We're just over one week away from finalizing the Major League Baseball playoff field for the 2026 season, but we're starting to get a pretty good idea. There have been four clinchers so far, as we know the Rays and Yankees are playoff-bound, while the Brewers and Dodgers have won their respective divisions. Let's have a little fun here and not only predict how the playoff field will look, but take it a step further and predict each round as well.
We did this last week, but things happened in the ensuing days and some things are different now. Aaron Judge leaving the Yankees' game on Wednesday has me nervous enough that I'm not going to put the Yankees ahead of the Rays for the one seed. Also, the Guardians winning the series over the White Sox changed things in the AL Central and though the White Sox are reeling pretty badly right now, they'll still hold onto a playoff berth.
In the AL West, no one is impressive but the Astros are the best of the sorry bunch. That leaves us lined up like so (note that the Red Sox are going to have the third-best record in the league and be stuck at the five seed due to the divisional imbalance this season): 1. White Sox Over on the National League side, six of the nine remaining Dodgers games come against the Giants, and they'll dominate those enough to jump over the Brewers for the best record in baseball.
The Braves have moved enough away from the Phillies that I'll keep them as the NL East winner this week and that demotes the Phillies down to the second wild-card spot. 1. Padres The Diamondbacks still finish with three games against the Padres, so they've got a shot, but I'm sticking with San Diego. As a reminder, the Wild Card Series is a three-game series with all three in the same venue, hosted by the better seed.
The Yankees' offense without a fully functional Judge hibernates at times, and it'll cost them against a very good Red Sox pitching staff. As for the other series, the White Sox have just run out of gas. The Phillies don't have enough depth to deal with the injury concerns in the rotation, not to mention Cristopher Sánchez's struggles of late.
The Cubs' offense is too good for whatever the Phillies run out there. Also, I love the Padres in a short series here where they'll lose to Chris Sale in Game 1 but take Games 2 and 3 in Atlanta. Next up is the divisional round, a best-of-five.
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