Before we can get going on predicting the field and the round-by-round results for the 2024 MLB playoffs, a two-part disclaimer is in order.

For one, the Arizona Diamondbacks began last year with a 1.2 percent chance of making it to the World Series, according to FanGraphs. And for two, the Texas Rangers had a 2.0 percent chance of winning the World Series.

In other words, the predictions I'm about to make will almost certainly not come true.

Still, projecting the MLB postseason is never not fun. This exercise is permissible simply on those grounds, and then there's the argument that it's a semi-useful way to get the lay of the land with the season set to begin Thursday.

So, here's how this is going to work: Projected playoff fields for the American League and National League come first, followed by picks for the Wild Card Series, Division Series, Championship Series and, finally, the World Series.

I mostly played the odds in selecting which teams I think will make the playoffs, but both those picks and my playoff picks also abided by a rule that should always apply to predictions this time of year: It's better to try to be interesting than to try to be right.

Let's get to it.

American League Playoff Picks and Seeds

Predicting the AL Playoff Field

1. Houston Astros (AL West Champions)*
2. Minnesota Twins (AL Central Champions)*
3. Baltimore Orioles (AL East Champions)
4. Seattle Mariners (Wild Card 1)
5. Toronto Blue Jays (Wild Card 2)
6. Texas Rangers (Wild Card 3)

*First-round byes.

Why These Teams?

The Astros and Twins are the layup picks here.

Both are heavily favored to win their divisions at FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus, and it should help that both teams' schedules are on the easy side. The Twins, especially, should have as many as four punching bags lined up in the AL Central.

For the Orioles, not having Kyle Bradish and John Means in their rotation for the start of the season or Félix Bautista in their bullpen for the whole year isn't conducive to another 100-win season. But especially once they promote Jackson Holliday, they still stand to be the most balanced team in the AL East.

As to the other contender in that neck of the woods, the Blue Jays are the safest bet for a 90-ish-win season. They're bringing back what was an elite pitching staff in 2023, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. made it that much easier to be bullish on him by hitting .463 this spring.

The Mariners are also a solid bet for a 90-ish-win season after spending the winter renovating their offense. The Rangers could struggle to get there after effectively punting on the first half, but no team is better positioned to surge in the second half than they are.

Most Notable Omission

The New York Yankees, obviously.

They could be elite if they avoid injury trouble, but that beast has already swallowed Gerrit Cole and DJ LeMahieu and it remains a threat to consume Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Carlos Rodón, Marcus Stroman and Nestor Cortes.

National League Playoff Picks and Seeds

Predicting the NL Playoff Field

1. Atlanta (NL East Champions)*
2. Los Angeles Dodgers (NL West Champions)*
3. Cincinnati Reds (NL Central Champions)
4. Philadelphia Phillies (Wild Card 1)
5. Arizona Diamondbacks (Wild Card 2)
6. Chicago Cubs (Wild Card 3)

*First-round byes.

Why These Teams?

Well, obviously Atlanta and the Dodgers are going to be the top two seeds in the National League.

They give off deafening superteam vibes and they have the two easiest schedules among NL teams, to boot. Both are likely to cross the 100-win threshold, though I favor Atlanta to simply hit its way to the superior record.

As for the Reds, let's just say that this enterprise had to contain at least one chaos pick. And after a 20-win swing from 2022 to 2023, the Reds are this year's best bet to pull off an Orioles-like ascension to first place.

For their parts, the Phillies and Diamondbacks share the slightly dubious yet still notable distinction of "Best Team That's Probably Not Finishing Higher than 2nd Place." But kudos to the D-backs for fortifying themselves against a third-place finish with an 11th-hour deal with Jordan Montgomery.

The Cubs are a 95-win team in the best-case scenario, yet they strike me as more of a high-floor team than a high-ceiling team. But if they so much as get to 85 wins, that could be good enough.

Most Notable Omission

Let's call it a tie between the San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres.

Both bolstered their playoff chances with recent ace additions, with the Padres scoring Dylan Cease and the Giants answering by signing Blake Snell. The two of them nonetheless still have stars-and-scrubs rosters, and the "scrubs" element could be a pitfall for both.

