Current:Home > MarketsMLB playoff predictions: Who is the World Series favorite? Our expert picks. -GrowthProspect
MLB playoff predictions: Who is the World Series favorite? Our expert picks.
View
Date:2025-04-15 23:16:40
After a thrilling wild-card round, Major League Baseball's playoffs resume Saturday with the best-of-five Division Series getting underway.
The LDS winners advance to their respective best-of-seven League Championship Series. Should the LCS's both end by Oct. 19 − meaning neither series lasts longer than five games under the current schedule − the World Series will begin on Oct. 22, with a potential Game 7 coming on Oct. 30.
Eight teams remain. Who will be the last team standing?
The only thing we know for certain this October is that a new team will be crowned champion with the 2023 defending World Series champion Texas Rangers not in the postseason.
Here's how USA TODAY Sports' baseball writers and editors see the rest of the postseason shaking out:
Follow every MLB game: Latest MLB scores, stats, schedules and standings.
Bob Nightengale
- ALDS winners: Yankees, Guardians
- NLDS winners: Phillies, Padres
- AL champion: Yankees
- NL champion: Padres
- World Series winner: Padres – Mark your calendars. San Diego will defeat the Yankees in a rematch of the 1998 World Series.
Gabe Lacques
- ALDS winners: Royals, Guardians
- NLDS winners: Phillies, Padres
- AL champion: Guardians
- NL champion: Padres
- World Series winner: Padres – Rotation, bullpen, lineup - nobody's better in all three phases
Steve Gardner
- ALDS winners: Yankees, Guardians
- NLDS winners: Phillies, Padres
- AL champion: Yankees
- NL champion: Phillies
- World Series winner: Phillies – The Phillies still have the core of the team that fell just short against Houston two years ago largely intact. They’ll get the job done this time. Phillies in 6
Jesse Yomtov
- ALDS winners: Yankees, Guardians
- NLDS winners: Phillies, Padres
- AL champion: Yankees
- NL champion: Phillies
- World Series winner: Phillies – Third time will be the charm after Bryce Harper and the Phillies have come up short the past two years
Scott Boeck
- ALDS winners: Yankees, Guardians
- NLDS winners: Phillies, Padres
- AL champion: Yankees
- NL champion: Padres
- World Series: Padres – This one's for Peter Seidler, the former team owner who passed away last November. He brought Manny Machado to San Diego to deliver the city its first championship in franchise history.
Steve Gardner
- ALDS winners: Guardians, Yankees
- NLDS winners: Padres, Phillies
- AL champion: Yankees
- NL champion: Phillies
- World Series winner: Phillies – The Phillies still have the core of the team that fell just short against Houston two years ago largely intact. They’ll get the job done this time.
Steve Borelli
- ALDS winners: Yankees, Tigers
- NLDS winners: Phillies, Padres
- AL champion: Yankees
- NL champion: Phillies
- World Series winner: Phillies – In this rematch of the 2009 World Series, this time Philadelphia has the deeper, more complete team from top to bottom and is less reliant on its star players.
The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.
veryGood! (36)
Related
- The FBI should have done more to collect intelligence before the Capitol riot, watchdog finds
- FDA authorizes the first at-home test for COVID-19 and the flu
- Dakota Pipeline Protest Camp Is Cleared, at Least 40 Arrested
- High-Stakes Wind Farm Drama in Minnesota Enters Final Act
- Paige Bueckers vs. Hannah Hidalgo highlights women's basketball games to watch
- Spinal stimulation can improve arm and hand movement years after a stroke
- Surge in Mississippi River Hydro Proposals Points to Coming Boom
- Americans Increasingly Say Climate Change Is Happening Now
- Will the 'Yellowstone' finale be the last episode? What we know about Season 6, spinoffs
- 6 Ways Trump’s Denial of Science Has Delayed the Response to COVID-19 (and Climate Change)
Ranking
- Meet first time Grammy nominee Charley Crockett
- Teen girls and LGBTQ+ youth plagued by violence and trauma, survey says
- Standing Rock Leaders Tell Dakota Pipeline Protesters to Leave Protest Camp
- Some electric vehicle owners say no need for range anxiety
- Retirement planning: 3 crucial moves everyone should make before 2025
- Idaho Murder Case: Suspect Bryan Kohberger Indicted By Grand Jury
- Beyoncé single-handedly raised a country's inflation
- Coal’s Steep Decline Keeps Climate Goal Within Reach, Report Says
Recommendation
A South Texas lawmaker’s 15
One Direction's Liam Payne Shares He's More Than 100 Days Sober
U.S. Marine arrested in firebombing of Planned Parenthood clinic in California
Alfonso Ribeiro’s 4-Year-Old Daughter Undergoes Emergency Surgery After Scooter Accident
Rylee Arnold Shares a Long
Rob Kardashian Makes Rare Comment About Daughter Dream Kardashian
Coronavirus ‘Really Not the Way You Want To Decrease Emissions’
ICN Expands Summer Journalism Institute for Teens