Aaron Judge #99 of the New York Yankees bats during...

Aaron Judge #99 of the New York Yankees bats during the fourth inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Yankee Stadium on Saturday, Sep. 28, 2024 in the Bronx borough of New York City. Credit: Jim McIsaac

As of this writing, Major League Baseball was roughly 48 hours from wrapping up its regular season — or 72, if you’re Atlanta and the Mets. But settling the playoff configurations for October? In that not-so-small detail, an uncomfortable amount of distance remained, with too rushed a period of time to get there.

Don’t get us wrong. Who doesn’t love drama? You can bet MLB does when it comes to TV ratings, and the higher the stakes, the greater number of eyeballs. But MLB also worked to prevent something like Monday’s scenario happening when the expanded playoff format was introduced for the 2022 season.

By adding two more teams and stretching out the wild-card round to a best-of-three, that meant more games to squeeze in during approximately the same period, with the objective of finishing the World Series not long after Halloween (and preferably avoiding November entirely).

That’s why the wild-card series is limited to the home field of the higher seed and plays three games in three straight days.

Also, MLB did away with the idea of a potential Game 163 to decide a playoff berth (as entertaining as that do-or-die programming was). It’s all supposed to be determined by tiebreakers now so the playoffs can go off as scheduled without teams losing their off/workout days.

That was the idea, anyway. But now? MLB not only has one game tentatively scheduled for Monday — the eve of the wild-card round — it has two, involving at least one team and possibly two that might then have to rush off to Milwaukee or San Diego to play the biggest game of the year the next day on extremely short notice.

It could’ve been avoided. The lack of urgency, foresight and preparation that led to Hurricane Helene wiping out the final two games of the Atlanta-Mets series at Truist Park created the exact brand of chaos that’s detrimental to the game’s competitive integrity on two fronts: both in determining the playoff field and how the postseason is conducted.

There still was a weekend escape hatch. Atlanta and the Mets — along with a key assist from the other domino, the Diamondbacks — could play their respective ways into some sort of weekend resolution, making Monday unnecessary. That would do MLB a big favor from a PR perspective, though that would hardly be deserved.

Update: When the Mets lost to Milwaukee and Atlanta beat Kansas City — on a walk-off home run by former Met Travis d’Arnaud — on Saturday night, Atlanta (88-71) moved a game ahead of the Mets (87-72). Arizona fell to 88-73 when it lost to San Diego late Saturday night.

But as we wait for the playoffs to begin, let’s tackle some of the regular-season awards, with the BBWAA ballots due later this week and the winners to be announced in November. Here are my picks, which also include my preseason predictions and midseason projections. Because I’m voting for the NL MVP this year — the awards rotate among BBWAA members — I can’t reveal my pick here, so that category will just include some brief debate. And the winners are: 

AMERICAN LEAGUE

 

MVP: AARON JUDGE, YANKEES

First off, credit to Bobby Witt Jr. The Royals’ wunderkind shortstop actually has made this a relatively close race with Judge, a one-man wrecking ball whose only equal — from an offensive standpoint, anyway — is the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani. Judge remained a Triple Crown threat into the final weekend, leading the majors in homers (58) and RBIs (144) while sitting third in the AL with a .325 batting average — trailing only Witt (.332) and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (.326). It’s worth noting that Judge also plays a premium spot in centerfield — though right is where he shines — and Witt gets points for pushing the Royals to the playoffs after a 100-loss season. A few weeks back, maybe Witt gets a handful of first-place votes, but it’s hard not to see Judge being a unanimous selection.

Preseason pick:

Juan Soto, Yankees

Midseason pick:

Gunnar Henderson

 

CY YOUNG: TARIK SKUBAL, TIGERS

Remember the deadline chatter about the Tigers possibly trading Tarik Skubal? It seems beyond ludicrous now, as Skubal is one of the primary engines that propelled Detroit to its long-shot wild-card berth, which was sewn up Friday. We had Skubal pegged as the AL Cy Young Award winner at the All-Star break, and he’s only polished his bid since then, now giving the Tigers a shutdown ace for October. There’s no touching his resume, as Skubal leads AL starters in ERA (2.39) and the majors in strikeouts (228) and, if you’re into wins, that too (18). He’s second in the AL in WHIP (0.92) to Seattle’s Logan Gilbert (0.91) and third in homers per nine innings (0.70). Since June 25, Skubal is 10-1 with a 2.29 ERA while limiting opposing hitters to a .197 average. The Tigers — spearheaded by Skubal — went 50-32 during that span.

