2016 Wild Card Playoff Predictions: Aces Wild

Looking back at my predictions from the beginning of the year, I guess I should have known the popular Astros pick was going to falter. But, hey, my predicted world champion is still alive! Actually, most of my National League playoff bracket looks pretty good (and even St. Louis only barely missed out), while the American League ... not so much.

Overall, I had a dozen out of the 30 teams' final standings correct, which doesn't sound terribly impressive but I'm willing to bet is probably better than I've done in this sport in most recent years (I'd go back to look up and compare, but as I recently noted, I'm waiting until I'm a really, really old man to do that one day). I still have the nagging suspicion that my initial beliefs about what team wins it all this year could very well be correct, but I'm similarly worried that either the Red Sox (who've already won three titles this century) or the Dodgers (who I simply loathe for no real reason) could end up as champions.

Of course, the Cubs finished the regular season with the best record, and my family's little trip to Chicago at the end of October may end up coinciding with possible World Series games at Wrigley Field. That could be quite a weekend, but the truth remains that at the moment, there's 10 teams that still have chances and, if nothing else, baseball has taught us that a team that gets hot at the right time could very well end up winning it all, regardless of what they did in the regular season.

Two teams are going to be eliminated over the next two nights, so allow me to guess which pair is moving on.

In descending order of confidence:

San Francisco Giants over New York Mets

Well, the Giants were my pick to win this game at the beginning of the year, and I don't see much reason to change that now. While the pitching matchup is pretty stellar (and the Cubs have to be thrilled that they won't be facing either one in Game 1 of the NLDS), San Francisco has already proven with many of the same players that it can win these types of games.

Toronto Blue Jays over Baltimore Orioles

I have no idea. I already picked a road team (although road teams are something like 6-2 in Wild Card games), but Toronto's been pretty good at home while the Orioles have struggled on the road. My concern is that the Blue Jays really limped across the finish line, but something tells me that Toronto's biggest stars will come up with some of the team's biggest hits in this one.