Outside The Confines: The NL postseason starts today

Today is a very busy day for baseball, with a full eight-game postseason slate that will see the American League Wild Card games continue on to Game 2 (and potentially see some teams advance to the ALDS) while the National League kicks off their own best-of-three series.

With such a full day of games ahead, naturally all anyone in the sporting world can talk about is the postseason (while all anyone outside the sporting world can talk about is the debate), and I know which one I’d rather share links to.

So let’s just dive right into it.

• Alex Silverman says the biggest problem facing sports today is learning how to appeal to Gen Z.
• In a rare Meg Rowley post over at FanGraphs, she makes her picks for who will win the World Series (a theme you’ll notice a lot of in the following links).
• Should Francisco Lindor be the Latino face of MLB? ESPN thinks so.
• 2020 had some truly bizarre regular season stats, and Tom Verducci breaks down the weirdest among them.
• The Athletic staff make their postseason predictions. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Over at The Ringer, Claire McNear decodes Taylor Swift’s newest album to see who the pop star is picking for World Series winner.
• ESPN gives us their biggest takeaways about Tuesday’s games.
• While this wasn’t one of their takeaways, it should have been.

• Daniel R. Epstein writes an ode to the most 2020 game of the 2020 season.
• The Minnesota Twins tragic postseason losing streak continues, as reported by Steve Richards.
• When it comes to winning in the postseason, pitching depth might matter more than anything else, writes Tom Verducci.
• Your team, yes YOUR team, is going to win the World Series, promises Baseball BBQ.
• Keith Law brings us the top 20 players under 25 in the 2020 postseason. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Meanwhile Jeff Passan has 20 questions heading into the 2020 postseason.
• Generations.

• With a limited pool of opponents, Jonathan Judge wonders how fair the Cy Young race really is this year.
• Tom Verducci looks back to the expanded postseason of 1995 to ask whether or not 2020 can be similarly cathartic for baseball.
• Ken Rosenthal reminds us that even though the postseason is a bit different this year, it still matters. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Marly Rivera spotlights why Gary Sanchez wasn’t behind the dish for Gerrit Cole in the Yankees series opener.
• Get a hanky ready.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Make it so.