MLB's Final Four Is Too Close to Call
Four teams remain — each with a real shot at the 2025 World Series. Here’s how the League Championship Series matchups stack up on paper.
(Subscribers note: This post is running Sunday morning because Game 1 of the ALCS is tonight. It will replace Monday’s post, and we’ll be back to regular scheduling after that.)
After a Division Series round that was every bit as good as advertised — capped by an all-time epic on Friday night in Seattle and a tight elimination game between division rivals on Saturday — the baseball world now moves on to the League Championship Series on Sunday, and we inch that much closer to picking a champion in 2025.
Welcome to MLB’s Final Four — four teams, four different paths, and one wide-open chase for the title. Before we break down which of the Brewers, Dodgers, Mariners and Blue Jays can prevail in their pennant pursuits, let’s check in on the current playoff odds according to my Elo forecast model, updated through the Division Series:
As you can see, there’s not much separating these four clubs. The numbers tell the story of a postseason that is still anyone’s to win, so let’s break down each League Championship Series matchup to see how the teams compare on paper, who’s been running especially hot or cold in the playoffs thus far, and what historical narratives will hang over the series. Then we’ll calculate the odds for each possible World Series combination, and figure out which pairings would make for the best storylines. Play ball!
⚾ ALCS: No. 4 Toronto Blue Jays vs. No. 8 Seattle Mariners
Elo’s favorite: Toronto (53 percent)
Polymarket favorite: Toronto (56 percent)
FanDuel favorite: Toronto (53 percent)
Season series: Toronto won 4-2
🧢 Team archetypes: Scrappy Winner (Toronto) vs. Scrappy Winner (Seattle)
📊 The matchup on paper: These two teams were very evenly-matched during the regular season, with almost identical run differentials (Toronto +0.48 per game, Seattle +0.44) and WAR rankings (Toronto No. 7, Seattle No. 9)… Hence, the near coin-flip odds listed above. They’re also somewhat mirror-image versions of each other, with each anchored by great hitting1 while hoping to receive enough pitching to get by. (Seattle was 19th in pitching WAR; Toronto was 21st.) The Mariner staff did hold Detroit’s hitters to fewer RPG (4.0) in the Division Series than the Jays did to the Yankees (4.8), but that area is still pretty much a wash.
The biggest mismatches where one team might gain an edge are probably in defense and baserunning. Toronto was the No. 1 fielding WAR team in the league during the regular season — led by the slick fielding of Ernie Clement (across multiple IF positions) — while Seattle ranked just 23rd.2 For the Mariners, they were 16th in baserunning versus a Blue Jay team that ranked second-to-last (29th) in that category. And then the other area of mismatch is star power in favor of Seattle: with Cal Raleigh (8.2) and Julio Rodriguez (6.3), the M’s had two players with far more WAR than the Toronto leader, George Springer (5.0). The Jays can counter with depth — they have 6 of the Top 9 players in the series — but Raleigh is potentially a series-changing player.
🔥 Hot playoff performers: Toronto’s hitters were red-hot against the Yankees, averaging 8.5 (!) RPG overall with 3 of their Top 5 batters by plate appearances putting up OPSes over 1.400 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (1.609), Daulton Varsho (1.471) and Ernie Clement (1.554) — and Alejandro Kirk adding 2 HRs. On the mound, Kevin Gausman and Trey Yesavage combined for a 0.82 ERA and 1.41 FIP in the series as well, and Seranthony Domínguez didn’t allow an earned run in 3 relief appearances. For Seattle, Raleigh had a 1.051 OPS and Jorge Polanco had 2 HRs off of Tarik Skubal, which is worth noting even though his OPS was just .705 overall. And Mariner starters George Kirby, Logan Gilbert and Luis Castillo combined for a 1.50 ERA, with relievers Andrés Muñoz and Matt Brash yielding just 1 ER in 10 innings.
