If you’re looking for star power in the 2026 MLB post-season, well, best look over to the National League. We have a whole lot of something else going on in the American League Division Series, folks.
Not that the two matchups in the ALDS won’t be competitive. They will. The season series between the Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees ended 7-6 in favour of the Rays. The Chicago White Sox took seven of the 13 games they played against their ALDS opposition, the Cleveland Guardians, with one run being the aggregate difference in the series. These foes are division brothers; they know each other well.
Yet star-power? Piffle. Can we sell you instead on the promise of youth? Even if Aaron Judge and his balky calf muscle return to the Yankees lineup, even if Ben Rice continues to gradually etch his name into Yankees lore, even if Cam Schlittler and Junior Caminero have all manner of stardust at the ages of 25 and 23, respectively, and even if Jose Ramirez’s two compromised wrists are rested enough to allow him to regain his power, much of the script of these playoffs seems destined to be written by rookies.
George Lombard Jr. and Spencer Jones will have a say in the Yankees’ series. Brody Hopkins made his MLB debut on Sept. 13 and by the end of the month had thrown the 43 fastest pitches by a Rays hurler in 2026, all of them over 99.4 m.p.h. He might not be on the roster. Tampa’s Victor Mesa is a 30-year-old rookie who was named a player of the week in mid-September and led all qualified hitters in average in the season’s final month.
And then there’s the White Sox, with every-day rookies Sam Antonacci, Braden Montgomery, Tristan Peters, Munetaka Murakami and Game 1 starter Hagen Smith matching up against the Guardians’ Game 1 starter Parker Messick and regular-lineup rookies Chase DeLauter and Travis Bazzana.
Useful youth is one reason the Guardians-White Sox matchup will pit the team with the second-lowest payroll in the majors against the club with the fourth-lowest. And the Rays are still representing: they haven’t had three consecutive 100-loss seasons like the White Sox … but they’ll still run out the third-lowest payroll against the Yankees. Hell, the Milwaukee Brewers look like spendthrifts compared to the tin-cup brigade in the AL post-season.
There is a whack of Canadian content in the ALDS, with Winkler, Man., native Peters coming off a nice two games in Chicago’s wild-card series against the Houston Astros and reliever Erik Sabrowski of Edmonton part of the Guardians’ bullpen bridge to closer Cade Smith of Abbotsford, B.C. Ditto for the Yankees-Rays series, where Rays catcher/designated hitter Liam Hicks of Toronto occupies the strategically important spot behind or in front of Caminero in manager Kevin Cash’s lineup.
The kids will get us going in Game 1, with Messick on the mound for the Guardians against 23-year-old White Sox lead-off hitter Antonacci, who signalled his team’s intention by working the Astros’ A.J. Blubaugh for an eight-pitch walk in Game 1 of the wild-card series. Antonacci had two runs, two hits and two runs batted in over two games.
His manager, Will Venable, says Antonacci reminds him of former major leaguer David Eckstein.
“You just love the way (Antonacci) embodies really the whole team and our competitive spirit,” said Venable. “He’s not giving you anything easy. It might not always look pretty, but he’s going to find a way to get the bat to the ball or get a body part to the ball and get on base.”
Here, then, are six to watch in the ALDS:
• Travis Bazzana, 2B, Guardians: The Guardians once again owned September and their Australian-born rookie all-star had a hand in it with six home runs, 15 runs batted in and a season-best monthly OPS of .978. Bazzana finished with 15 homers, 19 steals, 22 doubles and three triples and, well, that’s about what you’re going to get from the Guardians across the board. They’ll win on defence and pitching, but somebody is going to have to step up if Ramirez continues to be compromised. “When it mattered, when the heat got turned up so to speak, Travis come through for us,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “Couldn’t have asked for anything more from him.”
• Junior Caminero, 3B, Rays: This might be one of the most Rays-iest teams of all Rays teams: leading the league in stolen bases, striking out the fewest times, and hitting .283 with runners in scoring position — also an MLB best. You know about the Rays’ pitching and defence, too, but … I don’t know. I think power ultimately wins in the post-season and Caminero mashes better than just about anybody, with 42 home runs (tied for second in the AL with Yordan Alvarez, one behind Pete Alonso) and a slugging percentage of .524 that was sixth-best in the majors.
