October’s baseball bazaar is just getting started. Narratives are barely in script development. Yet things are about to pick up with four fairly compelling Division Series matchups.
And the window for pivotal players to emerge has opened.
Perhaps the plot will stick to the main characters, and Shohei Ohtani and Junior Caminero and Jacob Misiorowski will steal the headlines, dominate the search engines and/or artificial intelligence summaries.
Yet the difference may come down to players who have not yet seized the spotlight, fading into the tapestry of a 162-game season yet now with an opportunity to break out in a larger way.
Herewith, four players who could decide the American and National league Division Series:
Rays-Yankees: Victor Mesa Jr.
He doesn’t even have 100 major league games under his belt. But goodness, can Mesa impact a baseball.
It’s been six years since Randy Arozarena took over the COVID bubble playoffs with a stunning power display of 10 home runs in an 18-game span. We are not expecting that from Mesa. But it’s safe to say he’s the Rays’ latest reclamation project to pay off.
Mesa hit 14 home runs in just 79 games, slugged .498, posted an .803 OPS and 128 wRC+. Sure, he’s never done that over a full season.
But he doesn’t have to.
Mesa’s on a heater in this moment, with a .355/.410/.605 line and four homers in September. And he will enter these playoffs bereft of expectations. Caminero is the Rays’ MVP hopeful, Yandy Díaz the swole and savvy veteran of past playoffs, Chandler Simpson the blazing speed merchant.
Mesa bats seventh. Kind of the perfect place to chill out and ambush a pitcher hopeful he’s navigated the teeth of the Tampa Bay lineup. We’ll see about that.
Guardians-White Sox: Tristan Peters
If you’re on your lunch break and looking for something to zone out on for a few minutes, get a load of this 18-pitch at-bat between Peters and Guardians ace Gavin Williams.
Williams led the AL with 248 strikeouts, but in the sixth inning of a scoreless game, Peters literally ended him, by fouling off 12 pitches and driving Williams’ pitch count from 95 to 113 before drawing a walk. The White Sox took the lead that inning and maintained their AL Central lead, though the Guardians would claw back and win the division title.
Now, the Central rivals square up again. And there couldn’t be a greater contrast than the teams’ pitching staffs: Cleveland will attack Chicago with two studs, Williams and Game 1 starter Parker Messick, who could be AL Rookie of the Year after posting a 2.56 ERA and 6.3 WAR.
The White Sox, with no such aces, will keep the bullpen door open constantly, a mix-and-match that worked well in their wild-card wins at Houston. That approach will be tougher.
No, the best asset the White Sox may have is their quietly potent lineup neutralizing Messick and Williams and lengthening the bridge to dominant closer Cade Smith. Enter guys like Peters, who almost serves as a second leadoff man in the No. 6 hole, after Miguel Vargas and Munetaka Murakami and Co. have had their bite of the apple and before the Flyin’ Montgomery Fellas (Braden and Colson) and Game 2 wild-card hero Chase Meidroth dig in.
Peters posted 47 extra-base hits, plays a stellar center field and, like many of the above White Sox, fills a role akin to a deluxe glue guy. He yielded to defensively gifted Brenton Doyle in the Game 1 lineup against Messick, but this is a roster that will use every corner of it to best the Guardians. And this time, if Peters manages to wear out Williams again, the stakes will be much higher.
Dodgers-Braves: Matt Olson
Not exactly a dark horse pick here. Yet for a four-time All-Star with a 54-homer season and the longest current consecutive games streak to his name, the man could use a little more shine.
And also a trip to the NLCS.
This is Olson’s seventh postseason. Three ended at the wild-card level, the other three in dispiriting Division Series defeats, two of them against the Phillies. Now, the Braves will have to break serve against the two-time defending champion Dodgers.
And L.A. will start Tarik Skubal out of the gate, with a slew of southpaws – Blake Snell, Justin Wrobleski, Evan Dreyer, Alex Vesia, Tanner Scott – ready to attack Olson.
Yet Olson, among the more chill dudes you’ll ever meet, isn’t fazed by much. And his platoon splits are downright chilling: A .500 slugging percentage and .823 OPS against right-handers, .506 and .824 against lefties.
He will be unmoved by Skubal and the half-dozen or so other southpaws L.A. will throw at him. And it’s not lost on him that while he’s beloved in Atlanta, the club’s most recent World Series title came with Freddie Freeman manning first base.
Freeman always gets the lion’s share of attention when it comes to the Great First Base Swap Of 2022, and he’s earned it. But perhaps it is Olson’s turn to command the spotlight and remind folks that while Freeman got two more rings in L.A., the guy who replaced him has been plenty good, too.
Brewers Padres: DL Hall
Certainly, it can be tiresome when clubs trade a well-accomplished player before they reach free agency. Well, the saying goes, better get something for him.
That’s not necessarily the case every time. Yet when it comes to the Milwaukee Brewers it makes a lot more sense.
Because they certainly have a knack for turning those guys into something.
So it went when they dealt former Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes to Baltimore as his walk year began. They received Joey Ortiz, now a valued infielder and their primary third baseman at the moment.
They also received Hall, a former first-round pick who clearly wasn’t going to reach the starter ceiling that got him drafted yet also didn’t have the raw stuff associated with a high-leverage reliever.
Yet the Brewers certainly found something in him.
On a team with Misiorowski as the headliner and Trevor Megill and Abner Uribe providing late-inning electricity, Hall bridges the gap. The man posted a 1.91 ERA and 1.04 WHIP across 61 1/3 innings this season, and his role has only gained greater import as the season wound down.
Simply, the Brewers are going to try and win a championship with two starting pitchers – The Miz and Logan Henderson – and then the rest is TBA. What they do anticipate are significant contributions from virtually every member of the staff they roster.
Situational kills, multi-inning bursts, high-leverage, high-wire acts – Milwaukee needs it all. And Hall, 28, can provide it all: He recorded at least four outs in 20 of his 47 appearances, and just one or two in seven more. He’s a little more vulnerable against righties than lefties, but a .558 OPS against will not set off alarms.
And he gave up just one homer to lefty hitters this year. Jackson Merrill and Jake Cronenworth will probably see a lot of him. And he may compel Craig Stammen to empty his bench earlier than he’d like, possibly leaving the Padres short in the later innings.
It’s a stealth weapon. But over five games, one that may pay dividends time after time.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Will rookie slugger take MLB playoffs by storm? Players who could decide division series
