Of mullets and men: Grayson McCall’s chance to rewrite his ending at NC State
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David Hale, ESPN Staff Writer
RALEIGH, N.C. — It was a late December morning, more or less like any other for Grayson McCall, except on this day, he awoke with the urge to destroy something beautiful.
A couple weeks earlier, he had committed to NC State after spending five years at Coastal Carolina, saddling up for one last rodeo as a college football quarterback at a bigger school, on a bigger stage. That lit the fuse.
For the past few years — effectively as long as anyone outside of his hometown of Indian Trail, North Carolina, had known him — McCall was branded as the swaggering, rollicking, beach bum quarterback of an upstart team from (just outside) Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He won games (32 in 40 starts) and threw touchdowns (87) and, as he noted in slightly more colorful language during the high-flying 2020 season when Coastal was 11-0 and ranked inside the top 10, he was Chanticleer teal through and through.
More than all of that, however, the one thing everyone knew about McCall was this: He sported a glorious, luxurious, cascading mullet.
The front was a precisely quaffed billboard for handling business. In the back, a flowing, wild mane that instantly informed the world that this guy knew how to party.
It was his calling card, but on this morning, McCall was ready to reinvent himself.
“I just chopped it off,” McCall said. “I FaceTimed my mom leaving the barbershop, and she’s like, ‘What the hell happened?'”
McCall was almost entirely ignored as a recruit, then his 2020 season catapulted him to stardom on the national stage. For the next four years, he existed as both a football player (a three-time Sun Belt Player of the Year) and as a brand (college football’s favorite blue-collar underdog). But after a nearly career-ending injury in 2023, he figured he needed a new challenge with a new team, one he could help propel to new heights.
And, he needed a haircut.
McCall’s mom, Lisa Kottyan, wasn’t the only one horrified by this new clean-cut look.
McCall had the mullet for his official visit to NC State in early December. When he arrived back on campus in January, quarterbacks coach Kurt Roper didn’t recognize him.
Center Zeke Correll, who’d transferred from Notre Dame, met McCall for the first time on that visit, too. It was what sold him on his new quarterback.
“The first thing I noticed was the mullet,” Correll said, “and I was like, this is a guy I can play with.”
The world’s loss, however, was McCall’s catharsis.
This year, he decided, he’d debut the new Grayson McCall: older, wiser, more appreciative of how rare it is to script the right ending.
“And everything I’ve heard since,” McCall said, “is ‘Where’s the mullet?'”
MCCALL PLAYED HIGH school football at Porter Ridge, where head coach Michael Hertz ran the triple option. McCall put up good numbers, mostly with his legs, but lived in the shadow of more heavily recruited quarterbacks in the area like Sam Howell and Garrett Shrader.
Coastal Carolina, which didn’t become an FBS program until 2017, wasn’t in the business of landing elite recruits, and in McCall, coach Jamey Chadwell saw a tough quarterback with a good skill set who already knew the basic contours of his option scheme.
“I won’t tell you we knew all along, but had the tools to be pretty good,” said Chadwell, now the head coach at Liberty. “Where we were surprised is, he threw the ball really well.”
McCall redshirted the 2019 season, but by the summer of 2020, he’d blossomed — and so had the mullet.
The COVID-19 lockdowns led to a lot of bad hairstyles, and a few Coastal veterans decided the mullet would make for good team bonding — meaning any aspiring QB1 had to do his part.
“I wouldn’t say we required it,” linebacker Silas Kelly said. “Strongly encouraged.”
The Chanticleers, who were picked to finish last in the Sun Belt in 2020, opened the season with an upset win on the road against Kansas. McCall had won the starting job just four days earlier, but he had already delivered the school’s biggest win as an FBS program.
A month later, McCall and the Chants knocked off No. 16 Louisiana. From there, they just kept winning and McCall’s legend kept growing.
There’s a play from Coastal Carolina’s otherwise forgettable 51-0 win over Georgia State in 2020 that secured McCall’s mythical status. McCall rolled out to his left, forcing the edge rusher to either cover the running back or converge on the quarterback. The defender — 6-2, 260 pounds — engaged McCall, who tossed wide to his tailback, then swung the defensive end to the ground like a rag doll.
For any defender worth his salt, it was humiliating.
