Preview/Prediction

Thanks to the Texas Rangers, the Houston Astros earned a spot in the Wild Card Game.

Thanks to the Arizona Diamondbacks, the New York Yankees have home-field advantage for that game.

The Astros earned their spot in the playoffs when the Rangers knocked off the Los Angeles Angels 9-2 in their series finale and eliminated Mike Trout and Co. from postseason consideration.

October baseball is notoriously difficult to predict, but Corey Seager and Marcus Stroman both look like big leaguers who are on the doorstep of becoming breakout stars during the 2015 MLB postseason.

In the process of picking the list that follows, there was one main rule: no All-Stars allowed. The thought process was simple: If a given player has taken part in the Midsummer Classic, he's already a star by definition.

Although the Houston Astros were unable to clinch a playoff berth with a win of their own Sunday, they still qualified for an American League Wild Card Game showdown with the New York Yankees.

Thanks to the Los Angeles Angels' loss to the Texas Rangers, Houston is the second team from the AL West to qualify for the postseason despite a 5-3 defeat at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks, setting up a win-or-go-home scenario in the Bronx against pro baseball's most decorated franchise.

The Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates have been two of the best teams in baseball all season, and they'll wage one more battle this year in order to determine who owns the wild-card spot in the National League.

Grantland's Rany Jazayerli argued this year's wild-card matchup is further evidence in support of the current playoff structure:

A long and treacherous MLB season finally is beginning to take shape, with almost all of the spots filled for what promises to be a scintillating 2015 postseason on the road to the World Series.

This year's crop of September call-ups has brought a number of significant contributors and top prospects to the big leagues for the stretch run.

Javier Baez and Corey Seager in particular have stepped into significant roles on contending teams, and they figure to continue contributing on into October.

Success in September does not always mean a breakout season the following year, though, as the makeup of a team can change a lot between the final month of one season and Opening Day the next.

The Minnesota Twins are crashing the wild-card party and have been one of the biggest surprises of the 2015 season. After finishing last year with the second-worst record in the American League, the Cinderella Twins are now very much in the postseason picture and are just one game back for the second AL wild-card spot following a dramatic win Thursday night.

When Monday rolls around, 20 disappointed MLB teams will head home to watch their adversaries fight for a championship.  

While the National League contestants are all set, three American League spots remain up for grabs. The final weekend's drama will largely reside in the American League West, where a comfortable Houston Astros advantage has decayed into a three-team race.

Just four days remain in the 2015 MLB regular season, and there is still an awful lot to be sorted out between now and the start of the playoffs.

In the National League, all five playoff teams have been decided, but only the St. Louis Cardinals are locked in as the No. 1 overall seed.

The Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets are still battling it out for home-field advantage in their division series matchup, while the Pittsburgh Pirates are trying to hold off the Chicago Cubs for the right to host the Wild Card Game.