Baseball is a funny game. Honestly, if you sat down in March 2024 and tried to map out exactly how the October bracket would look, you probably would’ve ended up looking like a crazy person. Most people look back at mlb playoff predictions 2024 and see a lot of broken brackets and "safe" bets that went up in smoke.
It was a year of "pitching chaos" and a specific kind of West Coast dominance that felt inevitable yet somehow surprising.
Remember the Detroit Tigers? Basically no one had them on their radar in August. They were sellers at the trade deadline. They traded away Jack Flaherty—who, ironically, ended up winning the whole thing with the Dodgers—and yet they went on a "Grimace-era" adjacent run that saw them sweep the Houston Astros in the Wild Card. It was the kind of thing that makes you realize playoff predictions are often just educated guesses that the universe likes to ignore.
Why mlb playoff predictions 2024 Were So Messy
Most experts looked at the Los Angeles Dodgers and thought, "Too many injuries." Their rotation was a rotating door of the IL list. Tyler Glasnow was out. Gavin Stone was down. You had Walker Buehler coming back from a second Tommy John surgery looking like a shell of his former self for most of the summer.
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But then October hit.
The Dodgers didn't just win; they became "calloused." That's the word Dave Roberts used. They weren't the prettiest team, especially with Shohei Ohtani playing through a partially dislocated shoulder in the World Series, but they were the toughest.
The Big Misses
A lot of the preseason hype lived in Baltimore and Philadelphia.
- The Orioles: They had the young guns. Gunnar Henderson and Corbin Burnes felt like a lock for a deep run. Instead, they got bounced early by a gritty Royals team.
- The Phillies: They looked like the best team in baseball for four months. Then the Mets—specifically Francisco Lindor and his magic soul-patch energy—ruined everything for the Philly faithful in the NLDS.
- The Astros: For the first time in what felt like a decade, the ALCS didn't have a Houston zip code.
The World Series Everyone Expected (But Didn't)
We finally got it. Dodgers vs. Yankees. The 12th time these two titans met on the biggest stage, and the first since 1981. If you look at the mlb playoff predictions 2024 from the start of the year, this was the "chalk" pick. The boring pick. The "MLB wants this for the ratings" pick.
But the way it happened was anything but boring.
Freddie Freeman basically played the entire postseason on one leg. Then, in Game 1, he hits the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history. You couldn't script that. Even if you tried, a producer would tell you it's too cheesy. Freeman ended up with the MVP trophy after homering in the first four games of the series. He finished with 12 RBIs, tying a record that had stood for decades.
The Yankees' Meltdown
New York fans will be haunted by Game 5 for a long time. They were up 5-0. It looked like the series was going back to Los Angeles. Then, a defensive collapse for the ages happened. A dropped fly ball by Aaron Judge, a missed cover at first base by Gerrit Cole—the door didn't just crack open; the Dodgers kicked it off the hinges.
They scored five runs with two outs. In one inning. Without a single earned run.
That’s the thing about predicting the MLB playoffs. You can account for stats, OPS+, and FIP, but you can't account for a Gold Glover dropping a routine fly ball in the Bronx.
Breaking Down the Bracket Reality
The 2024 postseason was historic for one weird reason: for the first time ever, every single Division Series was tied 1-1 after the first two games. It was pure parity.
- NLDS: The Padres almost had the Dodgers. They were up 2-1 in the series. Then the Dodgers' bullpen threw 24 consecutive scoreless innings to shut the door.
- ALDS: The Guardians and Tigers fought a civil war in the AL Central. It took five games and a legendary swing from Lane Thomas to finally end Detroit's "Gritty Tigs" era.
- NLCS: The Mets' "Cinderella" run finally ran out of gas against the Dodgers' sheer depth.
What we learned is that the current playoff format rewards teams that can survive "pitching chaos." If you don't have a lock-down bullpen, you're toast. The Dodgers used a "bullpen game" to win a deciding Game 4 in the NLDS and never looked back.
Actionable Insights for Next Year
If you're already looking at the 2025 or 2026 landscape based on what happened in 2024, stop looking at regular-season wins. The 100-win mark has become a curse lately.
Instead, look at:
- Bullpen Depth: Can a team throw six different guys who all touch 98 mph?
- Health Momentum: The Dodgers got Walker Buehler back just in time for him to rediscover his "big game" gene.
- Star Power vs. Depth: The Yankees had Judge and Soto, but the Dodgers had a lineup where the bottom half could hurt you just as much as the top.
Stop betting on the "best" team and start betting on the "toughest" one. The Dodgers weren't the healthiest or the most balanced, but they were the ones standing when the smoke cleared in the Bronx on October 30.