For McCall, it was the moment he became a social media celebrity, with the clip going viral.
“When your quarterback is out there hip-tossing D-linemen,” said former Coastal linebacker Teddy Gallagher, “everyone starts to believe in him. He’s a dude. He’s tough as nails.”
By early December, Coastal Carolina was 9-0, ranked No. 14 in the country, and after a series of unlikely pandemic-related twists, a showdown with fellow Cinderella BYU — ranked eighth nationally — was cobbled together with just a few days’ notice. The game was branded as “Mormons vs. Mullets” and ESPN’s “College GameDay” was on campus. BYU was a heavy favorite, but McCall helped engineer a 13-play touchdown drive in the fourth quarter that keyed a 22-17 win for Team Mullet.
Coastal finished the year 11-0 before falling to Liberty in the FBC Mortgage Cure Bowl, and McCall’s final stat line was otherworldly: 26 touchdown passes, three interceptions and more than 3,000 yards of total offense in just 11 games.
Over the next two seasons, he was just as good — 51 touchdown passes and five interceptions in 2021 and 2022.
It had all been easy — “always sunshine and rainbows,” McCall said. But then Chadwell left to take the Liberty job, and suddenly McCall realized he might be better off in the transfer portal.
“It seemed like I was taking a call from every school in the country,” he said.
Only, he couldn’t walk away from Coastal.
He doesn’t regret staying, he said, but the story didn’t have a happy ending.
THE FIRST THING McCall remembers is laying splayed on the turf, surrounded by teammates.
It was Oct. 21, 2023, in Jonesboro, Arkansas. McCall had just scrambled out of the pocket, darted downfield and slid for a first down. An Arkansas State defender dove at him anyway, his helmet catching McCall under the chin. McCall’s head whipped back and hit the turf.
McCall had concussions before, but he’d never blacked out. This time, he had no recollection of the play.
Instead, he remembers in vague snippets the confusion, the neck brace, the stretcher, the ambulance.
“When I really acknowledged myself, we were going to the hospital,” he said. “It was a scary time.”
He spent a night in an Arkansas hospital before returning home. None of his family members had traveled for the game, but they met with doctors a few days later. The news was not good.
The doctor called it a traumatic brain injury.
The family went to lunch afterward, and Grayson was quiet. It was his dad, Jody, who spoke up first.
“This is about your health and your life and not football,” he said. “You need to really think about what’s best for you to move forward in life.”
Grayson played his first football game when he was 5, and though no one was keeping score, Jody remembers Grayson diving for a runner’s flag on the final play of the game and missing.
Grayson was quiet in the backseat of his dad’s truck on the ride home.
“You alright?” Jody asked.
“No,” Grayson replied.
His dad gave him a pat and reminded him that no one wins every game.
Grayson looked up with tears welling in his eyes.
“But if I’d just gotten his flag,” he said.
“That’s when I knew,” Jody said. “This kid is die-hard.”
Now, 16 years later, the kid was considering life after football.
“My whole world was crashing down,” McCall said. “I love this game so much. But it’s a game and there’s more to life than playing football.”
McCall sat out the rest of the season, though he attended every Coastal practice and game, including the Chants’ bowl game in December. By that point, the medical reports were more encouraging. McCall was given the OK to return to the field.
Facing a possible end to his career had changed him though, and he finally felt ready to leave Coastal. This time, however, the pool of portal suitors was thin — Baylor, UCF, a few others.
But the first coach he heard from, on the day he entered the portal, was NC State’s Dave Doeren.
“You want to come home?” he asked McCall, selling him on playing in North Carolina.
McCall did.
“When can you get here?” Doeren asked.
MCCALL SURVEYED THE defense and saw a blitz coming, so he flipped the protection and shifted one of his receivers. He took the snap, and the pressure arrived instantly — a zero blitz from NC State defensive coordinator Tony Gibson, who’d been trying to fluster the new quarterback throughout fall camp.
McCall sidestepped a defender, set his feet and unleashed a dart for a touchdown.
In the aftermath, McCall calmly turned around, feigned exhaustion and grinned at his coach.
“Wow,” he said. “I really had to play quarterback there.”
This is what Doeren loves about McCall. He’s a veteran who knows the job inside and out. But he also has a swagger to the way he plays, the way he carries himself that’s infectious.
