2025 predictions of MLB playoffs: Hot-hottest Hot takes a week

We are a week in the MLB 2025 MLB qualifiers, two games that have now been played in the four games in the division series.

In the world of the small size of October baseball, it may seem that it means that we have seen enough to know a lot. But the reality for a sport that combines seasons of 162 games with the Chaos of Short Playoff series is: things can hastily change during this time of year.

As we do at the start of each regular MLB season, we asked our MLB experts to go on something they have noticed by giving us their most daring prediction for the rest of the qualifying series on the basis of what they have seen so far.

Some of our predictions are quite daring, while others have adopted a softer approach. But all of them have a chance to become hot when the World Series trophy is increased this month – or to finish the freezing cold.

The themes we will all talk about

The four division series will spend five games

The division series was introduced 30 years ago, and only once, in 2012, all four made the distance. This will happen this year – even if three of the four have already started with a 2-0 lead.

The gap among the eight pretenders in remaining qualifying series feels smaller this year than in a good time, especially with the two best, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Los Angeles Dodgers, clashed so early. The New York Yankees and Chicago Cubs are perfectly capable of winning consecutive games at home. The series between the Detroit Tigers and Seattle Mariners, which started with a split in Seattle, seems ready to extend to a fifth match. And although the phillies have their backs against the wall, after two consecutive defeats in Philadelphia, they have the capacity to take two in a row at the Dodger Stadium – Heck, they did it less than a month ago. – Alden Gonzalez

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Land will decide from October

The team that wins the World Series will be the team that has the best performance differential between launching separators and hitting them. Do I know if it will happen? Certainly not! But the proliferation of separators so far in the playoffs has been astounding.

Trumedia has pitch -type data that dates back to 2008. The percentage of classified land as separators varied from 0.2% (2016) to 3.1% (2023). So far this year: 5.7%. The main practitioners: the Blue Jays de Toronto, by far, at 25.9%, mainly thanks to Kevin Gausman and the Incredible Trey YesAvnium. By the way, they were also by far the most struck team against the separators in the regular season (.346 Woba). I guess it means that the Jays will win everything. – Bradford Dolittle

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The success of the separator in October will make it the most spoken ground in the spring

The after-season performances revealing Trey Yesavage, Kevin Gausman and Roki Sasaki will serve as jet fuel for the growing popularity of the quick shoe fingers. There was already an increasing interest in the separator throughout the 2025 season, thanks to the success of Hurston Waldrep. Then, the long came YesAsAveau and Gausman and their diving separators, neutralizing the powerful Yankees: in the first two ALDS games, New York was 0 for 22 with 13 stick withdrawals in the baths ending with a separator. The Yankees balanced the separators 39 times and missed 24 times. In a copy industry, you can bet a ton of launchers that will break the separators until next spring, as are hundreds of launchers have adopted cutters because of Mariano Rivera. – Buster Olney

The stars that shine all the playoffs

Cal Raleigh Will Outhomer All other strikers from 60 houses in the playoffs – Combined

The Slugger of the Mariners star has become the fifth player to reach the playoffs on the heels of a season of 60 Hicherms. The others?

1927 Babe Ruth: 2 hours in 4 games
1961 Roger Maris: 1 hour in 5 games
1998 Sammy Sosa: 0 hr in 3 games
2022 Aaron judge: 2 hours in 9 games

Raleigh did not leave the court in the first two ALDS games against Detroit, but he collected four shots while Julio Rodriguez, hitting behind him, provided power. Given the balance, depth and path of the depth of Seattle, it is easy to imagine a long term – and with it, at least half a dozen blasts of the Gros Dumper. – Paul Hebekides

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Jackson Chourio will become the 10th player to win the two LCS And MVPS World Series

Why doubt the milwaukee brewers now? They appreciated a magic race at this point and looked great at the start of the division series. Chourio was completely the table set – he was sure in two sleeve In match 1 – and he is one of the budding superstars of the game. In October is his party in small groups. – Tristan Cockcroft

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Roki Sasaki, Jhoan Duran and Andres Munoz will only publish zeros

This trio – two relief aces and a starter that has become a closer for the playoffs – will not give up a race won in the LDS or the LC. Munoz and Duran were two of the best sportsmen this year, and Sasaki began to look like it in the last two weeks, that my colleague Jeff Passan has broken down in the way Dodgers set their flame. – Kiley McDaniel

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Sasaki Roki Clayton Kershaw will record the final of the world series 2025

