Game 163

It's not quite the postseason, the one game playoff to see who gets the chance to play a one game playoff to advance to the next round of the American League playoffs. The National League side has been reasonably set for a while now; only an impossible run from the Nationals combined with a complete collapse from one of the NL Central front-runners would have shaken things up. It was only a question of seeding, with the Reds and Pirates duking it out to see who got to host the Wild Card game, and the Dodgers and Braves cruising home with 10+ game leads.

The NL is Going To Get Better

This pitchers' mound we're standing on? It's made of money.

Over the past decade and a half or so, the consensus in baseball circles has been that the American League is much, much better than the National League. Watch the All-Star Games, tally up interleague play, and fiddle with the advanced metrics on the rosters and it's clear: more of the better talent is in the AL. Yeah, occasionally a San Francisco or a St. Louis can snaffle up a World Series win, but Billy Beane can tell you all there is to know about the sort of small sample size you get in the playoffs, and how well one's crap works therein. (Hint: it doesn't.)