“I think I’m the guy that, if I come in every day with that confidence and swagger and aura — it’s very contagious and guys will follow it,” McCall said. “And then we have 100 dudes on this football team that are full of confidence that want to go whip the guy in front of them on every play. And if we take that mindset into every week, I don’t think there’s a team in the country that could play with us.”
One of McCall’s first orders of business upon arrival in Raleigh was to start feeding his O-line.
“Steaks,” Correll said. “That won my heart over right away.”
Tight end Justin Joly remembers McCall taking him out for hot chicken in the spring. On the drive home, McCall spotted a makeshift shop selling fireworks on the side of the road. He looked at Joly, a fellow transfer, and smiled: “Why not?” he said. They set them off that night to great fanfare.
“He’s just a joy to be around,” Joly said.
The response to the practice touchdown also was a subtle nod to all the criticism that still swirls around McCall. Coming out of high school, he was pegged as an option quarterback, and so he was ignored. Five years later, after a mediocre half-season outside of Chadwell’s option system, the same criticism applied.
“If you truthfully watched every play from the last four years, you wouldn’t say that,” McCall said. “But it was kind of like [Chadwell] leaving. We won 30 games in three years, and everyone in the country should want him. And the same for me. Instead, it was like ‘I don’t know if we take a chance on this guy. Is he a system quarterback or can he get the job done?'”
For NC State, that doubt feels familiar. The Pack have been ranked in six of the past seven seasons, reaching as high as No. 10 nationally, but haven’t finished better than 20th. It’s a program that has won nine games in four of the past seven years, but has hit 10 wins just once in its history — 22 years ago. It’s a charter member of the ACC, but it hasn’t won a conference championship since 1979.
“You just have to walk over hot coals until they’re not hot anymore, and then you have the scars to prove it,” Doeren said. “That’s life, and I believe when you do that, you create karma.”
Maybe it was that karma that led McCall to NC State, a place where a chip on the shoulder is a part of the uniform.
“He fits that mold,” offensive lineman Anthony Belton said. “As a team, we just feel NC State’s always second or third. We’ve got that sense of like, they’re trying to little bro us again. We’ve got to keep proving people wrong.”
Proving people wrong is nearly as much a part of the McCall brand as the flowing locks.
“The mantra and the culture here matches up with how I want to play football,” McCall said. “Tough, blue-collar guys that work their asses off and want to win a lot of football games.
“I’m the guy that can lead these guys to where we want to go.”
MCCALL GOT HIS first tattoo after that miraculous 2020 season. It’s on his right leg, an image of three crosses with “Proverbs 5:6” underneath. The Bible verse is about understanding the future — that it is both malleable and unknowable. If there’s a lesson to be learned from McCall’s story, that’s it.
He was once an overlooked recruit, then a fan favorite. He gave all of himself to football, then he saw it nearly taken away. He was first wary of a fresh start, then he demanded one.
He’s come to appreciate what he can control about his story and what he can’t.
The rest of his right leg is a testament to the journey: A Chanticleer logo, his jersey number, an outline of North Carolina with his hometown highlighted, an ace of hearts with the reminder, “Bet on yourself.” If NC State wins an ACC championship this year, he’s promised to add a wolf tattoo, too.
On the front of his leg is an image his roommate designed last year. It’s a sword splitting the words “faith” and “fear,” one atop the other, because that’s how he sees the world. Faith above fear, always.
McCall has faith in this team. The Wolfpack believe he’s the man who can lead them to unprecedented heights. Fate has not ascribed the outcome for the overlooked QB or the “little brother” team, and so they can still keep reaching toward their goal.
McCall isn’t thinking as much about the future now though. Nor is he trying to outrun the past. He’s in a place of balance and, he’s come to realize, he looks a lot better in that place with a mullet.
“Some people think it’s a superstition now,” McCall said, “but I embrace it. When everyone thinks of that 2020 season and my personality and how I play on the football field, it’s, ‘He’s a tough dude with a mullet who loves football.'”
The hairdo is not quite back to its former greatness — the business side more corporate casual, the party side a mere cocktail hour. It’s a work in progress. Then again, so is McCall. So is NC State. The future malleable and unknowable.
“My journey’s been crazy,” McCall said. “But ultimately, I’m healthy, and I’m just so excited to be here with this staff and these players and to be playing football again.”