Preseason pick:

Corbin Burnes, Orioles

Midseason pick: Skubal

 

MANAGER OF THE YEAR: STEPHEN VOGT, GUARDIANS

We don’t often talk about tight races in this category, largely because managers don’t have easily measurable stats that we can track on a daily basis. But this year, the AL gives us a trio of very strong candidates — remarkably, all from the perennially weak Central division, too. We gave Vogt the edge at the break for all he had to overcome in his first shot at managing — taking over for future Hall of Famer Terry Francona, losing ace Shane Bieber for the season and inheriting the 25th-ranked payroll in the sport. All that, and Vogt not only led the Guardians to the Central title but challenged the $300 million Yankees for the AL’s best record. The Royals’ Matt Quatraro also deserves serious consideration — though his club got a big free-agent cash infusion over the winter — as does AJ Hinch, who engineered this year’s best in-season turnaround.

Preseason pick:

AJ Hinch, Tigers

Midseason pick: Vogt

 

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: COLTON COWSER,

ORIOLES

In March, I had the right team for this award, just the wrong player. While the massively hyped Jackson Holliday grabbed all the headlines, it was Colton Cowser who made the greatest rookie impact for the Orioles, who managed to hold on to the AL’s top wild-card spot despite a very disappointing second half. Cowser, an everyday outfielder who’s played each spot in his 152 games, led AL rookies in homers (24), runs scored (77) and WAR (4.1). Honorable mention: the Yankees’ strong rookie duo of Luis Gil (15-6, 3.27 ERA) and Austin Wells (second-best 3.4 WAR).

Preseason pick:

Jackson Holliday, Orioles

Midseason pick:

Mason Miller, A’s

 

NATIONAL LEAGUE

 

MVP: CAN’T REVEAL

As mentioned above, this is my voting category this year, so I can’t reveal my ballot until the results are made public in November. But there was some intrigue in the NL race this year — even with Shohei Ohtani’s historic 50-50 season — because the Japanese superstar was limited to DH duties after last September’s Tommy John surgery. Francisco Lindor wound up being the standout true two-way star among the top two candidates. For some, this MVP vote could come down to a philosophical argument: Does a player who sits out the defensive half of the game deserve total consideration? No full-time DH has ever won the award — David Ortiz came the closest with 11 first-place votes in 2005 — so Ohtani’s candidacy will put that thinking to the test.

Preseason pick:

Mookie Betts, Dodgers

Midseason pick: Ohtani

 

CY YOUNG: CHRIS SALE, ATLANTA

Sale’s resurgence from his injury-marred Red Sox tenure probably has surpassed even the most optimistic projections for the 35-year-old lefthander. Entering the final weekend, Sale led all MLB starters with a 2.38 ERA and 11.40 strikeouts per nine innings and was tied with AL favorite Skubal with 18 wins. He also was second in WHIP (1.01) to the Phillies’ Zack Wheeler (0.96) and fourth in opponents’ batting average (.215). Perhaps the only knock on Sale is that his innings total (177 2⁄3) is a little light — almost 30 behind NL leader Logan Webb of the Giants — but that was to be expected given his age and injury history. He’s also a huge reason why banged-up Atlanta is on the brink of a playoff berth.

Preseason pick:

Zack Wheeler, Phillies

Midseason pick: Sale

 

MANAGER OF THE YEAR: CARLOS

MENDOZA, METS

No knock on the Brewers’ Pat Murphy, who upstaged his former benchmate (the traitorous Craig Counsell, who took $40M from the Cubs) in leading Milwaukee to the NL Central title. But managing the Mets is among the toughest gig in all of pro sports — even now, with baseball’s richest owner, Steve Cohen, always ready with the checkbook — and Mendoza continually navigated his team through potentially season-sinking turbulence: an 0-5 start, then falling to 11 games under .500 in early June. The Mets still had MLB’s highest payroll — much of that based on the sunk cost of traded players — but Mendoza had to handle a pieced-together rotation and patchwork bullpen in getting the Mets to post MLB’s best winning percentage (.673) since May 29, putting the wild card in their grasp on the final weekend.

Preseason pick:

Craig Counsell, Cubs

Midseason pick:

Pat Murphy, Brewers

 

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: JACKSON MERRILL, PADRES

Tough call here. If we went with pure headline-generating sizzle, it’s hard not to pick the Pirates’ Paul Skenes, who would be gunning for the Cy Young Award if Pittsburgh hadn’t delayed his MLB debut until May 12. Even so, Skenes was still 11-3 with a 1.99 ERA, 11.47 K/9 ratio and 0.96 WHIP in 22 starts before Saturday’s finale vs. the Yankees. But if we treat this award as the most complete rookie performance, as in most valuable rookie, then it’s got to be Merrill, who moved from shortstop to be the Padres’ Opening Day centerfielder and made 147 starts there (155 games overall). Entering the final weekend, Merrill was hitting .292 with 24 homers, 90 RBIs and an .824 OPS. Not only was his 5.1 WAR (according to FanGraphs) by far the highest among all rookies, it ranked 17th in the majors.

Preseason pick:

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Dodgers

Midseason pick:

Paul Skenes, Pirates

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