AP Images/Ringer illustration In the MLB playoffs, hope springs eternal and chaos reigns supreme. Here are the reasons the favorites should worry and the underdogs can feel confident—and vice versa, of course. The 2024 MLB regular season is nearly complete, with just a delicious doubleheader—full of playoff implications and the potential for scandal—between Atlanta and the Mets still to come on Monday. But there's no time to wait for that resolution before commencing actual postseason analysis, because the playoffs themselves start on Tuesday! So before the wild-card round begins, let's examine the playoff contestants (and remaining possible contestants) to determine why each one might, and might not, win the 2024 World Series. This is a wide-open field, after a regular season in which no team won 100 games. The last time MLB brought this level of parity was 2014, when a lack of 100-win teams produced a thrilling postseason, which started with the greatest wild-card game ever and ended with the World Series–tying run stranded on third base. May baseball fans be blessed with similar drama a decade later. As we dive into our analysis, teams are ordered by FanGraphs...