The X-Factor In Each Wild Card Series

The Wild Card Series start today—two in the American League and two in the National League. Each series is a best-of-three and all games will be played Tuesday, Wednesday, and if necessary, Thursday in the home ballpark of the higher-ranked team. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the schedule looks like this.

If one or more teams wins their Wild Card Series in the first two games, but others do not, the times for the Thursday games may change.

In a short three-game series, anything can happen, given the overall randomness of baseball. That’s why I shy away from making predictions.

Instead, I’ve identified an X-factor for each team that could make the difference in the Wild Card Series. What do I mean by X-factor? Some tendency, some statistic, some history lurking just below the surface that can tell us which team in each series might have the advantage.

Texas Rangers at Tampa Bay Ray

This series features two teams that led their divisions for a good part of the season but now find themselves facing off in a best-of-three Wild Card series. The Rays fell behind the Orioles in the AL East in July. The Rangers held strong in the AL West until late August, fell into second place, then third, and then fought their way back to the top, only to tumble in the last week.

The Rays have the edge in pitching. The Rangers have the edge in hitting, given the injuries to the Rays’ second baseman Brandon Lowe and outfielders José Siri and Luke Raley.

Here are my X-factors:

• Will the Rangers’ starters go deep?

The Rangers’ bullpen has been a mess all season, as I wrote at the end of August. Indeed, Texas relievers Aroldis Chapman and Jonathan Hernandez cost the Rangers the American League West division title by melting down in the 9th inning last Thursday against the Mariners.

The key for the Rangers, then, is for their starters to pitch deep in the games and limit the number of innings the bullpen needs to cover. The announced starter for Game 1 is Jordan Montgomery, whom the Rangers acquired at the trade deadline from the St. Louis Cardinals. Montgomery averaged just under 6 innings per start this season. That might not be enough. Texas has not set a starter for Game 2 yet.

• Will the Rays get postseason Randy Arozarena?

Rays’ left fielder Randy Arozarena loves the big moments. In 31 postseason games across his four MLB seasons, Arozarena’s hit .333/.417/.705 with 11 home runs. His 1.211 OPS is fourth-highest in the Wild Card Era among players with at least 50 postseason plate appearances. First on that list is Barry Bonds. That’s a pretty good list to be on.

This season, Arozarena hit .254/.364/.425 with 23 home runs. That translated into a 126 wRC+, 11th-best among qualified American League hitters. That’s very good, but it’s not postseason-Arozarena good. The Rays might very well need the postseason version to get past the Rangers.

Toronto Blue Jays at Minnesota Twins

Did the Blue Jays luck out by losing two out of three to the Rays in the last series of the season and landing in the third Wild Card spot? As the No. 3 team, the Blue Jays face off against the AL Central division winner Twins, a team that went 87-75. Had the Blue Jays nabbed the second spot, they would have faced the Rays, who won 99 games.

These teams are fairly evenly matched. Both have excellent and healthy starting pitching and bullpens. Both have good, but inconsistent offenses.

Here are my X-factors:

• Will we see September Vladimir Guerrero Jr.?

The Blue Jays young first baseman suffered through a power outage most of the season. After slugging .491 in April, Guerrero’s power dropped continuously month-over-month until it hit a low of .394 in August. In September, Guerrero rebounded to hit 6 home runs and notch a .479 slugging. In a typical Blue Jays lineup, Guerrero hits third behind George Springer and Bo Bichette. They hit more for average than power. If Springer and Bichette set the table, the Blue Jays will need Guerrero to put big numbers on the scoreboard.

• Will Carlos Correa and Royce Lewis be effective?

Twins shortstop Carlos Correa has been hampered by plantar fasciitis most of the season and hasn’t played a game since September 18. Rookie third baseman Royce Lewis hasn’t played since September 19 due to a hamstring injury. Both players are on the Twins Wild Card roster and in the starting lineup for Game 1.

Correa’s the veteran with the postseason experience, but Lewis is more important to the Twins lineup. The rookie slashed .309/.372/.548 over 58 games this season with 15 home runs—4 of which were grand slams. Among American League rookies with 200+ plate appearances, Lewis has the highest wRC+ (155). Two other Twins rookies are second and third on that list—Matt Wallner and Edouard Julien.

