As the 162 game regular season comes to a close, the postseason begins. Teams like the Braves,  the Dodgers, the Rays, the Orioles, & the Phillies are some of the biggest favorites going into October. Over the last 5 years, 6 out of the last 20 teams that have made the Championship Series have been Wildcard teams showing that anybody can make a run when given the chance. A great example of this was the 2022 Philadelphia Phillies. The Phils didn’t clinch their postseason berth until October 3rd, 2022 and were a wildcard team (#6 NL seed) but got hot at the right time, making it to game 6 of the World Series. This year there are a couple of candidates who could do the same thing. In this article I will give my top 4 teams who can make a deep postseason run. 

1. Milwaukee Brewers: I have heard NO ONE make any noise about Milwaukee’s chances at the World Series, which is very confusing to me looking at how they’ve played so far in 2023. The Milwaukee Brewers currently have the best team ERA, a top 10 bullpen ERA, and have been a very good offense in the month of September. The Brewers clinched the NL Central September 26th, guaranteeing them home field in the wildcard series. If Milwaukee clears the hurdle that is the wildcard series they could be a very hard team to stop with all the momentum they have offensively and their elite pitching staff. 

2. Arizona Diamondbacks: The Diamondbacks have a very tough matchup against Milwaukee but nothing is impossible in October. The snakes have a really good 1-2 punch at the front of their rotation and an offense that will nag at you for 9 straight innings when on. They lack pop which could hurt them but with the way they run the bases they could easily produce runs on the basepath to make up for the lack of homeruns. 

3. Minnesota Twins: The Twins do two of the most important things in postseason baseball very well; hit the long ball and pitch well. Pitching is a constant in the best baseball teams/World Series winners and the Twins have it. As far as homeruns go, there is a saying in baseball for the postseason, “Ball go far, team go far”. When you’re looking to push across just a few runs a game, that one big hit truly makes the difference and the long ball surely is a big hit. 

4. Miami Marlins: The Marlins are one of the best hitting teams in the league and have a solid pitching staff. With them playing the Phillies round 1 they need to out-slug the Phillies to even have a chance. The pitching staff is not good enough to keep them in games with Philly but if the bats get to work they could shock a lot of people by knocking them out. Out of all the teams I think they have the smallest chance to make a run but like I mentioned earlier; nothing is impossible in October.

At the end of the day whether my predictions come to fruition or not  I just hope to watch some good postseason baseball to close out the 2023 season. Hopefully everyone enjoys the postseason and gets the outcome they’re looking for.