Because postseason television broadcast revenue is the one thing that Major League Baseball can depend upon even in lean economic times, some variant of this year's pandemic-driven expanded playoff format is likely to survive beyond 2020. Hopefully, it won't be the bloated 16-team format we just witnessed -- not that fans of the Dodgers are likely to complain -- but it seems entirely possible that a four-tiered format that includes a best-of-three Wild Card Series will remain in some form, as long as the owners and players' union can agree on how to split the riches.
As the past quarter century has shown, the ever-expanding postseason offers a mixed bag when it comes to individual achievements. On the positive side, a larger group of players gets the chance to shine in October; Mike Trout has played in only one postseason series, but he's still just 29, and already has a leg up on Hall of Fame shortstop Ernie Banks, who didn't play a single postseason game in his career. What's more, players on perennial contenders can rack up big postseason career numbers, setting records left and right -- even if they're not always excelling. Case in point: Near the end of his World Series Game 5 start, Clayton Kershaw surpassed Justin Verlander for the career lead in postseason strikeouts (207); he also has the third-highest ERA (4.19) among the 30 pitchers with at least 100 postseason innings.
Beyond the possibility that many postseason records risk becoming mere trivia -- nobody needs to care about who has the most division series anything -- they risk losing luster amid cross-era comparisons. Even appreciating League Championship Series history is complicated by its change from best-of-five to best-of-seven in 1985. Better to appreciate, say, that Mickey Mantle holds the career record for World Series home runs (10), and Reggie Jackson owns the record for the two-tiered playoffs (18 in the World Series and LCS), and Manny Ramirez the record for the three-tiered format that added the division series (29). The likes of George Springer, Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa can duke it out for the four-tiered record, if Randy Arozarena doesn't overtake them first.
Whatever shape the postseason takes, October accomplishments often have some bearing on Hall of Fame cases. With that in mind, here's a look at a half-dozen players whose chances for Cooperstown are already substantial, and improved at least somewhat this fall. I've ordered these so that the players who reached the World Series are first, followed by those who fell by the wayside in the LCS and division series.
Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers
With three Cy Young Awards and an MVP on his mantel, five ERA and three strikeout titles on his résumé, and the 200-win and 3,000-strikeout milestones -- as well as the JAWS standard for starting pitchers -- all within hailing distance, Kershaw was already well on his way to first-ballot Hall of Fame entry before earning his first World Series ring.
His 2020 postseason helped put to rest the exhausting narrative that he always shrank in the October spotlight, as he went 4-1 with a 2.93 ERA and a 37-to-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 30⅔ innings while helping the Dodgers to their third World Series in four years and first championship in 32 years. Beyond the strikeout record, he climbed to fourth in career postseason starts (30) and sixth in innings (189). If that 4.19 ERA is a far cry from his career regular-season mark of 2.43, well, there won't be room to note that on his Hall of Fame plaque anyway.
Mookie Betts, Los Angeles Dodgers
On the batting side, Betts' postseason performance was uneven, as he hit a respectable but not earth-shattering .296/.378/.493 with two home runs. Taking into consideration his defense (including but not limited to signature catches in the last three NLCS games as the Dodgers dug out of a 3-1 hole) and his baserunning (manufactured runs that turned the tide in the World Series' first and final games), however, bolstered his case as the game's most complete player, while also upholding the narrative of being a proven winner.
Postseason aside, Betts, who just turned 28, is already building himself a very strong case for Cooperstown. For starters, he might be just a few weeks away from adding to the four Gold Gloves and MVP award that he already has won. Through five full seasons and two partial ones (a 52-game rookie season and 55 games this year), he has led his league in Baseball-Reference's version of WAR twice (including this year) and accumulated 45.2 WAR for his career, blowing past the seven-year peak standard (42.4 WAR) for Hall right fielders. That seven-year figure, which already ranks 11th at his position, will only improve as he adds full seasons to his ledger.
Carlos Correa, Houston Astros
It might seem premature to talk about Correa in a Cooperstown context, but thanks to the early start to his career, he's ninth among shortstops in WAR through age 25 (26.0), ahead of Derek Jeter (23.4), Banks (16.4), Barry Larkin (13.6) and 14 of the other 20 enshrined shortstops. After hitting .362/.455/.766 with six homers in 55 plate appearances this fall, he's now up to 17 career postseason homers (tied for ninth overall) and 50 RBIs.