Brian Snitker, who guided the Braves to the 2021 World Series championship, will not return as manager after Atlanta failed to make the postseason for the first time since 2017.
The Braves announced the end of Snitker’s 10-year run as manager Wednesday, adding that he will remain with the organization in an advisory role in 2026.
Snitker informed the Braves of his decision Tuesday, sources told ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
Snitker, whose contract expired after this season, has been with the Braves organization in some capacity as a player, coach and manager since 1977.
He was named interim replacement to then-Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez in May 2016 and was elevated to the permanent role before the start of the 2017 season.
“I’ve teetered on the fence [about retirement],” Snitker said after the Braves’ final game on Sept. 28. “I’ve never been through this before. I wasn’t sure how to navigate it. I’ve talked to a lot of people who have been through it who got some good advice. I’ve just tried to stay in the moment and focus on today … As we’re sitting here right now, I still feel good.”
The Braves went 76-86 this season, finishing fourth in the National League East and ending a streak of seven consecutive postseason appearances. That run included six straight NL East titles from 2018-2023 and the franchise’s first World Series victory since 1995.
Braves general manager and president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos said on Sept. 8 that Snitker, 69, will be a “Brave for life” but did not go into detail about the manager’s future.
Snitker said he was encouraged by Atlanta’s play in the final month-plus of the season, which included a 10-game winning streak from Sept. 14 to Sept. 23.
The Braves went 811-668 in their eight-plus seasons under Snitker.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Who is ready for some more MLB playoff action?
After the first day of the wild-card round featured close wins by the Detroit Tigers, San Diego Padres and Boston Red Sox, it’s time for the first potential elimination day of the 2025 postseason.
Who will stay alive and who will be sent packing?
We’ve got you covered with pregame lineups, keys to forcing Game 3, sights and sounds from the ballparks, and postgame takeaways as each Day 2 matchup ends.
Key links: Megapreview | Day 1 lessons | Bracket | Schedule
Jump to a matchup:
DET-CLE | SD-CHC | BOS-NYY | CIN-LAD
1 p.m. ET on ESPN
Tigers lead 1-0
Game 2 starters: Casey Mize vs. Tanner Bibee
What the Guardians need to do to force Game 3: Figure out a way to score some runs. Hey, at least they won’t be facing Tarik Skubal. The Guardians’ best bet is to have Jose Ramirez or Kyle Manzardo run into something, as Mize can be vulnerable to the home run at times (21 allowed in 149 innings). But maybe Cleveland can get Mize to run up his count and force AJ Hinch to go a little earlier than he would like to a Detroit bullpen that was shaky in September (2-8, 4.58 ERA) and especially struggled in close games. — David Schoenfield
Lineups
Tigers
1. Parker Meadows (L) CF
2. Gleyber Torres (R) 2B
3. Kerry Carpenter (L) DH
4. Spencer Torkelson (R) 1B
5. Riley Greene (L) LF
6. Wenceel Perez (S) RF
7. Dillon Dingler (R) C
8. Zach McKinstry (L) 3B
9. Javier Baez (R) SS
Guardians
1. Steven Kwan (L) LF
2. George Valera (L) RF
3. Jose Ramirez (S) 3B
4. Kyle Manzardo (L) DH
5. Bo Naylor (L) C
6. Gabriel Arias (R) SS
7. Chase DeLauter (L) CF
8. CJ Kayfus (L) 1B
9. Brayan Rocchio (S) 2B
3 p.m. ET on ABC
Cubs lead 1-0
Game 2 starters: Dylan Cease vs. Andrew Kittredge
What the Padres need to do to force Game 3: As dominant as the Cubs’ bullpen looked in Game 1, that suggests the Padres will need to take an early lead and hand the game to their bullpen while ahead. And that means getting a strong effort from Cease. But his home/away splits were pretty dramatic this year: Cease went 7-3 with a 3.61 ERA at home and 1-9 with a 5.58 ERA on the road. That ERA difference might be a little misleading, as his secondary stats are similar, other than a dip in his strikeout rate (12.2 K’s per nine at home, 10.8 on the road). Given the must-win nature for the Padres, Mike Shildt will have a quick hook anyway. But the Padres probably will need at least four innings from Cease — and probably with 0 or 1 in the runs allowed column. — Schoenfield
Lineups
Padres
TBD
Cubs
TBD
6 p.m. ET on ESPN
Red Sox lead 1-0
Game 2 starters: Brayan Bello vs. Carlos Rodon