AL Wild Card Round

Texas Rangers (6) vs. Baltimore Orioles (3)

The Rangers made quick work of the Orioles in the Division Series last year, sweeping them in three games while holding their offense to a .689 OPS and 11 runs.

And that was without Jacob deGrom, who should be back from Tommy John surgery in the second half of this year. He stands to serve as a counter for Corbin Burnes in Game 1 of a rematch, which would even out an advantage that might otherwise belong to Baltimore.

Otherwise, I'll take a fully healthy Rangers lineup (now featuring Wyatt Langford!) over what the Orioles are packing offensively. If the choice is between a jack-of-all-trades offense and a home run-hitting offense, always take the latter in the playoffs.

Rangers in 3

Toronto Blue Jays (5) vs. Seattle Mariners (4)

Here's another rematch, albeit one of a series that took place in the Wild Card Series back in 2022. The Mariners rode an epic comeback in Game 2 to a sweep that one.

Seattle's pitching staff has only gotten deeper since then, to a point where it would be the best in baseball if it were at full strength. That will be the case whenever Bryan Woo, Matt Brash and Gregory Santos get and stay healthy, and none of the three is majorly injured.

We're otherwise looking at two flawed offensive teams here, but the Blue Jays more so. Their hope is that aging versions of George Springer and Justin Turner support Guerrero and Bo Bichette, and it only goes so far.

Mariners in 2

NL Wild Card Round

Chicago Cubs (6) vs. Cincinnati Reds (3)

How about this for a battle between opposites?

The Cubs are likely to be a run-prevention juggernaut with a good enough offense. If all goes well, the Reds will be a run-production juggernaut—FanGraphs projects them to rank third in the NL in scoring behind Atlanta and Los Angeles—with merely good enough pitching.

What could tip such a matchup is Great American Ball Park, which doesn't care how good a given team is at run prevention. As all three games would be played there in this scenario, that edge would go to the Reds.

Reds in 3

Arizona Diamondbacks (5) vs. Philadelphia Phillies (4)

Here we have another rematch, and one that would presumably have the Phillies entering with a bigger chip on their shoulder.

After all, they were basically a good closer short of handily defeating the Diamondbacks in the NLCS last year. The Snakes capitalized when they needed to and all that, but it really did feel like the better team lost.

A cosmic correction would thus be in order for this series, and it's easy enough to believe the Phillies would get the job done. The aforementioned not-good closer is gone now, whereas what remains are one of MLB's best lineups and pitching staffs.

Phillies in 3

AL Division Series Round

Texas Rangers (6) vs. Minnesota Twins (2)

Here's a probably underrated aspect about the Twins: They might be the best bet of any American League team to hang with the Rangers in a slugfest.

The Twins hit exactly as many home runs (233) as the Rangers last season, and that was without fully functional versions of Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton or a full season's worth of Royce Lewis. In 2024, the three of them stand to propel this offense to still greater heights.

That's one reason to suspect the Twins could win this matchup, with two more being home-field advantage and the Rangers not being able to lead with deGrom as a result of him having gone first in the Wild Card Series.

Twins in 4

Seattle Mariners (4) vs. Houston Astros (1)

Here's another rematch from 2022, when the Mariners got swept by the Astros in the Division Series even though they played them as tough as possible. All three games were decided by two or fewer runs.

Houston's offense has, if anything, only gotten better since then. But the opposite is true of these two pitching staffs, as even a healthy Justin Verlander wouldn't elevate the Astros rotation above that of a Seattle unit led by Luis Castillo, George Kirby and Logan Gilbert.

Plus, let's not underestimate the law of averages. The Astros are already the only team in history to make it as far as the LCS seven years in a row. Dare I say that the more unprecedented a streak is, the likelier it is to end?

Mariners in 5

NL Division Series Round

Cincinnati Reds (3) vs. Los Angeles Dodgers (2)

This playoff matchup would have been a big deal back in the 1970s, but in this day and age it would be more like a David vs. Goliath thing. The Reds' and Dodgers' projected 2024 payrolls rank eighth and 25th, respectively.

As dangerous as the Reds could be offensively, the Dodgers should be on a whole 'nother level if Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Shohei Ohtani, who's maintaining his innocence amid the Ippei Mizuhara gambling probe, stick together. They have four MVP awards between them and would have combined for 20.8 rWAR as teammates in 2023.

