Baseball’s playoffs are always unpredictable — just look back to last season when two wild-card teams faced off in the World Series — but they’ve never been more unpredictable than this season.
For the first time in a full season since 2014, it appears no team will win 100 games. The two best teams since the All-Star break haven’t been any of the current division leaders but the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks. The New York Mets and Atlanta Braves could win it all — or miss the playoffs altogether, since they’re battling for the final wild-card spot in the National League. The Kansas City Royals have the chance to become the first team to go from 100 losses to World Series champs in consecutive seasons.
With two weeks to go in the 2024 MLB regular season, let’s take stock of the 13 teams currently in best position to make the playoffs in a special edition of Real or Not. We’re breaking the teams into two groups: the favorites (based on proven success and 2024 record) and the spoilers. For the favorites, we’ll look at what issue might prevent them from winning the World Series; for the spoilers, we’ll look at why they can win it all. Then we’ll make a final verdict on each team’s ultimate chance in October.
Let’s start with the best team in the majors.
The Phillies will enter this postseason in a different position than the past two: as NL East champions for the first time since 2011, and perhaps as the overall favorite. After making it all the way to the World Series in 2022 and Game 7 of the National League Championship Series in 2023, this is a better Phillies team. That’s primarily due to a deeper pitching staff, both in the rotation with the emergence of Cristopher Sanchez and in the bullpen with the addition of closer Carlos Estevez at the trade deadline.
On offense, it’s the same cast of big names. In 2022, that group swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the wild-card series, upset the Braves in the NL Division Series and beat the Padres in the NLCS before taking a 2-1 lead over the Astros in the World Series. Through those 14 postseason games, the Phillies had slugged 22 home runs and averaged 5.1 runs per game. In Game 4 of the World Series, the Astros spun a combined no-hitter. The Phillies scored two runs in Game 5 and one run in Game 6. They hit .101 over those final three losses.