What the Yankees need to do to force Game 3: The Yankees need Rodón to pitch deep into Game 3. For as well as Max Fried pitched in Game 1, the Yankees’ bullpen immediately imploded upon his exit, and the offense couldn’t recover against Garrett Crochet and Aroldis Chapman. The best way to avoid another letdown by the bullpen is to minimize its impact on the game, which would allow the group to rest up for a do-or-die Game 3. — Jorge Castillo
Lineups
Red Sox
TBD
Yankees
TBD
9 p.m. ET on ESPN
Dodgers lead 1-0
Game 2 starters: Zack Littell vs. Yoshinobu Yamamoto
What the Reds need to do to force Game 3: Well, not allowing five home runs is a good start. Look, this is going to be a difficult game against Yamamoto, who allowed just three runs over his final five starts of the regular season. The best hope for the Reds is a performance where Yamamoto struggles with his control, which rarely occurs but did happen in one September start when he walked six batters. That would lead to a high pitch count and a relatively early exit, allowing the Reds to get into the Dodgers’ bullpen — a unit that was certainly an issue for L.A. throughout the season and didn’t distinguish itself in the late innings of Game 1. — Schoenfield
Lineups
Reds
TBD
Dodgers
TBD
Sports
World Series Drought-Buster Watch: Which MLB playoff teams could end longest runs without titles?
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David Schoenfield
Mathematical probability, in a perfectly equitable distribution of championships, means each MLB team would win a World Series once every 30 years. That is not the world we live in, of course, so many franchises have experienced long title droughts that have stretched into multiple decades. There is even one that has never appeared in the Fall Classic.
That establishes a super fun element to this year’s postseason. We have seven playoff teams who have gone longer than 30 years since their last World Series championship — including the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres, who have never won, and the Seattle Mariners, who have still never reached the World Series 48 years into their franchise history.
Maybe, just maybe, some team’s long-suffering fans will experience that euphoria of winning the final game of the season.
Yes, it’s the year of the World Series Drought-Buster Watch. Let’s look at those seven franchises, what went wrong through the years, and why this may finally be The Year.
Last World Series title: 1948
Last World Series appearance: 2016 (lost to the Cubs in seven games).
Closest call since then: Lost the 2024 ALCS to the Yankees in five games.
Three painful postseason moments:
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Led Game 7 of the 1997 World Series against the Marlins 2-1 in the ninth inning, but the Marlins tied the score off closer Jose Mesa. In the bottom of the 11th, second baseman Tony Fernandez let a slow grounder hit by Florida’s Craig Counsell go under his glove for an error, setting up Edgar Renteria’s walk-off hit.
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In Game 7 of the 2016 World Series against the Cubs, Rajai Davis’ three-run homer in the eighth miraculously tied the score, but the Cubs scored twice in the top of the 10th. Davis’ two-out single in the bottom of the inning made it 8-7, but Cleveland was left with light-hitting Michael Martinez at the plate with two outs and the World Series on the line. Terry Francona had inserted Martinez in the ninth inning to get a better outfield arm in the game when the Cubs got a runner to third base. Martinez hit a slow bouncer to third base to end the game.
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The best Cleveland team ever, the 1995 squad with one of the greatest lineups of all time, loses the clinching Game 6 of the World Series 1-0 to Atlanta while registering just one hit with the only run of the game coming on a David Justice home run off reliever Jim Poole.
Why they haven’t won: Can’t win the big game.
No franchise has suffered more postseason agony, at least since the Red Sox broke through in 2004.Though the Cleveland franchise was certainly dreadful for most of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, it has been consistently competitive since 1995, making the postseason 15 times and ranking sixth in overall wins during that span.
But the Guardians are 2-8 in winner-take-all games, winning the first of those in the 1997 ALDS and beating the Tigers in Game 5 of last year’s ALDS, but losing eight in a row in between. Along the way, they blew:
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A 2-0 lead in the 1999 ALDS, losing the final two games to Boston by scores of 23-7 and 12-8.
