed his last pitch of each start, the scores were 1-0, 1-1 and 0-0.) However, he has been nothing short of crucial in keeping the Phillies in those games when the offense wasn't firing on all cylinders.
Could we end up with a Ranger vs. Rangers showdown in the World Series? (Phils vs. Phil Maton is also on the table if Houston wins the ALCS.)
Loser: Former NL Cy Young Winners
8 of 10
2022 NL Cy Young winner Sandy Alcantara and 2018-19 NL Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom were unavailable for their teams this postseason because of injuries.
But for the former NL Cy Young winners who have pitched this October, things haven't gone so well.
The most infamous, of course, is Clayton Kershaw. The three-time (2011, 2013, 2014) NL Cy Young winner has had some serious ups and downs in the postseason portion of his career, and getting shelled for six earned runs in just one-third of an inning was a new all-time low, immediately giving Arizona all of the momentum necessary to pull off that NLDS upset in sweeping fashion.
In 39 career postseason appearances, Kershaw now has a 4.49 ERA—more than two full runs worse than his career 2.48 ERA during the regular season. And now we wait to find out whether he's going to retire on that sour note or come back for one more season.
Compared to Kershaw's lone postseason appearance, Corbin Burnes (2021 NL Cy Young winner) allowing four earned runs in four innings of work was pretty solid. But unlike Kershaw, Burnes was staked to a 3-0 lead before giving up three home runs in the span of five Diamondbacks batters, flipping that entire wild-card series on its ear in the blink of an eye.
Max Scherzer (2013 AL Cy Young winner; 2016-17 NL Cy Young winner) didn't exactly have his A-game either, allowing five earned runs in four innings against Texas this past Wednesday.
In Scherzer's case, though, we're talking about a guy who hadn't pitched in five weeks because of a shoulder injury. Frankly, it's impressive he was able to go four innings when the Rangers previously thought he wouldn't pitch at all in the postseason. Still, like both Kershaw and Burnes, he was on the mound when the series started to turn in favor of the opposing team.
At least Justin Verlander (2011, 2019 and 2022 AL Cy Young winner) has pitched well, giving the Astros a pair of quality starts. But it has been tough sledding for the guys who were at one point (or multiple points) voted the best pitcher in the National League.
Winner: Relief Pitching Through the First 27 Games
9 of 10
So, here's a wild stat: Through the first 27 games of this postseason, there had been 43 holds, 17 saves and only one blown save. The lone misstep came when Philadelphia's Jeff Hoffman served up a two-run home run to Austin Riley in Game 2 of the NLDS against Atlanta.
During the regular season, there were 2,506 holds, 1,241 saves and 738 blown saves in 2,430 games played. That's an average of 1.85 save situations per game* with a blown save rate of 16.5 percent.
With the additional micro-managing that takes place in October, there were 2.26 save situations per game through this past Wednesday, but with a minuscule blown save rate of just 1.6 percent.
It's more than just the saves, though.
Overall, postseason relief appearances had resulted in a 2.85 ERA, compared to 4.17 during the regular season.
Aside from the aforementioned blown save by Hoffman and one meaningless run allowed by Gregory Soto in the 7-1 wild-card-round-clinching victory over Miami, the Phillies bullpen had been nearly flawless through eight games, allowing just three runs in 24.2 innings pitched, good for an ERA of 1.09.
Texas' hadn't been anywhere near as great from top to bottom, but Jose Leclerc, Josh Sborz and Cody Bradford had combined for 16.2 innings with just one run allowed.
Arizona's one-two punch of Kevin Ginkel and Paul Sewald was at 8.1 scoreless innings pitched.
And even with a four-run dud from Hector Neris—unexpected, given his 1.71 ERA during the regular season—Houston's bullpen had been mighty good with a 3.00 ERA, a 0.81 WHIP and a 12.3 K/9 in its first 27.0 innings.
Through 16 days of postseason baseball, relievers were winning in almost every key moment.
*Assuming that all blown saves actually were save situations as opposed to cases where a reliever entered the game with a big enough lead to not qualify as a save, and then completely imploded. There were probably only a couple of those in the entire season, though.
Loser: Relief Pitching in the Past 72 Hours
10 of 10
After more than two weeks in which only one save was blown and in which relievers as a whole had a sub-3.00 ERA, the wheels completely came off on Thursday and Friday for four blown saves in the span of four games.
25 relievers combined for 35.1 innings pitched, allowing 20 earned runs (5.09 ERA) on 36 hits and 24 walks (1.70 WHIP).
Arizona's Andrew Saalfrank couldn't buy a strike in either of his appearances, walking five batters while recording just two outs between Games 3 and 4 of the NLCS. Philadelphia's Orion Kerkering was even worse, blowing the save in Game 3 and almost blowing it in Game 4, allowing three hits and two walks in just 0.1 IP.
But the biggest offenders were Craig Kimbrel and José Leclerc.
Kimbrel had allowed just one hit and two walks in his first four innings of work this postseason, but he gave up two of each in Game 3, allowing Ketel Marte to get the walk-off hit in the bottom of the ninth inning. And then in the eighth inning of Game 4, he allowed pinch hitter Alec Thomas to hit the game-tying home run. Kimbrel let two more runners reach base before finally getting pulled, one of whom came around to score the game-winning run.
Kimbrel had not been charged with a postseason loss since 2010, but he took the L in both games for the Phillies as Arizona evened up the series.
In between Kimbrel's implosions, Leclerc fumbled one away for the Rangers, who now need to win two more games in Houston if they want to make the World Series.
Jose Altuve delivered the knockout blow with his three-run home run. But the Rock Bottom before that People's Elbow was the walk Leclerc issued to pinch hitter Jon Singleton. The man hit .165 during the regular season and had made just 12 plate appearances since the beginning of September—none of them in the postseason. But Singleton didn't even take the bat off his shoulder, looking at all six pitches before walking down to first base.
Just like that, the narrative of bullpen dominance fueling these postseason runs went up in smoke.
Can't wait to find out what other late-inning drama awaits down the stretch now that the dam has been broken.
.png?w=480)