While the Dodgers manager, Dave Roberts, will play in the playoffs by trying to determine exactly which lifts can trust in a big moment, how about that for the ultimate scenario: Kershaw, in his last field in the majors, obtains this final. It may be a backup. It may be an eruption. Maybe the game passes additional sleeves. It may be an act of despair after Roberts used Roki Sasaki – who looks more and more like Roberts de Roberts – earlier in the game. And the latter throwing? A large curve in a loop of 72 MPH. – David Schoenfield

The teams that we will watch all October

Blue Jays on average 10 points per game in the playoffs

Well, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Pals certainly left, but why stop after two eruption victories on the Yankees? The Blue Jays hammered Luis Gil, Max Fried, Will Warren and Luke Weaver. Does Carlos Rodon, Cam Schlittler (perhaps, if the series goes to match 4) and whatever the launchers from other remaining teams launch the Blue Jays do better? Probably, but Vlad Jr., Daulton Varsho, Alejandro Kirk, George Springer, Ernie Clement and finally Bo Bichette are ready to make history! – Eric Karabell

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Toronto will not lose a game before the World Series

The Blue Jays have enough pitch to win every match on the World Series path. So much so that Max Scherzer and Chris Bassitt were not even necessary in the ALDs and were left from the list. They could be in the Alcs, but even then, Toronto will have choices to rotate. The emergence of the Trey Yesavage recruit has changed the calculation of the Jays on the mound, giving them more options than most teams during this time of the year.

Add the potential return of the Bichette, the big home record of Toronto (summit in the Al) and a long potential series between the tigers and the mariners on the other side of the AL support, and the Blue Jays are set up for an undefeated potential race towards the fall classic. Their hot offense to smoke could bring them alone. – Jesse Rogers

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Yankees will send the alds to Toronto

Also under the water they appear, the Yankees have a path in this series despite a deficit of 2-0. Shane Bieber, the Blue Jays Game 3 starter, will fill the striking area – and was subject to the circuits during the last departures. And with the porch short in the call to the right, the left bats of the Yankees will answer. Going to match 4 brings Cam Schlittler, who, during his first departure in the playoff series, launched eight laundry rounds and hit 12 without walking a striker. Although the Blue Jays are ball merchants, Schlittler’s things are overwhelming enough to calm them down and make a match 5 for the ages at Rogers Center. – Jeff Passan

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Dodgers go to Washington 2019 nationals through the playoffs

Washington has led five starters and three readers since the Do-Or-Die match in his WorLD Series match 7 victory against the very favored Houston Astros. Directed by the starters Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer, Patrick Corbin and Anibal Sanchez, eight combined launchers to launch 141⅔ from the 153 rounds of the Nationals. Joe Ross, who kicked the World Series match 5, was the fifth starter used by Washington.

These nationals arrived to overthrow the dodgers in the NLDs.

This year’s dodgers, like these nationals, have a deep rotation and a trembling trembling enclosure. Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, Emmett Sheehan, Roki Sasaki and Alex Vesia should absorb most of the October workload. Among these eight launchers, only Vesia was mainly a lifter during the regular season. The nationals have proven that a version of the formula can work. Six years later, this is the best recipe for Dodgers to win a championship. – Jorge Castillo

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The dodgers will make their way to a rehearsal

With 10 strikers who hit two -digit circuits during the regular season, the Dodgers simply do not have to worry about this cold bat. And apart from Yamamoto, none of their launchers launched more than 125 innings – but they have such depth in their rotation that they were able to pushing some of their beginners to the enclosure of the lifts in October.

Everything is on deck in any game they need. – AJ MASS

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The World Series Champion 2025 won’t Get out of NLDS Dodgers-Phillies

Since the support of this qualifying series has been set – even before the Dodgers have launched the Wild -Card series to make the official meeting – there was a thought that has percolated that Los Angeles against Philadelphia was this year on the world series of this year (or at least the NLC) in the English Channel. Well, I’m here to tell you that it is not a lost conclusion.

Yes, phillies and dodgers have the most talent of all sports teams – but that did not prevent Brewers from being combined 10-2 against Philly and the regular season. And what would you say about these Blue Jays (team two of my colleagues predicted very great things above), or the mariners, who definitely have the he Factor on their side, or the tigers, who have the best launcher on the planet (excluding the bats against Jorge Polanco) on theirs.

I will play the percentages here and say that someone other than phillies or dodgers will be the last standing team. – Dan Mullen