MLB Playoffs 2023: Offseason questions for eliminated teams - ESPN

04.10.2023 - 22:15 espn.com

Baseball's new playoff format means that October starts with a new tradition — the elimination of four wild-card teams in the first three days of the MLB playoffs.

This year, the Rays became the first team to exit when they were knocked out by the Rangers on Wednesday — and more will follow soon.

Whether your team's playoff departure comes in the opening days or after a long run, it's time to look ahead to what could be on the front-offfice's to-do list heading into the offseason.

ESPN MLB experts Alden Gonzalez, Bradford Doolittle and David Schoenfield identify the free agents to watch, key priorities and question that will shape the coming months for each eliminated team.

Rangers ESPN experts Alden Gonzalez Tommy John Tyler Glasnow state Texas

The Arizona Diamondbacks foiled what started out as a potential double elimination day by coming into Citizens Bank Park for Game 6 and beating the Philadelphia Phillies 5-1 to stay alive and force a Game 7 — the two best words in sports — in the National League Championship Series. Then, the Texas Rangers punched their ticket to the 2023 World Series by eliminating the Houston Astros in a Game 7 blowout.

MLB Playoffs 2023: Complicated legacy of Astros' Jose Altuve - ESPN

HOUSTON — HERE, JOSE ALTUVE is safe. From the boos and hisses, the anger and loathing, the emotion his mere existence conjures. This man, baseball's smallest player and yet one of its biggest stars, lives a binary existence. He is a villain in 29 stadiums. And then he comes home.

MLB playoffs 2023: Why the Arizona Diamondbacks aren't ready to give up - ESPN

PHOENIX — A funny thing happened along the way to a Philadelphia Phillies repeat as pennant winners: The Arizona Diamondbacks decided to make a series of their best-of-seven matchup with the defending NL champs. On Friday, the self-anointed «Answerbacks» tied the NLCS at 2-2 with a thrilling 6-5 win, one night after they beat Philadelphia 2-1 in a walk-off.

Astros beat Texas after melee and D-backs win in MLB playoffs

WASHINGTON: Jose Altuve smashed a three-run home run in the ninth inning to deliver defending champion Houston a dramatic 5-4 comeback victory over Texas on Friday in the Major League Baseball playoffs.

MLB playoffs 2023: How Lovullo and Hazen's bond has endured - ESPN

PHOENIX — NICOLE HAZEN just wanted it to feel like Christmas. It was the winter of 2020, six months after she had suffered a seizure that uncovered a cancerous brain tumor, and Nicole was seeking reminders of her festive childhood holidays in the Cleveland suburbs. Her husband, Mike, had always refused to climb atop their roof to install lights. But this time he offered a compromise. «We'll pay somebody,» Mike, the Arizona Diamondbacks' general manager, told her. Nicole had a better idea:

MLB playoffs 2023: Inside D-backs' scramble to change October plans - ESPN

When a team makes an unexpected MLB playoff run, there are all the things we see: players getting their chance to shine under the bright lights of the postseason, sold-out stadiums and a city coming alive as its team becomes baseball's version of a Cinderella story. But when even the members of the team upsetting its way through the postseason didn't see it coming, there is a behind-the-scenes scramble to rearrange plans made before the realization that division series and league championship series dates would rule their October calendars.