🧊 Needs to play better: Again, most of the Jays sizzled at the plate in the ALDS, but one exception was arguably their best hitter from the regular season — George Springer, who hit .176/.250/.471 (.721 OPS) against New York. Also, pitcher Louis Varland (who had a 3.14 FIP during the regular season) posted a 7.14 mark in the ALDS. For the Mariners, most of their hitters need better showings in the ALCS; Randy Arozarena, Rodríguez, Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suárez all carried OPSes under .700 in the last round. Lefty specialist Gabe Speier nearly cost Seattle their season when he allowed a HR to Kerry Carpenter in Game 5 against Detroit.
📜 History corner: Head-to-head, these teams have played exactly one playoff series: the 2022 wild card, which is most remembered for Toronto blowing an 8-1 lead in the clinching game.
Mainly, though, the urgency to win is strong for both of these teams. Yes, Toronto won a couple of World Series in 1992-93, but otherwise the Jays have been a team searching in vain to fulfill their potential. And the Mariners have that storyline on steroids. This team only made the playoffs four times in the 26 seasons they had some combination of Hall of Famers Edgar Martinez, Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, Ichiro Suzuki and Adrian Beltre. They’re the only MLB team to never appear in a World Series, going 49 seasons without a pennant. Now they’re in a virtual coin-flip to end that drought — but they’ll have to get through a dangerous Blue Jays team first.
🔄 He played for them both: John Olerud, Edwin Encarnación, Teoscar Hernández, Mike Timlin, Brandon Morrow, Robbie Ray, José Cruz Jr.
⚾ NLCS: No. 1 Milwaukee Brewers vs. No. 2 Los Angeles Dodgers
Elo’s favorite: Milwaukee (51 percent)
Polymarket favorite: Los Angeles (64 percent)
FanDuel favorite: Los Angeles (67 percent)
Season series: Brewers won, 6-0
🧢 Team archetypes: Complete Champ (Milwaukee) vs. Heavy Hitter (Los Angeles)
📊 The matchup on paper: Just as we always get excited about 1-vs-2 matchups in college football, this is our 1-vs-2 in baseball (at least, according to Elo). Both teams ranked among the Top 5 in WAR during the regular season — Milwaukee 4th, L.A. 5th — and they were two of only four teams (along with the Yankees and Cubs) who ranked No. 1 in Elo at any point in the regular season. Based on all this, one might even be tempted to consider this NLCS matchup the de facto World Series, with the winner automatically having an inside track against the AL champ.
But you wouldn’t know any of that from the lopsided betting odds favoring the Dodgers. Polymarket’s prediction market for the series has L.A. at 64 percent to win — a wide margin as far as baseball goes — and FanDuel goes a step further and lists the Dodgers as -210 to win, which works out to 67 percent after removing the vigorish. Those aren’t the numbers of a closely matched 1-vs-2 duel, as much as the Brewers appearing to be a speed bump along L.A.’s path to another title.
The good news for Milwaukee fans is that Elo considers their side a slight favorite (51 percent) — and pretty much all of the other actual, empirical data from the actual season itself do, too. As I noted here, the Brew Crew were the most complete team in baseball this year, as the only club who ranked among the Top 9 in WAR across the board (in batting, fielding, baserunning, starting pitching and relief pitching). They had a lot of depth and no real weaknesses, which is why they had the best record in MLB and would appear to match up well here. (Oh, and they also swept all six games of the regular-season series against L.A. for good measure.)
The Dodgers were plenty good, as expected, but they were not the perfect juggernaut many feared they’d be. They ranked No. 4 in both hitting and rotation WAR — a scary combo (MIL was 9th and 8th) — but outside the Top 10 in defense, baserunning and especially the bullpen (where they were 21st). That ranking stands in stark contrast with Milwaukee’s No. 2 bullpen, which looks like one of the biggest mismatches of the series on paper, potentially only mitigated by L.A.’s Roki Sasaki-at-closer experiment this postseason.3
The other area where the Dodgers admittedly have the Brewers beat is in the star department. Nobody on Milwaukee can come remotely close to Shohei Ohtani’s 8.5 WAR — Brewers leader Freddy Peralta was a full 3.5 WAR behind him — and L.A. owns 5 of the Top 7 players in the series based on regular-season value. That, in turn, might be feeding into the big perception gap between the betting odds and the regular-season data: People are either blinded by the Dodgers’ star power and their status as defending champs, the payroll differential here (LAD 1st, MIL 24th), or otherwise believe they sandbagged the regular season (in true NBA superteam style) before “flipping the switch” for October.
