For the record, this essay is emphatically not a prediction.
Nor is it an exercise in pointing out the obvious flaws of a team that ultimately went on to win a World Series, forcing me to cook duck and creating the ability to cause generational drama in the Bronx by simply uttering the phrase “Fifth inning.”
There’s bean footage, and then there is bean footage. For the record, you can see the original title I gave that infamous 2024 prediction essay before Eric Stephen threw me under the figurative
bus.
There’s a funny side effect from being present at the last game of the 2025 season, which was generally hailed as one of the best baseball games ever played: I find myself blissfully calm at the upcoming proceedings. Having the ability to cue the Rojas homer or the final outs on command from my phone does wonders for both my mental health and self-esteem.
Just one more time for the road, I promise.
That footage is better than some vitamins, I say. Will the Dodgers repeat for a second year over the month? I have no earthly idea. It’d be nice.
To paraphrase one of my favorite ad campaigns from the early 2000s: that’s bliss, baby. Now, I suddenly want bad tea.
I can see how the Dodgers would prevail next month — just do 2025 but better. I’m looking at you, Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernandez, Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy, Andy Pages, and Tommy Edman. If Kyle Tucker is the answer, then my God, what is the question?
Conversely, I can see how the team would fall flat on their face. You did too; it was called the Summer Swoon. What if everyone I just mentioned plus Shohei Ohtani couldn’t hit water from a boat? That failure, especially with runners in scoring position, would likely do it.
Jacob Macofsky wrote a lovely essay worth your time on the happier side of things as a palate cleanser.
But if I give the upcoming tournament much thought, and you were inclined not to join me in my state of relative bliss, there are only two situations that would probably annoy me, much less anger me.
Scenario One: The Padres win it all
That’s it. Any other National League winner elicits no reaction from me apart from “Oh. Neat.” Maybe the Cubs; I did just gag a little.
Don’t get me wrong. I was quite annoyed when I had to live in a universe where the San Francisco Giants won a World Series. Then they did it again…and again…and have been irrelevant ever since, so it got better. My annoyance at a hypothetical Padres title does not rise to the level of agita I just described.
It’s just that the Padres have beclowned themselves at just about every opportunity when they have had actual expectations placed on them.
Expectations that the Padres would make a deep playoff run after finally besting the Dodgers in 2022? Nope, as apparently the job was done and the Dodgers’ failure was made worse when Philadelphia romped to the Fall Classic with modest effort.
Expectations that the Padres were going to win the NL West in 2023? Nope, as the team evacuated its figurative baseball bowels promptly, thoroughly, and repeatedly.
Expectations that the Padres would win the 2024 NLDS, likely costing Dave Roberts his job? Nope, as the Padres’ offense decided to go on holiday, not scoring for 23 innings to conclude the proceedings.
At this point, that team is practically daring me and others to pick it for a deep playoff run, potentially setting up a Dodgers-Padres NLCS.
I’m not falling for this bit again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on both of us. Fool me four times, get a new hobby.
Honestly, it’s not animus towards the city of San Diego or its ballpark. It’s nice, on both counts.
It’s this current group of players who are as unlikeable and obnoxious as any bunch I can recall. The funny thing is that if they had actually done anything to justify the attitude, I would accept it as the winner’s prerogative.
Since they haven’t won anything, it’s just obnoxious.
Yes, they have been playing well in September, and their bullpen is formidable. I wanted the Dodgers to trade for Mason Miller last year. I even went to Sutter Health Park on his bobblehead day to get both the bobblehead and art for the subsequent Guide entry. Oh well.
The Padres have to get past the Cubs, which is an oddly compelling matchup that could easily fill a five-game or even seven-game series. Alas, it’s only three games as an amuse-bouche.
We don’t need extra playoffs; we need to savor what we have.
Seeing the Padres send the Cubs packing would likely be quite satisfying. In some respects, I am honestly rooting for every game to go to extra innings, and if a wayward meteor or an errant probe looking for whales happened by, who is to complain?
The just reward of that hypothetical Padres’ victory is that the Brewers are waiting, looming, if not salivating, for the winner. Most likely, the Padres’ dreams are smashed in Cream City, but not until giving the Brewers all that they can handle.
Scenario Two: Summer Swoon Coda
The Dodgers’ pitching core should be elite. Yes, the bullpen has seen better days, but this time of year is when the usual characters of Blake Treinen are out, and Justin Wrobleski and Roki Sasaki are in.
If we’re being honest, and the Dodgers themselves were being honest, they would probably admit they are either going to win it all again or flop out right quick.
The problem with a best-of-five series is that all the benefits of depth are essentially negated. In a long enough series, the Dodgers should eventually beat just about anyone in the field. In a five-game series, the margin for error shrinks that much quicker.
I’ve been to Atlanta and Philadelphia. Those venues will be rocking if there is any sense of blood in the water, if the veneer of Dodger invincibility is scraped away.
Speaking of someone who has looked quite mortal since mid-August, Shohei Ohtani was eventually put on the injured list this September. Since his return, apart from one game, he hasn’t looked quite like himself.
He’s looked and hit better than Freddie Freeman, who didn’t sit for ten days in a gambit that has all but backfired at this point, but that observation really isn’t saying much.
- Freeman (20 games): .184/.259/.224. 14 for 76, 6 R, HR, 7 RBI, 6 BB, 23 K, 4 GIDP
- Ohtani (5 games): .238/.273/.286. 5 for 21, 2B, RBI, 1 BB, 8 K
Now, however unlikely, if the Dodgers reenact either 2022 (flopping after one victory) or 2023 (getting swept meekly), I would be modestly disappointed.
Reenacting 2021 (sputtering out in the LCS) wouldn’t raise my hackles, because sometimes a team either just sputters out or runs into a better team.
The Brewers are better and healthier than they were last year. Maybe it’s finally their year? Who’s to say? I swear that Pat Murphy’s faux-meek act is long past its expiration date, but specific analysis of the Brewers is a topic for a later day.
But it better not be the Padres’ year, unless they flop to the Tampa Bay Rays or, God forbid, some other AL team. I specifically think of a team that backed into the postseason with a non-winning record and somehow has a cakewalk path to the ALCS if Cleveland and Chicago play to expectations.
A Padres/Astros World Series would be 2002 Redux, and sequels and remakes are generally worse than the original. But doomsday scenarios aside, the above is how I learned to love the upcoming tournament.
11 victories from Los Angeles seal immortality. Let the games begin!