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A 2-1 lead to Seattle in the 2001 ALDS.
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A 3-1 lead to Boston in the 2007 ALCS, losing the final three games 7-1, 12-2 and 11-2.
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A 3-1 lead in the 2016 World Series, losing the final two games at home.
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A 2-0 lead to the Yankees in the 2017 ALDS.
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A 2-1 lead to the Yankees in the 2022 ALDS.
In those six series, they had 16 chances to close out a series and went 0-16.
Why this could be the year: Cleveland has certainly had better and more glamorous teams than this one. Indeed, with a negative run differential on the season, this is one of the weakest teams ever to make the postseason. The Guardians struggle to score runs. But they can pitch — and the pitching is peaking at the right time. In going 18-4 to close out the regular season, they allowed just 45 runs in 22 games, allowing two or fewer runs in 17 of those.
This team also doesn’t have the burden of expectations like those superstar-laden squads of the late ’90s, or even the 2016 and 2017 squads, which won 94 and 102 games, respectively. On the other hand, if we look at the teams who broke long World Series droughts in the past 20 years, they were all powerhouse clubs: the 2004 Red Sox (98 wins), the 2005 White Sox (99 wins), the 2016 Cubs (103 wins), the 2017 Astros (101 wins). Even the 2023 Rangers, while essentially a one-year fluke and winners of just 90 games, still posted a run differential of plus-165.
But in this year of unpredictability, maybe it’s simply Cleveland’s year.
Milwaukee Brewers
Last World Series title: None (franchise debuted in 1969, moved to Milwaukee in 1970).
Last World Series appearance: 1982 (lost to the Cardinals in seven games).
Closest call since then: Lost the 2018 NLCS to the Dodgers in seven games.
Three painful postseason moments:
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Leading 3-1 in the bottom of the sixth inning in Game 7 of the 1982 World Series, the Cardinals load the bases with one out. Keith Hernandez hits a two-run single off Bob McClure and George Hendrick follows with a go-ahead single as the Cardinals go on to a 6-3 win. Brewers fans will always wonder what the outcome might have been if Hall of Fame reliever Rollie Fingers, who got injured in September, had not missed the World Series.
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Pete Alonso‘s three-run, go-ahead home run in the ninth inning off Devin Williams in last year’s Game 3 of the wild-card series.
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Leading the Nationals 3-1 in the bottom of the eighth of the 2019 wild-card game, Josh Hader loads the bases with a hit batter, single and walk. With two outs, Juan Soto singles to right field and rookie Trent Grisham overruns the ball, allowing all three runners to score.
Why they haven’t won: Lack of offense has led to early playoff exits.
For a long time, the Brewers were just bad. They didn’t have a winning season from 1993 to 2006. Current owner Mark Attanasio bought the team from the Selig family in 2005, however, and after a breakthrough season in 2008, the Brewers have mostly been competitive since, despite the challenges of playing in MLB’s smallest market. The Prince Fielder-Ryan Braun teams were built around offense, but the teams under managers Craig Counsell and now Pat Murphy have centered more on pitching, defense, speed and doing the little things well.
While Christian Yelich was an MVP in 2018 and runner-up in 2019, the recent teams have often lacked one true offensive star to anchor the lineup. That’s one reason the Brewers have had trouble scoring enough runs in the postseason, and that has led to losses in that 2019 wild-card game and wild-card series in 2020, 2023 and 2024. They were in the NLDS in 2021, but scored just six runs in four games, including two shutouts. Overall, the Brewers have gone 2-10 in the playoffs since 2019 entering this year and have hit just .229/.290/.351.
Why this could be the year: Even though the Brewers still don’t have that superstar hitter and rank below average in home runs, this is a deep, good offensive team. Only the Yankees and Dodgers scored more runs during the regular season. Only the Blue Jays struck out less among the playoff teams. And the Brewers do have guys who can hit home runs: Yelich has had his best power season since 2019; Brice Turang has slugged over .500 in the second half; Jackson Chourio can hit it out; and William Contreras hit nine home runs in August, so if he gets hot at the right time, he can help carry a lineup.
The Brewers also earned the No. 1 overall seed and have played well at home, with a 51-29 record. That could be a nice advantage. And even without the injured Trevor Megill, this is a strong bullpen with hard-throwing Abner Uribe capable of closing down leads. The Brewers had the best record for a reason: They’ve quieted skeptics and have remained the most consistent team all season long.
