By Alexander Franco, October 21, 2025
No matter the sport, how much money a team has or how good its record is, post-season success is not guaranteed.
It’s all about who gets hot at the right time.
Playoffs are the culmination of sports, and Major League Baseball’s post-season kicked off Sept. 30, every single pitch that is thrown, pitched, hit and fielded count. One bad throw or one badly located pitch can end of a team’s season. Every second of each game is stress-inducing for the players and the fans watching, either in the stadium or around the world.
Cam Schlitter for the New York Yankees had all Boston Red Sox fans stressed in game three of the American League Wildcard on Oct. 2 as he didn’t allow a single run through eight shutout innings.
In the regular season, games can lack excitement with no entertainment value, especially if you watch from somewhere comfortable like your own bed or even during class. I’ve been victim to it as I’ve scrolled on my phone during at-bats when I’m at the stadium as some games I’ve been to have been a snooze-fest and pure-out boring.
I’m an Athletics fan after all, so maybe that’s why.
When it’s all said and done for a player’s career, all players strive to reach the World Series, and become the pinnacle of the baseball world as world champions — it’s every single player’s dream.
The World Series, a best-of-seven game series, is a dogfight between the best American League team and National League. This week-long series will decide an overall league champion and is crowned “the best team in baseball.”
This year, in the AL, the Toronto Blue Jays secured the No. 1 seed, as The Seattle Mariners, Cleveland Guardians, New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and the Detroit Tigers fill out the rest of the AL bracket.
Over in the National League, the Milwaukee Brewers earned this year’s top seed in the NL as the Philadelphia Phillies, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres and the Cincinnati Reds round out the NL bracket.
More than ever this year, there are many storylines for this post-season, both within teams and individual players.
The looming question if this is the year that Seattle will finally do it and reach the World Series for the first time in franchise history, or if the Dodgers will repeat as champions, something that hasn’t been done since the three-peat of the 1998-2000 New York Yankees.
Two players who the media will keep a sharp eye on is Aaron Judge of the Yankees and Shohei Ohtani of the Dodgers, as both have record-breaking seasons in the past two years, not always translate their regular season dominance into a playoff moment.
Here are my predictions for rest of the 2025 MLB post-season as of Oct. 12:
Let’s jump to the championship series:
Over in the NL, I have both Milwaukee and Los Angeles moving on.
In the NLCS, I have Los Angeles repeating as pennant champions, seeking a back-to-back World Series wins, last done by the 1999 and 2000 New York Yankees.
The matchup between Los Angeles and Philadelphia in particular, according to fans across MLB including myself, are calling this the “unofficial NLCS,” because of how dominant both teams were during the regular season.
As good as Milwaukee is, their power level doesn’t even come close to the level that the Dodgers or Phillies are at.
The only way, and I mean the only way Milwaukee can steal games from LA, is to attack their starting pitchers early, but even that’s a challenge David didn’t see when he faced Goliath.
With the likes of Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani, LA’s starting pitchers can win games by themselves, even if their bats do not show up, which has happened countless times in the regular season.
If somehow Milwaukee can string runs, getting to their bullpen, they’ll have more than just a fighting chance. They could pull off the upset of the season.
“I really want the Brewers to win because chemistry wins over money,” said biology student Kevin Munoz
Star power only elevates itself the deeper playoffs go, and LA is miles ahead in that category.
Moving on to the ALCS , I have the Toronto Blue Jays winning their third pennant in franchise history.
The Jays and Mariners are evenly matched. Both have star power and elite pitching. I do want this game to go a game seven, but the thing about playoffs is that consistency stays king.
I see this series going back and forth, with both teams trading wins every game, with low scoring as the runs will come late into the game rather than the beginning of the game.
Toronto has the consistency a playoff team needs to make a deep run, and I think they want to show the world that this season isn’t just some fluke season.
The only way, and I mean the only way Milwaukee can steal games from LA, is to attack their starting pitchers early, but even that’s a challenge David didn’t see when he faced Goliath.
With the likes of Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani, LA’s starting pitchers can win games by themselves, even if their bats do not show up, which has happened countless times in the regular season.
If somehow Milwaukee can string runs, getting to their bullpen, they’ll have more than just a fighting chance. They could pull off the upset of the season.
“I really want the Brewers to win because chemistry wins over money,” said biology student Kevin Munoz
Star power only elevates itself the deeper playoffs go, and LA is miles ahead in that category.
This sets up the fall classic of the Toronto Blue Jays versus the Los Angeles Dodgers.
On paper, the Dodgers are the team to beat, and it seems as if they’re the villain of the MLB. Fans who are not Dodgers fans over social media, for the past three years now have been saying that they are “ruining baseball,” as their payroll and budget allows them to spend more than any other teams, as there is no payroll cap for teams in the MLB.
This allows LA to sign any player they chose so when they hit the free agent market, as they’ve shown with their biggest signing last year being Blake Snell, and the season prior to that in signing Shohei Ohtaini, which ended up being the biggest contract in team sports history worldwide.
But just like every other villain that has ever existed in pop culture and history, they always have a weakness: the bullpen.
No matter how many runs the lineup scores or how many scoreless innings their starting pitcher throws, the bullpen always finds a way to ruin Dodgers fan’s night.
If Toronto can crack the impenetrable shell of what is their starting pitching and get to their bullpen, they will cause damage, led by superstar Vladimir Guerrero Jr and sluggers in George Springer and Alejandro Kirk.
With this, I predict that the Toronto Blue Jays will win the 2025 World Series and will be crowned “the best team in baseball.”
Toronto winning this year would mark their third ever World Series title in franchise history, both of their wins coming from back-to-back seasons in 1992 and 1993.
Feature graphic courtesy of Connor Lālea Hampton
