MLB playoff picture: Projected matchups, X-factors in wild-card round if season ended Monday

With about three weeks to go until the MLB playoffs begin, a few key races remain very much in flux, while others have shored up since we checked in last week. But what if the MLB regular season ended Monday?

If it did, the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers would receive first-round byes in the National League, with the Milwaukee Brewers winning the Central and the Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks nabbing wild-card spots. In the American League, the Baltimore Orioles and Houston Astros would get byes, with the Minnesota Twins winning the Central and the Toronto Blue Jays, Tampa Bay Rays and Seattle Mariners gaining wild-card berths.

The third-seeded Twins would play the Mariners (No. 6), and the Rays (No. 4) would play the Blue Jays (No. 5) in the AL wild-card games. The NL wild-card games would pit the Brewers (No. 3) against the Diamondbacks (No. 6), and the Phillies (No. 4) against the Cubs (No. 5).

Who would the potential X-factors be in these scenarios and which teams should you be watching this week? The Athletic has you covered as the 2023 MLB playoff picture continues to take shape. The potential matchups will be updated every week.

(Graphic: John Bradford / The Athletic)

Wild-card matchups: Who are the potential X-factors?

Mariners at Twins
Look, sorry, it’s just always going to be Byron Buxton for the Twins. The range of outcomes for Buxton at any given time is so wide and so fascinating that he’s the sport’s eternal X-factor. If he’s healthy and patrolling center field, he can be just as good as Julio Rodríguez on the other side. He’s played one game in center field this season, 11 days ago for the St. Paul Saints. He DH’d two days after that, and he was pulled off his rehab assignment with soreness in his knee a few days after that. The chances of Buxton hitting that ceiling, at least in 2023, are diminishing by the day. But they’re not zero just yet, and Minnesota’s chances of making a postseason run in a loaded AL improve tremendously if the Twins have their most versatile weapon.

Blue Jays at Rays
The Blue Jays have the best ERA in baseball since the All-Star break, fueled by a starting rotation nearly half a run better than second place. While Yusei Kikuchi has driven much of that, Chris Bassitt looms significantly as October nears.

Bassitt was brought in to be the Jays’ No. 3 starter behind Kevin Gausman and Alek Manoah. Instead, he’s the No. 3 behind Gausman and the resurgent Kikuchi. It’s a familiar spot for Bassitt: Last season, while billed as the third banana behind Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom in Queens, he was the season-long rock for the Mets. Late in the year, however, he came up small in his two biggest starts, losing a series finale to Atlanta that cost the Mets the division and a season finale to San Diego in the wild-card round. Two starts for a guy who’s made 155 in the majors do not constitute demons, per se, but Bassitt’s better than he showed in the spotlight last season, and the Jays need him to be.

Diamondbacks at Brewers
Provided each team can set its rotation, the first two games here are going to be absolute duels, featuring some combination of Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff against Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly. So the big advantage in the series could come with Milwaukee’s Freddy Peralta in what would be a decisive Game 3.

Two starts into the second half, Peralta’s ERA was 4.72 and Milwaukee was under .500 when he started. In eight starts since, the ERA’s 2.09 with a FIP below 2.00 and a strikeout rate in excess of 40 percent. The Brewers are 7-1 in those games. By FanGraphs’ version of WAR, only Tyler Glasnow has been more valuable as a starting pitcher in the season’s second half.

Cubs at Phillies
In the first eight days of August, Seiya Suzuki started two times and sat six. His OPS for the season was .715. Beginning with a 3-for-4 day against the Mets on Aug. 9, Suzuki has started all but three games and slashed .357/.402/.705 for an unreal 1.107 OPS. Cody Bellinger is still the linchpin to the Chicago offense, but Suzuki hitting like this — alongside Christopher Morel and Dansby Swanson and Jeimer Candelario — lengthens that lineup out.

(Graphic: John Bradford / The Athletic)

American League standings

National League standings

Most interesting race this week: AL East

The NL wild card is a perpetual push toward entropy and the AL West changes hands daily. But we’ve written about them in the recent past, and we haven’t had to say much about the Orioles and Rays for weeks. The two meet this weekend for four in Baltimore, where the O’s can put the division away.

While the Baltimore margin remains a relatively comfortable 3 1/2 games (and five in the loss column), the stakes here are enormous. The winner gets the top seed in the AL, complete with a bye and home-field advantage. (Tampa Bay happens to have the majors’ best home record, FYI.) The loser gets stuck in the wild-card round, having to face either the Blue Jays or the runner-up in the AL West. The dynamic feels a bit like last season’s NL East, when Atlanta chased down the Mets in the final week and claimed the tiebreaker with a sweep. The Rays will need to do something similar: The O’s have won six of the first nine meetings and would own the tiebreaker with just one more victory.

The Rangers righted the ship to an extent by claiming a series win over the Athletics, but they’ve otherwise been in free fall for close to a month. Texas was in position for a first-round bye in the AL bracket for 119 straight days, and after a 12-2 start to the month of August sat 3 1/2 games clear of Houston, 5 1/2 of Toronto and 7 1/2 of Seattle. All have tracked the Rangers down now, thanks to Texas’ 6-16 record since — worst in the AL for teams not named the Royals. That included last week’s absolute rout of a three-game series against the Astros, who outscored them 39-10 in Arlington.

NL series to watch: Cubs at Diamondbacks

You’ve got to wait until the weekend for the big one in the NL this week, with two teams currently in postseason position meeting in the desert. The Cubs have been one of the league’s best teams for more than three months, while Arizona rediscovered its stride in the closing days of August. Chicago has Justin Steele lined up for the series opener Friday while missing both Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly, each of whom is slated to pitch for Arizona earlier in the week against the Mets.

AL series to watch: Rangers at Blue Jays

So yeah, pretty obvious which one to pick in the AL. Texas’ last postseason appearance came in Toronto. Toronto’s only postseason series wins in the last three decades came over Texas. Now they’re playing a four-gamer for the chance to get back to the AL playoff field. The Jays have looked good of late, though no team in playoff position wouldn’t look good when the opposing slate is Washington, Colorado, Oakland and Kansas City — four of the majors’ five worst teams. The Blue Jays enter the series with a 1 1/2-game lead. A series win would put them 3 1/2 games up with the tiebreaker with 15 games to go.

Required reading

(Photo: Jerome Miron / USA Today)