“Every time you go to the ballpark, you might see something you've never seen before,” the late Ernie Harwell, longtime Detroit Tigers announcer, once said.
While the quote is often used to describe the experience of a single game, it can just as easily be applied to a full season of games: Each year has its own unique story to tell.
Over the course of the 2026 season, fans saw an unusually weak American League, with only five teams in the AL ending the year with winning records. Among those five was the White Sox, a team that had posted three consecutive seasons of 100 or more losses. No other team in the history of baseball has done that and made the playoffs the next year.
“[I’m] elated, yet frustrated,” said Caleb Joshua Heffron, a White Sox fan and reporter for the Marion Chronicle Tribune. “White Sox fans have been dragged through the mud over the last three seasons, and going into this year, I am more than happy with how this team has come together…. With that being said, it is immensely frustrating to lose the division to the Guardians so late in the season. Having the division lead for over a month heading into September and losing it by one game is just brutal.”
In the National League, the emergences of starting pitcher Jacob Misiorowski and centerfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong have served as important catalysts for the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs, respectively.
Misiorowski has dominated this year, pitching to a tune of a 1.80 earned run average, striking out 252 batters. He finished the year with 16 wins, only two shy of league leader Cristopher Sánchez, a mark that would have granted him the pitching triple crown (an achievement of a pitcher leading his league in ERA, strikeouts and wins). Despite those stats, what is even more impressive is the fact that Misiorowski threw 1,115 pitches over 100 mph this season, destroying the previous single season record by 673 pitches.
Crow-Armstrong, on the other hand, has surpassed the Los Angeles Dodgers’ two-way star, Shohei Ohtani, as the league’s lead Most Valuable Player award candidate after leading the NL in slugging percentage (.570) and all Major League in home runs (45), runs (119) and Wins Above Replacement (9.8). Ohtani is notably a three-time reigning recipient of the award.
As the 2026 Major League Baseball season comes to a close, some teams are gearing up for the postseason sprint while others begin to assess their offseason strategies.
The slate of teams (ranked by seed) for the 2026 postseason features the Tampa Bay Rays, Cleveland Guardians, Houston Astros, New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox in the AL. Meanwhile, the Brewers, Dodgers, Atlanta Braves, San Diego Padres, Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies will fight over the NL.
“The postseason is pure intensity compared to the regular season,” Heffron said. “Each team had 162 games to get a shot at the World Series. You have time to slump, find your footing, rally late, make trades, adjust. Now for Wild Card teams, your season hangs in the balance of a best-of-three series. It is purely your nightly best against another team's nightly best, and that's what makes the playoffs so gripping.”
The postseason is off to a bang as the White Sox, Yankees, Braves and Padres have already eliminated the Astros, Red Sox, Phillies and Cubs in the Wild Card Series, respectively. Matchups have already seen their share of intensity: Astros players openly criticized fans, Cubs bats fell flat and temperatures began to rise as the Division Series kicked off.
“I think (the postseason is) fun to watch because every team has a chip on their shoulder and will play above their ranking,” Spencer Smith, Cubs fan and former Echo sports co-editor. “Any guy can get hot and become the hero, any pitcher can get hot and take the team to the next game and survive another day.”
The World Series is scheduled to begin on Oct. 23. While the matchup is still to be determined, plenty of teams are vying for a spot. The Padres are considered the hottest team in baseball entering the postseason, winning eight of their last ten games of the season, the Dodgers seek a three-peat, the Brewers led all of baseball in wins and the White Sox are a miracle comeback story.
Regardless of who secures a trip to the Fall Classic, fans can expect an action-packed series.
