About Last Night...

Robert Bleeping Andino.

No, actually I'm not going to talk about last night. It's still too raw. I'll leave it to these guys - Joe Posnanski, Tom Verducci, and Jon Paul Morosi - who put it in much better terms than I ever could. Scroll down far enough on Mr. Posnanski's, and you'll notice a familiar name among the comments.

What I'm really going to do is do a quick rundown of the first round of the playoffs. You may remember that last year, I attempted to show why baseball didn't need a salary cap - using the payrolls of the playoff teams as my examples. That was so much fun that, before I offer up a quickie preview/prediction of each divisional series, I'm going to do it again.

So without further ado, here are your 2011 MLB playoff teams, with their record, payroll (in millions), and major league payroll rank:

Yankees - 97-65, $201.7 (1)
Phillies - 102-60, $173.0 (2)
Tigers - 95-67, $105.7 (10)
Cardinals - 90-72, $105.4 (11)
Rangers - 96-66, $92.3 (13)
Brewers - 96-66, $85.5 (17)
Diamondbacks - 94-68, $53.6 (27)
Rays - 91-71, $41.9 (31)

So the average payroll of the playoff teams this year is $107.4 million. If they were an actual team, they would rank 10th in the majors, just ahead of the Tigers and about $5 million behind the Twins (who, by the way, had the worst record in the AL). Only two of the top eight payroll teams made the playoffs - the other six being the Red Sox, Angels, White Sox, Cubs, Mets and Giants, respectively. Yet another victory for parity! Okay, so the Phillies are the clear favorite. But still. The fact that the Diamondbacks and Rays - sadly - have an infinitely better chance than the Red Sox is all that matters.

But anyways, enough with the numbers. On to the previews.

Tigers vs. Yankees
This one starts off with a bang, with Justin Verlander versus CC Sabathia in Game 1. This series is going to all come down to starting pitching. The Yankees have CC, but beyond that, questions. Can Ivan Nova hold up under the pressure of the playoffs? Which AJ Burnett will show up, if he's even allowed to pitch? Will Freddy Garcia be able to crank out a quality start? Is Big Fat Bartolo Colon ever going to lose weight? The Tigers have Verlander, and then the 1-2 punch of Doug Fister and Max Scherzer. Fister has had a good second half and doesn't walk a lot of guys - but he doesn't have much of a track record. And Scherzer is as likely to give you a 2-hit shutout as he is to give up 5 runs in 3 innings. Both offenses are good, the Yankees more blatantly so, but the Tigers have arguably the best hitter on the AL side of the playoffs in Miguel Cabrera. Either way, this one is going to take all 5 games to decide.
Prediction - Tigers in 5

Rays vs. Rangers
Texas is the team no one wants to face right now, and for good reason. Their offense has been absolutely tearing the cover off the ball, and their lineup is ridiculous to begin with. I mean, look at their 1-7: Ian Kinsler (30/30), Elvis Andrus (nearly 40 SBs), Josh Hamilton (most naturally talented player in the majors, bar none), Michael Young (200 hits), Adrian Beltre (missed significant time and still hit 32 HRs w/ 105 RBIs), Mike Napoli (hit .320) and Nelson Cruz (a 30/30 candidate if he can ever stay healthy). CJ Wilson has developed into an ace, and Derek Holland has had a nifty second half. The Rays are coming in riding a tidal wave of momentum, and their pitching is superb - but the Rangers may just be the best team in the league. Also, the Rays are starting a rookie in Game 1, in just his second career start. This is an interesting choice, despite the fact that the kid (Matt Moore) is a stud.
Prediction - Rangers in 4

Cardinals vs. Phillies
And here we have the best team in baseball, playing a team that lost its best pitcher before the season had even started and got a career-worst season from the best player of this generation. I actually tweeted, right after I heard the news about Adam Wainwright, something along the lines of "Well, I guess the Cards won't be making the playoffs this year." Also, side note: when your worst season - by far - is .299/.366/.541, with 37 HRs, 99 RBIs and 105 runs - you are really freaking good. El Hombre, Prince Albert, The Machine - Albert Pujols, ladies and gentlemen. Anyways, the Cardinals have come along nicely, the 3-4-5 of Pujols/Matt Holliday/Lance Berkman is scary when it's firing on all cylinders and Chris Carpenter has rounded into his former Cy Young form at the right time - but the Phillies won 102 games for a reason. Their #3 starter is a former World Series MVP, had a sub-3.00 ERA, and would be the ace of two-thirds of the rest of the teams in the league. Their offense may not be as explosive as that of the Rangers, but it's still plenty good. Besides, when you trot out the Big 3 of Roy Halladay/Cliff Lee/Cole Hamels successively, you don't really need to score that many runs.
Prediction - Phillies in 3

Diamondbacks vs. Brewers
This is actually a very, very intriguing series, and I think it's going to be closer than people think. The Brewers are like the JV version of the Phillies - Big 3 (Zack Greinke/Yovani Gallardo/Shaun Marcum) backed up by a great offense led by MVP candidates Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder - while the Diamondbacks, on paper at least, have a Cy Young candidate in Ian Kennedy, an MVP candidate of their own in Justin Upton and not much else. But I've seen them play in person, and there's just something else about this team, something that makes you wonder if they could really pull off a run here. I think that even though the Brewers win the series, the Dbacks steal a game and make the rest of them very, very close.
Prediction - Brewers in 4

That's all I've got for now, but this was fun - I think I'll definitely do them for the LCS's and World Series.