Opinion

"I don't believe in damn curses. Wake up the damn Bambino and have me face him. Maybe I'll drill him in the ass." - Pedro Martinez, Boston Red Sox, 2001 

For all the numbers, data, formulas and eyeball scouting, the decision-makers in Major League Baseball are still human—sometimes.

They are prone to non-analytical judgments. They have feelings. They watch the postseason like everyone else. They feel the ups and the downs, and they see and feel the emotion involved with it all.

The numbers mean nothing, and yet they mean everything.

Nobody who knows anything would say that David Price can't pitch in the postseason, but by now just about everybody knows Price hasn't won in the postseason—not once, at least not as a starter.

Seven career starts. Seven losses.

CHICAGO — Holy Doc Gooden!

“Growing up, I spent what seemed like thousands of summer afternoons in my backyard in Chesapeake, Virginia, pretending I was playing in the World Series,” Mets captain David Wright was saying, dream firmly in hand, just after he had reached out and seized it late Wednesday night. “Then the last out, you realize the next game you’re going to play will be a World Series game.”

Regular-season Daniel Murphy is an OK player. Pretty good, even. If we really want to stretch, we can say he might even be quite good.

But postseason Daniel Murphy? He's something else, man. Just going off the evidence, he's a historic postseason slugger who's basically the same thing as peak Barry Bonds*.

*In a good way.

Marco Estrada had been put in this situation before. Just a little more than a week ago, in fact. 

Game 4 of the NLCS could be the last chance for the upstart Chicago Cubs and manager Joe Maddon.

But there is hope, at least for this game, and it has to do with the offense.

After a string of MLB league division series that went down to the wire, the league championship series have offered a bit less competitive balance. With both series already featuring elimination games, let's take a look at some of the highlights and storylines that have defined these postseason matchups thus far.

ALCS: Kansas City Royals Lead Toronto Blue Jays, 3-1

After a suspense-filled division series, the two league championship series appear to be over at this point. The Kansas City Royals and New York Mets have respectively put the Toronto Blue Jays and Chicago Cubs against the wall, with history not looking kind for the two teams trailing. 

The MLB offseason has officially begun for every team save the final four in the playoffs, so trade speculation will continue swirling from now through the Fall Classic and well into the winter.

If the caliber of players making headlines in the latest trade buzz is any indication of what's to come, it could ignite a captivating series of transactions as front offices work to retool their rosters.