This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.
You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95
using your PayPal account or major credit card. (Zelle users, please email me for details.)
Postseason 2026: AL Division Series Previews
October 2, 2026
The Rule: The least important words in a playoff preview are the last ones.
Guardians/White Sox
It feels like the Guardians are here all the time. In fact, they’ve played in the AL Division Series just twice in the last seven seasons and advanced past this point just once since they won the AL pennant in 2016. They’ve been good enough to make the tournament out of a generally weak AL Central, and not good enough to make noise once in it, the BYU of MLB.
Can that change this year? They arrive in October with a better offense than they had a year ago, and the deepest one they have had in some time. The arrival of rookies Chase DeLauter (.287/.363/.457, 131 wRC+) and Travis Bazzana (.245/.335/.408. 110 wRC+) lengthened the lineup while filling holes in the outfield and at second base. Angel Martinez had a career year at 24 (.254/.290/.365, 108 wRC+) and Brayan Rocchio did at 25 (.253/.313/.391, 99 wRC+). There’s a depth to this offense that hasn’t been there, with even legendary no-bat catchers Austin Hedges and Patrick Bailey chipping in with the best production of their careers. The Guardians even added talent at the trade deadline, with Jo Adell hitting .244/.324/.417 (107 wRC+) after coming over from Anaheim.
Perhaps you notice a missing name. While all of this was going on, Jose Ramirez was turning 33. He had his worst season since 2015, with a .235/.320/.368 line, and he missed a month after breaking his left hamate bone in July. Since returning in July he’s hit just .229/.296/.302 with two homers in 53 games. He cannot hit the ball hard, with merely two barreled balls in the second half. Stephen Vogt continues to bat Ramirez second and third, and while that loyalty is admirable, maybe even necessary from a people-management standpoint, a 600 OPS near the top of the lineup is killing this team. Whether Ramirez can find his power stroke, or any stroke at all, is a key piece to the Guardians’ puzzle.
The Guardians’ pitching is once again a strength: eighth in ERA, sixth in FIP, fourth in strikeout rate. The soft spot is hard contact; Guardians pitchers allow bottom-ten barrel and hard-hit rates, so while they’re good at missing bats, the contact they do allow has a lot of value. The Guardians were 22nd in MLB on wOBA allowed on contact; among playoff teams, only the Phillies were worse.
Fortunately for them, they don’t allow a ton of contact, and with the way the ALDS is scheduled, they will be able to pitch mostly their high-strikeout hurlers. Parker Messick, Game One starter, had a 25.8% strikeout rate, and Game Two starter Gavin Williams was one of the best strikeout pitchers in baseball at 33.2%. Cade Smith and Erik Sabrowski, at the back of the pen, strike out more than a third of the batters they face. They can comfortably pitch in every game of this series. There’s a drop-off after that group, to Foster Griffin and Tanner Bibee as starters, to Hunter Gaddis and Tim Herrin in the pen. Colin Holderman won’t return for the playoffs, which opens up space for rookie Daniel Espino to move into leverage work.
The Guardians may have gone just 85-77 with an 81-81 third-order record, but they still represent an upgrade in opponent quality for the White Sox, who dispensed with one of the worst playoff teams ever, the Astros, in two games. The Sox, two years after having one of the worst offenses of the century, finished fifth in the majors in runs and fifth in wRC+. It’s a three-true outcomes approach, fifth in homers, sixth in walk rate, fifth-highest strikeout rate. That reflects the tendencies of their most famous player, NPB import Munetaka Murakami, who had as productive a year as you can have while hitting .207 with a 35% strikeout rate.
Damage (highest OPS+, .215 BA or lower, qualified hitters)
AVG OBP SLG OPS+
Gene Tenace 1974 Athletics .211 .367 .411 130
Munetaka Murakami 2026 White Sox .207 .347 .478 130
Joey Gallo 2021 2tm .199 .351 .458 121
Kyle Schwarber 2023 Phillies .197 .343 .474 121
Joey Gallo 2017 Rangers .209 .333 .537 118
Gene Tenace is the only player in the top ten who played prior to 1980, and one of just two, Gorman Thomas the other, who played in the 20th century.
Murakami blasted out of the gate with a dozen homers in April, and he had 20 with a 938 OPS when he strained his right hamstring Memorial Day weekend. It’s hard to tease out cause and effect, but what we do know is that since coming off the IL, Murakami has hit just .181/.322/.413 in 70 games, with a 38% strikeout rate that makes it hard to be productive. Murakami was more effective against high velocity than expected, yet he still had all kinds of problems inside the zone. His in-zone swing-and-miss rate was 69.5%, miles clear of Rafael Devers in second at 78.4%. You can challenge him, and most of the time you’ll win; when you lose, though, the scoreboard explodes. I want to see how the Guardians approach Murakami, whether they try to induce chase or just go after him. During the season, the Guards went in the zone to Murakami at a rate of 44%, a little below the league’s 47%, and well below their season average of a 48% zone rate.
The Sox are mostly built in Murakami’s image, with a lot of in-zone swing-and-miss and not much chase. When they make contact, they do damage: a .375 wOBA, eighth in MLB, though just fifth in the playoff field.
The main battle in this series is between the Guardians’ pitchers, who miss bats and give up damage on contact, and the Sox hitters, who miss pitches while doing damage when they connect. Can the Sox make enough contact to leverage what should be their high quality of batted balls? There’s a path through this series where the Guardians whiff a third of Sox hitters, allow six runs, and win in three or four games. There’s another where the Sox hit seven homers, slug .525, and upset the Guards.
The Sox have to score to win. They were 15th in ERA, 21st in FIP, 19th in strikeout rate, and all those numbers were worse down the stretch. They benefit as much as any team in this round from playoff scheduling. With two days off coming in and just three games in a seven-day span from September 30 to October 7, the Sox can shove an inordinate percentage of their innings to the five or six pitchers in their inner circle. They haven’t announced any starters yet, though we can figure Sean Burke gets Game Two next Monday. Will Venable doesn’t have a name like “pitching chaos” for what he does. He does, however, use a lot of openers and is willing to get two- and even two-plus-inning saves from his relievers. Sean Newcomb and Grant Taylor are going to pitch a lot, with Bryan Hudson and Jordan Hicks also being deployed aggressively.
The edge the Guardians have in the starting rotation, along with their improved offense, is what moves the needle for me. They’ll have the better starter in every game, with the potential to throw Messick and Williams four times in five games if need be. I don’t think need will be. The Sox are the better story, but the Guardians are the better team. Guardians in three.
-