The elephant in the room, of course, is how history (and, more to the point, BBWAA voters) will regard Correa's involvement in the Astros' sign-stealing scandal. Within the game, emotions are understandably still raw, and his chip-on-the-shoulder trash talk during the playoffs feels unearned, or at least unseemly in light of the circumstances. Still, it might well be a full two decades before he's on a Hall of Fame ballot, and that's a lot of time for all sides to gain perspective.
Speaking of shortstops, if you're asking about World Series MVP Corey Seager, he has just 17.6 WAR through his age-26 season, with two five-win seasons under his belt and three seasons of 52 games or fewer. Someday his October 2020 performance might matter in a Hall context, but that day has yet to arrive.
Jose Altuve, Houston Astros
After a dreadful, injury-marred regular season in which he was limited to 48 games and career worsts in OPS+ (71) and WAR (-0.5), Altuve went on an October tear, hitting a sizzling .375/.500/.729 with five homers and 11 RBIs in 60 plate appearances through three rounds. He did that even while battling a case of the yips that played a part in the Astros' ouster at the hands of the Rays but elicited some amount of sympathy even from his competitive foes.
Like Correa, Altuve has considerable career postseason numbers, including a .306/.378/.565 line, 78 hits (tied for 15th) and 18 homers (tied for seventh), and like Correa, he also has the sign-stealing stigma with which to contend. His pursuit of Cooperstown is further along than Correa's, though through his age-30 season, he's still 9.4 WAR shy of the seven-year peak standard for second basemen, meaning that he needs a handful more All-Star caliber seasons. He's also 30.3 WAR away from the career standard, meaning he'll have to plug away for the better part of a decade at an above-average level of play to get there. With the injury and the shortened season, his estimated chance of reaching 3,000 hits -- a surefire ticket to Cooperstown -- dropped from 40% to 18%, according to the ZiPS projections of Dan Szymborski.
Giancarlo Stanton, New York Yankees
The Yankees were eliminated in the division series, but before they were, Stanton put on a fireworks show, homering in each of his team's first five postseason games, one short of Daniel Murphy's 2015 record. After playing in only 23 games this year because of a hamstring strain, and 18 last year because of a slew of injuries, his outburst served to remind the baseball world that yes, he can still punish the ball like few other hitters. The 118.3 mph exit velocity of his shot off the Rays' Tyler Glasnow in Game 2 of the division series was the highest of the entire postseason, and two of his other homers placed second and fourth.
Stanton's loss of playing time has certainly reduced his odds of reaching stratospheric home run totals (he has 312 through his age-30 season), but with seven more years under contract and the favorable hitting environment in the Bronx, he's still in the right place to put up big numbers. From an advanced metric standpoint, with 40.9 career WAR, 34.8 peak WAR and 37.9 JAWS (compared to the Hall right-field standards of 71.9/42.4/57.2), he's a ways off. But if he stays healthy -- a sizable "if" -- he'll continue to build his case, quite possibly with regular October appearances to boot.
Freddie Freeman, Atlanta Braves
The 30-year-old Braves first baseman had a stellar season that gives him a reasonable shot at the NL MVP award, as he ranked second in the league in all three slash stats (.314/.462/.640) and B-R's version of WAR (2.9); he led in FanGraphs' version (3.4). With the Braves making their third straight postseason appearance (and the fifth of Freeman's career), he hit .279/.415/.488 with two homers in 53 PA; though he struggled in the first two rounds, he did have a walk-off single in the 13-inning Wild Card Series opener against the Reds, and a .360/.448/.720 NLCS highlighted by driving in the go-ahead runs in all three Braves wins, including big homers in Games 1 and 2 and an RBI double off a flagging Kershaw in Game 4. Had the Braves beaten the Dodgers, he probably would have been the NLCS MVP.
In terms of Freeman's nascent Hall of Fame case, it's stronger on the traditional merits than the advanced ones. He's just past the halfway point to 3,000 hits (1,524) and has a 32% chance of reaching the milestone according to ZiPS, not to mention a 51% chance of reaching 400 homers and a 35% chance at reaching 450 (he's at 240). On the other hand, he has compiled just 38.5 WAR through 11 seasons, with 31.9 for his seven-year peak, which is lower than all but three of the 21 enshrined first basemen, all of them Veterans Committee choices, and two of them (Jim Bottomley and High Pockets Kelly) among that voting body's more dubious picks. Again via ZiPS, Freeman has an estimated 37% chance of getting to 65 WAR (66.1 is the Hall standard for first baseman). All told, he'll need some big seasons and a lot of very solid ones in his 30s to get to Cooperstown; accumulating good postseason numbers, with a standout series here and there, would help that case but won't push it over the top.