Perhaps. But this matchup otherwise should be much closer than folks are giving it credit for.
🔥 Hot playoff performers: Dodger hitters Mookie Betts and Teoscar Hernández both had OPSes above 1.000 against Philly and Cincy, and Kiké Hernández delivered in October like usual with a .318/.400/.409 (.809 OPS) line. Ironically, Ohtani was the one Dodger starter who didn’t sparkle; the rest — Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow — carry a 1.43 ERA in the postseason, with Sasaki (0 ER and 1 H in 5.3 IP with 2 saves) doing his best Dennis Eckersley impression in the pen. For Milwaukee, Jackson Chourio and William Contreras both had OPSes north of .980, while star young hurler Jacob Misiorowski (1.29 ERA) has been stellar. True to form, the Brewer ‘pen was nigh untouchable overall, allowing just 4 ER in 30 innings against Chicago.
🧊 Needs to play better: Despite the Dodgers scoring 5.2 RPG this postseason, they’ve done it despite poor performances from both Ohtani and Freddie Freeman at the plate, with the duo combining to go 9-for-50 (.180) with 4 extra-base hits.4 Andy Pages has also produced an ugly .042/.080/.042 (.122 OPS) line. And even with Sasaki starring, the L.A. bullpen has a 5.75 ERA in 20.3 postseason innings. For the Brewers, Christian Yelich (.679 OPS) and Brice Turang (.540) are well down from their usual marks at the plate, and the starting rotation — a strength during the regular season — had an 8.31 ERA in the NLDS.
📜 History corner: The Dodgers beat the Brewers in 7 emotionally-charged games in the 2018 NLCS, a series in which somehow Milwaukee was a smaller underdog (at +145) than they are today (+172). L.A. also swept Milwaukee in their only other meeting, the 2020 wild card series. Given the churn of both rosters, but especially Milwaukee’s, it’s unclear how relevant either result is, but it does speak to a semi-recent playoff rivalry that in 2018 was genuinely heated.
As for the big picture, the Dodgers are looking to repeat as champs and continue shedding their previous reputation as playoff chokers. Meanwhile, the Brewers join the Mariners with a 40+ year drought of World Series appearances, and they’ve never won one before in 57 seasons. Basically, all of my data and factoids are saying this: If you want to root for an underdog (in spirit) who can actually win, back the Brew Crew in this NLCS.
🔄 He played for them both: Don Sutton, Zack Greinke, Greg Brock, Willie Randolph, Tim Leary, Yasmani Grandal, Hideo Nomo
⚾ Fall Classic combos
As always, it’s time to update our World Series matchup matrix, which is rapidly dwindling in terms of options:
Blue Jays-Brewers is currently your most likely combo, followed by Jays-Dodgers, Mariners-Brewers (which I think is my personal rooting interest, given their long droughts and weird shared Seattle history) and, finally, M’s-Dodgers. Each matchup has at least a 20 percent chance to happen, which speaks to the evenness of this Final Four — and how balanced this October of parity still remains.
Filed under: Baseball
Seattle was 3rd in batting WAR, Toronto was 6th.
This was why Toronto ranked 14th in park-adjusted RA/G, versus Seattle at No. 22, despite having similar pitching quality by WAR.
Which is admittedly not reflected in the regular-season data, but only because Sasaki was absolutely terrible (135 FIP-) appearing mostly out of the rotation during that phase of the year.
Two Ohtani homers.
That 2018 LA-Milwaukee series was epic. The extra innings game 4 was a heartbreaker. I'll never forget the 1-1 tied late inning where Milwaukee got a leadoff double but couldn't get the runner home, total gutpunch.