2025 MLB Playoffs Preview

2025 MLB Playoffs Preview

The 2025 Major League Baseball Regular Season is finally over, all 162 games of it. Now, we’re moving on to the Playoffs. The first round concludes today, a do-or-die best-of-3 format for eight teams over the last three days.

Let’s recap our Preseason predictions (as found in Dutch Lion’s 2025 MLB Baseball Preview) to see who indeed made the Playoffs as predicted.

PREDICTED 2025 A.L. Playoff Seeds

1. New York Yankees (97-65) – East Champ (1st Round Bye)
2. Texas Rangers (92-70) – West Champ (1st Round Bye)
3. Minnesota Twins (91-71) – Central Champ (vs #6 seed in Wild Card Round)
4. Baltimore Orioles (94-68) – * Wild Card (vs #5 seed in Wild Card Round)
5. Cleveland Indians/Guardians/Spiders (should have gone with Spiders) (90-72)– * Wild Card
6. Seattle Mariners (87-75) – * Wild Card

ACTUAL 2025 A.L. Playoff Seeds

1. Toronto Blue Jays (94-68) – underestimated by 13 games!
2. Seattle Mariners (90-72) – underestimated by three games
3. Cleveland Indians/Guardians/Spiders (88-74) – overestimated by two games
4. New York Yankees (94-68) – overestimated by three games
5. Boston Red Sox (89-73) – underestimated by one game
6. Detroit Tigers (87-75) – underestimated by five games

We were right about half of the American League field of qualifiers (in bold). However, instead of Baltimore, Texas, and Minnesota making the Playoffs, the actual qualifiers were Toronto, Boston, and Detroit. We’re proud of some of these projections, especially our prediction of the Houston Astros not making the Playoffs for the first time since 2016. That’s a long streak that we’re happy is over.

So what will happen in the American League this month? Here are our updated Predictions:

American League Wild Card (ALWC) (Best of 3, all games at home for higher/better seed)

#6 Detroit over #3 Cleveland

#4 New York over #5 Boston

American League Division Series (ALDS) (Best of 5)

#2 Seattle over #6 Detroit

#4 New York Yankees over #1 Toronto

American League Championship Series (ALCS) (Best of 7)

#1 N.Y. Yankees over #2 Seattle

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PREDICTED 2025 N.L. Playoff Seeds

1. Los Angeles Dodgers (102-60) – West Champ (1st Round Bye)
2. Philadelphia Phillies (97-65) – East Champ (1st Round Bye)
3. Milwaukee Brewers (92-70) – Central Champ (vs #6 seed in Wild Card Round)
4. New York Mets (94-68) – * Wild Card (vs #5 seed in Wild Card Round)
5. San Diego Padres (93-69) – * Wild Card
6. Chicago Cubs (89-73) – * Wild Card

ACTUAL 2025 N.L. Playoff Seeds

1. Milwaukee Brewers (97-65) – underestimated by five games
2. Philadelphia Phillies (96-66) – overestimated by one game
3. Los Angeles Dodgers (93-69) – overestimated by nine games
4. Chicago Cubs (92-70) – underestimated by three games
5. San Diego Padres (90-72) – overestimated by three games
6. Cincinnati Reds (83-79) – underestimated by three games

We did a fantastic job in predicting the National League this year. We nailed five of six teams, only missing on the New York Mets, who lost out on the final day of the season to the Cincinnati Reds.

Here are our updated National League Playoff predictions:

National League Wild Card (NLWC) (Best of 3, all games at home for higher/better seed)

#3 L.A. Dodgers over #6 Cincinnati (this already happened as the Dodgers finished off the Reds last night in two straight.

#5 San Diego over #4 Chicago

National League Division Series (NLDS) (Best of 5)

#2 Philadelphia over #3 L.A. Dodgers

#1 Milwaukee over #5 San Diego

National League Championship Series (NLCS) (Best of 7)

#2 Philadelphia over #1 Milwaukee – I’m sticking with my preseason prediction here, even though I believe the Brewers may be a team of destiny in ’25. The Brew Crew will surely win it all someday. Is this the year? It very well might be.

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2025 World Series

Philadelphia Phillies over New York Yankees – These franchises met in the 2009 World Series, when the Yankees won in six games to grab their record 27th world championship. This was the last World Championship for the Yankees, somewhat amazingly. 16 years ago! Has New York ever gone this long in between championships? Well yeah, barely. Going into 1996, the Yanks hadn’t won since ’78. (17 seasons without a title). They have now gone 15 seasons without a title… and counting. Could they win it this year? Certainly. Will they? No. The Philadelphia Phillies will be your 2025 World Series Champions.

I am sticking with my preseason selection of the Philadelphia Phillies. As you might have noticed, I even included the exact same commentary from April (as written above). Why change beautiful prose? LOL

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy my predictions and take it to the bank if you believe in gambling. Good luck!