2026 MLB Playoffs Set: Rays Top AL, Dodgers Chase Three-Peat — SkimNews
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- The Tampa Bay Rays are the AL's No. 1 seed at 98-64, with Doolittle's World Series odds at 13.3% and DraftKings listing them at +800; Jeff Passan notes they "do almost nothing poorly," including leading the AL in stolen bases and posting an MLB-best .283 with runners in scoring position.
- The Houston Astros clinched the AL West at 81-81, making them what the article calls "the Worst Team Ever to Make the Postseason" — yet Passan writes that doubting them in October is "a fool's errand" thanks to Yordan Alvarez, whom Schoenfield calls the best hitter in baseball this season by a fair margin and the likely AL MVP.
- Junior Caminero of the Rays, 23, is pegged as a likely AL MVP after back-to-back All-Star seasons and 42 home runs; Alden Gonzalez highlights his January 2025 LIDOM Game 7 walk-off — a 454-foot blast to straightaway center — as proof he "lives for the big moments."
- The Cleveland Guardians enter as the No. 2 seed at 85-77 with a team temperature of 98°, but finished 27th in MLB in home runs and have no 20-homer hitter; Parker Messick went from a spring training rotation question to All-Star and Cy Young contender, with Gonzalez calling his fastball-changeup combo "one of the best in the game."
- DraftKings odds for the AL side list the Rays at +800, Guardians at +1200, and Astros at +2500, with ALDS advance probabilities of 44.9% (Yankees) or 52.3% (Red Sox) facing Tampa Bay, and 60.1% (Astros) or 42.6% (White Sox) facing Cleveland.
- The Los Angeles Dodgers are pursuing a historic three-peat as defending champions, while the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays are both seeking their first World Series titles as top seeds.
Why it matters: With DraftKings setting live World Series lines across all 12 playoff teams, the postseason is a high-stakes stage where the Astros' historically weak 81-81 entry and the Dodgers' three-peat bid bookend the widest quality gap in recent playoff memory — five ESPN experts (Castillo, Doolittle, Gonzalez, Passan, Schoenfield) are putting their reputations on AL/NL breakdowns that will be tested nightly through October.
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