Arizona Diamondbacks v. Milwaukee Brewers

The Diamondbacks have two of the best starters in the National League in Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly. The Brewers have two of the best starters in the NL in Corbin Burnes and Freddy Peralta. But the Diamondbacks needed Gallen and Kelly down the stretch, so Gallen won’t pitch until Game 2 with Kelly going in Game 3, if the series gets that far. Burnes will pitch Game 1 for the Brewers.

The Brewers suffered a big blow when starter Brandon Woodruff reinjured his right shoulder. Woodruff won’t pitch in the Wild Card Series, putting veteran starter Wade Miley in line for either Game 2 or 3.

Neither team is an offensive powerhouse. Both ended the season with a team wRC+ below 100 (meaning worse than league average). The Brewers have an edge on defense. Milwaukee’s is the best in MLB as measured by FanGraphs dWAR.

• Can the Brewers stop the Diamondbacks’ running game?

For all their defensive prowess, the Brewers are below average in holding runners on and throwing runners out. This season, catcher William Contreras threw out only 17% of runners trying to steal either second or third base despite a better than average pop time of 1.95 seconds.

The D’Backs recorded the second-most stolen bases in MLB this season, with 166. Rookie outfielder Corbin Carroll led the team with 54. If Carroll can get on base, he will run wild on Contreras.

• Will postseason experience matter?

The Diamondbacks last played in the postseason in 2017—and lost the Division Series to the Dodgers in three games. Ketel Marte and Christian Walker are the only holdovers from that team. Veterans Evan Longoria and Tommy Pham have postseason experience, but Longoria typically comes off the bench. Pham has been the D’Back’s DH since the team acquired him at the trade deadline.

The Brewers, on the other hand, played in the postseason in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. Burnes, Peralta and Miley have all pitched in October, as has closer Devin Williams. Among the position players, Christian Yellich, Willy Adames, Rowdy Tellez, Mark Canha, William Contreras, and Carlos Santana have taken at-bats in critical win-or-go-home games.

Miami Marlins at Philadelphia Phillies

Just last week, I did a deep dive on the Phillies and declared them ready to romp through the postseason again. But this first series against the Marlins will not be easy for the Phillies. The Marlins won the season series 7-6. I think the teams are more evenly matched than other analysts do.

Here are my X-factors:

• How the pitch clock will affect the Phillies’ Game 1 and 2 starters, Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola, and Phillies closer, Craig Kimbrel?

Wheeler and Nola are two of the slowest starting pitchers in the majors, as measured by Statcast’s Pitch Tempo stat. Kimbrel is one of the slowest relief pitchers in the game. With runners on base, Wheeler and Nola are both in the Top 15 in slowest Pitch Tempo. With the bases empty, Kimbrel is the fifth-slowest pitcher in MLB.

Statcast cautions not to confuse the pitch clock with Pitch Tempo, but the two are closely related. Pitch Tempo measures the number of seconds between releases—the clock starts when a pitcher releases Pitch 1 and stops when the pitcher releases Pitch 2 after receiving the ball back from the catcher. The pitch clock, on the other hand, starts when the pitcher receives the ball back from catcher and runs until the pitcher begins his delivery.

MLB’s goal for adding the pitch clock was to speed up the pace of play. A big part of that pace comes from how quickly pitchers work on the mound—how much time they take between pitches. And it worked. The average MLB game this season ran only 2 hours 39 minutes, 24 minutes shorter than in 2022.

But most games during the regular season don’t have the drama, the crowd noise, the tension, or the stakes of a postseason game, when each pitch, particularly in the later innings, can determine the outcome of the game.

We’ll have to watch to see if Wheeler, Nola, and Kimbrel can keep pace with the pitch clock in the biggest moments of the game.

• Can the Marlins win just by making contact?

The Marlins are not a patient team. On average, Miami batters saw 3.94 pitches per plate appearance this season. Without patience, you don’t draw a lot of walks. The Marlins have the 4th-lowest walk rate at 7.1%. But they don’t strike out a lot either—just 21.3%, good for the 7th-lowest strikeout rate in the league.

The Marlins make contact. Their 1,427 hits were 6th-most in MLB this season. On the surface, that looks good, but what kind of hits did the Marlins have?

A lot of singles.

The Marlins hit 979 singles this season, the most in the majors. But they were middle of the pack or worse in hitting doubles, triples and home runs. Which is why the scored 668 runs. Only four MLB teams scored fewer.

It’s hard to win postseason games with that kind of station-to-station offense. Especially when your opponent has 6 players in the starting lineup that hit 20+ home runs this season.

Enjoy the full slate of playoff games today.