Be honest: When the season started, did you predict a round of the American League Division Series featuring the New York Yankees (plausible) and three AL Central teams, none of which are the Minnesota Twins (are you kidding)?

In the National League, things are less surprising. The powers of the league – the Los Angeles Dodgers, Philadelphia Phillies and San Diego Padres – are still alive, and in a thrilling three-game wild card victory for the New York Mets over the Milwaukee Brewers, there really was no outcome that could have done this could achieve. be called an upset.

The wild card round was exciting to watch, but now it’s time to move on, for the winners and for the teams waiting to find out the identity of their LDS opponent.

Let’s get a first look at the pairings by looking at the views of the teams that watched the first round along with the rest of us. What have they seen that might give them food for thought? What did they see that made them lick their chops?

Let’s review. Teams are listed in order of most concerned about least worried, but here’s a spoiler: none of the four bye teams should be worry-free.

Opponent: San Diego Padres

As resilient as the Atlanta Braves have been in the face of one major injury after another, the Dodgers must have crossed their proverbial fingers hoping for an Atlanta upset. Of course they would never say that publicly, but that is human nature. That’s because while the Dodgers are coming off the Shohei Show and Mookie Betts and another strong regular season, the Padres look like an absolute wrecking ball.

Measured by winning percentage, these are the two best teams in baseball since the All-Star break. The Padres (43-20) hold first place over the Dodgers (42-23), but while LA went 24-10 at home in that span, San Diego posted a 24-12 mark on the road. The Padres won’t worry about playing at Dodger Stadium, or anywhere else for that matter.

For the Dodgers, the wild card round showed them a Padres squad that not only dominated Atlanta, but did so in a way that reflected exactly the October team San Diego wants to be. In a round where longballs and runs in general were hard to come by, the Padres went three deep and had the highest average exit velocity of the eight squads (90.6 mph, according to TruMedia). They were aggressive and got the bat on the ball, finishing with the lowest strikeout rate in the wild card round. On the pitching side, they scored 23 runs against one walk against Atlanta.

The Dodgers have the two best players in this series in Shohei Ohtani and Betts. The Dodgers also have more power from top to bottom of the lineup. However, when you look at these teams head-to-head, it’s harder than you think to come up with a comprehensive argument for why exactly you’d pick the Dodgers to win. While the predictive power of regular season games is zero, the fact is that the Padres have won eight of the thirteen meetings.

None of this means the Dodgers can’t or won’t win. It just means they start this series on roughly equal footing against their biggest rival, a rival hungry for a first World Series title they know they can win.

Dodgers regarding level: High, and it should be.

Opponent: New York Mets

This is the third straight postseason for the Phillies and over the past two trips they have at least advanced to the NLCS. The core of the team has remained largely intact – a group that has been through the October wringer together – and that has resulted in plenty of wins in high-stakes games.

For much of this season, the 2024 edition of the Phillies looked like the best we’ve ever seen, laying claim to being the best team in the majors. The Phillies’ 95 wins were five more than last season and eight more than the 2022 team that went to the World Series. Philadelphia won its first division title in 13 years.

All of these things are why the Phillies are a team with a lot of swagger as the NLDS approaches. Still, the Phillies did not end the season in an ideal manner. And they now face a Mets team that has been firing on all cylinders for more than a week in playoff mode.

The Phillies won more than they lost down the stretch, but they did so by wielding a five-run-per-game hammer that likely won’t show up against New York’s pitching staff. While they scored all these runs in September, they gave them up at a rate of 4.9 per game. The rotation ERA was an MLB-worst 5.68.

Philadelphia was digging deep for starting pitching options, but it wasn’t just the fill-ins behind that number. In fact, only Zack Wheeler and Cristopher Sanchez were completely on top of their game. Even Aaron Nola had some trouble, especially keeping the ball in the park.

It feels like the Phillies have been in waiting mode for weeks, waiting for this series to arrive no matter who the opponent would be. The Mets are coming off a hard-fought three-game win over a Milwaukee club that had a better season differential than the Phillies. That win came after the exciting day after season win over Atlanta that allowed them to reach the playoffs at all.

This is another rivalry series and it will be intense. We’ll see if Philly is ready to tune into the frequency the Mets are already more than accustomed to.

Phillies’ Level of Care: Come on.

Opponent: Detroit Tigers

You don’t have to tell the Guardians that the Tigers and Kansas City Royals can play; they went 12-14 against those clubs during the regular season, with a points differential of minus 19 in those games. Nevertheless, you have to think the Guardians fully expected to host the Houston Astros at Progressive Field on Saturday.

Despite being division enemies, Cleveland and Detroit played the last of their 13 head-to-head meetings on July 30. The Guardians were in supplemental mode that day – trade deadline day – and had newcomer Lane Thomas in their lineup. The Tigers were pulling away at the time, and you could see why: Cleveland won 5-0 and was 15 games ahead of Detroit in the division standings.

Since the Guardians haven’t seen the Tigers since their rocket exploded, you’d have to think Cleveland would be a little confused about seeing them again in this context. Who are these guys and what did they do to the old Tigers?

The Guardians are the youngest team in baseball in terms of overall average age, but this calculation takes the full season into account. This post-deadline version of the Tigers is even younger. The Guardians thrived all season with a deep airlock of a bullpen; the Tigers have built a very similar machine and have played their way through many games, front and back.

You could go on. The Guardians have the best position player in the series in Jose Ramirez, but there is no one in the Cleveland rotation that comes close to the level Tigers ace Tarik Skubal is currently at.

This is another Tigers puzzle the Guardians will have to solve, and they’ll find the problem harder to solve than the last time Cleveland played Detroit.

Guardians’ level of concern: Wait, where are the Astros?

Opponent: Kansas City Royals

There’s an easy David versus Goliath story this season, but to look at it that way would be to overstate the Yankees’ strengths and undercut the Royals’ virtues.

The Yankees are pretty heavy favorites and that should be the case, but on paper this isn’t a mismatch. In addition to the AL’s best record, New York also had the AL’s best series differential (plus-147), but the Royals were tied with the Astros for No. 2 (plus-91). If you believe in such omens, you could say this is a matchup between the AL’s two best teams.

The Yankees can take solace in the huge advantage in raw firepower they enjoy with the Juan Soto-Aaron Judge tandem. The Royals have a parade of lefties they can throw at Soto, not that that same side matters with him. They have a nicely contrasted right-handed reliever duo to throw to Judge in high-leverage spots in Lucas Erceg and John Schreiber. But this assumes that the timing around the three-batter requirement allows for such matchup specialization. If they are rolling, there are no good answers for the Soto-Judge deck anyway.

But if the Royals can neutralize Soto or Judge (or both), the Royals will be one of the few clubs with top talent that can rival the Yankees thanks to Bobby Witt Jr. Witt, the long-awaited heir to George Brett’s place as the face of the franchise, likely knows the history behind this once-fierce but long-simmering rivalry. Brett partied on the Yankees, and if Witt is also Brett’s successor in that way, the Yankees could be in for a long week.

The Yankees have to be confident in this game. They were the best team in the AL and are a heavy favorite. But they shouldn’t get too confident, because this Royals team has better starting pitching, more speed, better team defense and, arguably, a superior bullpen right now. In other words, this Royals team can beat them, and a lot is riding on New York’s ability to extend that big lead in firepower.

The Yankees’ level of concern: Mediocre, with potential for hubris.