No one has as much fun on a home-run trot, but Caminero is more than just all flash: he posts up (he’s the seventh third baseman in modern history to play all 162 games) and he’s polished his approach at the plate, doubling his walk rate and improving his on-base percentage by almost 50 points. Although September was not his best offensive month, he still reached base in 34 of his last 39 games.
As for his defence? Best to stick with his hitting, because of all 272 qualified MLB defenders, just 10 graded out worse in outs above average. If the ball finds his bat more often than his glove, this could be a signature series for the 23-year-old.
• Ben Rice, DH, Yankees: Rice made an adjustment over the winter, opening his stance and being less “handsy,” and became the focal point of the Yankees attack with Judge limited to just 63 games, including seven in the second half. It wasn’t always smooth — his summer months were frankly underwhelming — but he put up an OPS of 1.055 in September, leading the AL in OBP, and followed it up with that 4-for-5, six-RBI performance in the first game of the wild-card series win over the Boston Red Sox. Although Rice’s grand slam came off right-hander Brayan Bello, his three other hits came off left-handers.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone knows that without Judge’s right-handed bat, opposing teams will load up lefties. They had the second-most at-bats against lefties this season, behind only the Atlanta Braves. “We faced so many (lefties) for months there where we were very left-handed,” Boone said. “In the fifth inning every day it was one lefty and then another. So, I’d like to think some of that familiarity and reps prepared us well.” No kidding. As friend Jeff Passan pointed out, the Yankees hit .500 (11-for-22) with a 1.182 OPS in left-on-left situations against the Red Sox.
•Chandler Simpson, LF, Rays: I’m not yet ready to change my opinion of the Yankees’ inability to get out of their own way in the field or their tendency to botch things up in the margins of the game, despite the way they tortured the Red Sox in the wild-card series. You know all about his regular season: zero homers, the most steals in baseball and a .306 average second in the AL only to Alvarez, by 10 percentage points. A move from centre field to full-time left saw his defensive game improve measurably, from a net negative in defensive metrics to the top 10 per-cent of all fielders. The Rays’ bye week should mitigate against lingering effects from a foul off his foot last weekend. It’s always good when chaos reigns supreme at the Trop, no?
• Cade Smith, RP, Guardians: Even with their pronounced edge in starting pitching, the three off-days within this series opens the door for aggressive bullpen use on the part of Vogt and Venable, his counterpart with the White Sox. We saw Venable give Grant Taylor 2.1 innings of relief work in an ‘if it ain’t broken don’t fix it’ approach in Game 1 of the wild-card series against the Astros, and he’s promised more of the same, going with Hagen Smith as a pseudo-opener in Game 1. “Yeah, we can use our guys frequently up front here just knowing we have the off-days,” Venable said.
But here’s the thing: Vogt has done this before. Middle relievers Sobrowksi, Tim Herrin and Hunter Gaddis are well rested, and if it’s close late — and the Guardians are the least impressive offensive unit remaining in the post-season — he’ll be giving the ball to a closer who pitched in 60 games and was tied for the major-league lead in saves with 41. And Smith’s been there before: in 12 post-season games, he has a .065 WHIP.
• Miguel Vargas, 3B, White Sox: Vargas went 0-for-9 in the wild-card series, and while the White Sox had complementary players step up, Vargas’s 33 homers were one of the reasons they slugged the fifth-most homers in the majors. He can’t pull a no-show. The White Sox’s power needs to be their calling card in a series against a team that finished 27th and hit 70 fewer homers during the regular season. Vargas’s plate discipline also separated him from the rest of his team’s power hitters. No player remaining in the post-season matched Vargas’s 101 walks, so it’s no surprise he finished in the 96th percentile in chase rate during the regular season. But he struck out three times in the Astros series. Different animal, the playoffs.
Jeff Blair’s picks: Yankees defeat Rays 3-2; Guardians defeat White Sox 3-1.