Otherwise, a key difference between the 2023 Dodgers and the 2024 Dodgers concerns pitching depth. The former basically ran out of it, whereas the latter should only experience gains in that department.

Dodgers in 3

Philadelphia Phillies (4) vs. Atlanta (1)

The Phillies and Atlanta in the Division Series? It's not quite a tale as old as time, but it would make it 3-for-3 in the span consisting of 2022, 2023 and 2024.

The Phillies emerged victorious in each of the first two largely because they shut down Atlanta's offense. They held it to a .594 OPS in '22 and then a .519 OPS in '23, the latter of which was an especially stunning development after all the history Atlanta's offense had made in the regular season.

To this extent, the ol' law of averages would seem to bode well for Atlanta in a potential rematch. And given that his trajectory is pointed even higher after the spring he had, I'm inclined to believe Spencer Strider would be the best pitcher on either side.

Atlanta in 4

AL Championship Series

Seattle Mariners (4) vs. Minnesota Twins (2)

Something would have to give here. The Mariners have yet to make it to the World Series in 47 seasons of existence, while the Twins last got there in 1991.

Looking at the odds as they stand doesn't do me much good as far as picking the winner of this prospective matchup. For FanGraphs, these two clubs have basically equal odds of making it to the World Series.

Yet there is a perspective that favors the Twins. At full health, their pitching staff is nearly on par with that of the Mariners, if not altogether actually on par with. And they undoubtedly have a deeper, more powerful offense.

What the two offenses figure to have in common, however, is a tendency to swing and miss. Twins hitters ranked first in strikeout rate in 2023, while Mariners hitters ranked second. In a short series, whichever pitching staff gets more whiffs could be the deciding factor.

The Twins were better there last year in terms of strikeout percentage, but the two clubs were equal in raw whiff rate. And the Mariners did that in a much tougher division.

I therefore find myself leaning toward them, which is to say nothing of how this franchise is more than overdue to play in a Fall Classic.

Mariners in 6

NL Championship Series

Los Angeles Dodgers (2) vs. Atlanta (1)

On some level, isn't this the NLCS matchup we all want to see? These are the two most star-studded teams in MLB, and ones who can both claim to have unfinished business.

The Dodgers' quest to become a proper dynasty won't truly be realized until they finally win a full-season World Series. For its part, Atlanta should probably have more than one title to show for its recent run of six straight playoff berths.

Given the offensive firepower both clubs are packing, an NLCS matchup would have the potential to mirror the run-scoring bonanza that took place between these two teams in the 2020 NLCS. They combined for 72 runs in the seven games.

Yet whereas Atlanta's pitching looks superior now, whether that will remain true hinges on Chris Sale and Charlie Morton holding up. It's an iffy proposition, as Sale is a 34-year-old with a cluttered injury history and Morton will be pushing 41 by year's end.

Whereas Atlanta is lacking in readily available reinforcements, there's a perfect-world scenario in which the Dodgers have Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Bobby Miller and Walker Buehler and Clayton Kershaw and Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin come October.

Or, enough arms to withstand even Atlanta's offense.

Dodgers in 6

World Series

Seattle Mariners (4) vs. Los Angeles Dodgers (2)

This, friends, would be a David vs. Goliath matchup of a different sort.

In one corner: the Mariners, with zero World Series appearances to date. And in the other: the Dodgers, who've appeared in 26 Fall Classics and won seven of them.

The Dodgers would almost certainly be favored to win this matchup if it were to come to fruition. They would have home-field advantage, and it's otherwise hard to argue that they wouldn't have an ample offensive edge.

The Mariners' best hope would be in dulling that edge as much as possible, and the best way to do that would be to go right at Dodgers' hitters. They traditionally don't expand the zone, and that much doesn't figure to be different in 2024.

This is more doable than you might think. Because in 2023, the only team whose pitching was more effective in the strike zone than Seattle's was that of the Tampa Bay Rays. And unlike the Rays, the Mariners aren't missing any core members of last year's group.

This might come off as weak justification for an upset, but the general concept of a mighty offense falling prey to great pitching is hardly unheard of. Like with Atlanta, the Dodgers know just from the last two postseasons that it can indeed happen.

What I'm trying to say here is this: Congratulations in advance to the Mariners.

Mariners in 7

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.