NLCS: Dodgers / MetsALCS: Guardians / Yankees

Baseball Gods . . . if you're listening . . . please arrange a Dodgers/Guardians World Series.

MLB.com offers its picks, from 45 "experts":

NLCS: Mets 26, Dodgers 19

Mets in 5: 5 votes
Mets in 6: 17 votes
Mets in 7: 4 votes

Dodgers in 5: 1 vote
Dodgers in 6: 14 votes
Dodgers in 7: 4 votes

ALCS: Yankees 33, Guardians 12

Yankees in 5: 15 votes
Yankees in 6: 11 votes
Yankees in 7: 7 votes

Guardians in 5: 1 vote
Guardians in 6: 3 votes
Guardians in 7: 8 votes

Picks from ESPN:

NLCS: Dodgers 8, Mets 6

Dodgers in 5: 2 votes
Dodgers in 6: 4 votes
Dodgers in 7: 2 votes

Mets in 6: 2 votes
Mets in 7: 4 votes

ALCS: Yankees 12, Guardians 1 

Yankees in 5: 1 vote
Yankees in 6: 6 votes
Yankees in 7: 5 votes

Guardians in 7: 1 vote*

*: For the record, David Schoenfield picked the Spiders.

I don't know why ESPN has 14 NLCS votes but only 13 ALCS votes.

According to Will Leitch's ranking, my World Series wish is (alas) the least "fascinating", after Dodgers/Yankees (11 previous WS battles), Mets/Yankees, and Guardians/Mets.

A few Shohei Ohtani late-season factoids, courtesy of OptaSTATS:

Since RBI became official in 1920, only one MLB player has had, over the course of his entire career (same game or not), a game with 10+ RBI, a game with 6+ hits, a game with 5+ XBH, a game with 3+ HR, a game with 2+ SB. That one player is Shohei Ohtani. He did all of it today [September 29].

Last 4 games for the @Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani [September 19-22]:

14 hits, 13 RBI, 6 SB, 5 HR

If every MLB player since 1920 (when RBI became an official stat) took the best 4-game span of his career in each category separately and put them together, still no one could match that stat line.

Shohei Ohtani of the @Dodgers ha[d] 10 home runs and 16 stolen bases in September after having 12 homers and 15 stolen bases in August. All other players in MLB history have had one month with at least 10 HR & 14 SB – Carlos Beltran in August 2004.

Shohei Ohtani finished the 2024 regular season in the top 5 in MLB in runs (1st), hits (4th), home runs (2nd), RBI (2nd), walks (4th) & stolen bases (2nd). No one else has ever finished a season in the top 5 in MLB in all of those categories (since RBI became official in 1920).

Take any single league (AL, NL, etc.) in any season in the past. Take any player's HR total, any player's SB total & any player's TB total from that league that season. You still could not build a stat line to match what Shohei Ohtani did this year (54 HR, 59 SB, 411 TB).

Also: Ohtani finished second in MLB in both home runs (Judge, 58) and stolen bases (Elly De La Cruz, 67). The only other players to finish in the top-2 in MLB in both categories: 1908 Honus Wagner and 1909 Ty Cobb.