San Diego Padres
Last World Series title: None (franchise debuted in 1969).
Last World Series appearance: 1998 (lost to the Yankees in four games).
Closest call since then: Lost the 2022 NLCS to the Phillies in five games.
Three painful postseason moments:
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Game 1 of the 1998 World Series is tied 5-5 with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh. Mark Langston appears to strike out Tino Martinez on a 2-2 fastball right at the knees, but umpire Rich Garcia calls it a ball. Martinez belts the next pitch for a grand slam.
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Trying to stay alive in the 2022 NLCS and send the series back to San Diego, the Padres lead the Phillies 3-2 in the bottom of the eighth. With a runner on first, Bryce Harper fouls off three fastballs from Robert Suarez, spits on a changeup, then belts a 99 mph heater over the fence in left field for the series-winning home run.
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Up two games to one in last year’s NLDS against the hated Dodgers, the Padres are shut out in the final two games. The final 19 batters in Game 5 are retired in order as the Dodgers win the series clincher 2-0.
Why they haven’t won: Until the late Peter Seidler became chairman, the Padres never had owners completely invested in winning. Since 2020 they’ve tried hard to get over the hump — but haven’t.
The Padres’ tormented history has featured periodic bouts of success — a surprise World Series team in 1984 and another in 1998 — but mostly a lot of losing. Under Tom Werner, there was the infamous teardown in 1993 when an order to reduce payroll resulted in the trades of Fred McGriff and Gary Sheffield. From 2007 through 2019, they made the playoffs, finishing over .500 just two of those years. But a rebuild in the late 2010s combined with an infusion of cash under Seidler has led to fun and competitive teams since 2020, with big crowds and now four playoff appearances in six years.
In two of those three years, they’ve met their archrival Dodgers, beating them in the 2022 NLDS, but losing in 2020 and then last year’s frustrating NLDS. The Padres’ offense seems to go cold at the wrong time — Manny Machado has not been a great postseason hitter for them and Juan Soto didn’t have a good one in his one postseason with the Padres in 2022 (and Fernando Tatis Jr. was out that season).
Why this could be the year: Bullpen, bullpen, bullpen. The Padres have perhaps the best one in the majors, even without injured All-Star Jason Adam. Suarez and Mason Miller provide a late-game pair of flamethrowers, Adrian Morejon is one of the best lefty relievers in the game, Jeremiah Estrada is a strikeout machine. and there is more depth beyond those four. Nick Pivetta had a terrific year to lead the rotation, and Dylan Cease, despite a down year, has the strikeout stuff that could play well in October.
The question: Can they hit enough home runs to score enough runs? A.J. Preller did improve the offense with the trade deadline acquisitions of Ramon Laureano (who is out with a fractured finger), Ryan O’Hearn and Freddy Fermin, but the Padres are still just 12th in OPS and 18th in home runs since then. We have to factor Petco Park into those numbers a bit, but the Padres will need their stars — Machado and Tatis — to step up. If they do, the bullpen can do the rest.
Seattle Mariners
Last World Series title: None (franchise debuted in 1977).
Last World Series appearance: None.
Closest call: Lost the 1995 ALCS to Cleveland and the 2000 ALCS to the Yankees, both in six games. Also lost the 2001 ALCS in five games. Were up 2-1 in the 1995 ALCS against Cleveland, but a powerful Mariners lineup got shut out twice in the final three games.
Three painful postseason moments:
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Leading 1-0 and looking to tie the 2001 ALCS against the Yankees at two games apiece, New York’s Bernie Williams ties the game with an eighth-inning home run off Arthur Rhodes, and Alfonso Soriano hits a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth off Kazuhiro Sasaki.
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Rhodes again. In Game 6 of the 2000 ALCS, the Mariners are leading the Yankees 4-3 in the seventh when David Justice blasts a three-run homer off Rhodes and sends Yankee Stadium into a deafening roar.
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Back in the playoffs in 2022 for the first time since 2001, the Mariners lead the Astros 7-3 in the eighth inning in the division series. Alex Bregman hits a two-run homer in the eighth. With two on and two outs in the bottom of the ninth, manager Scott Servais summons starter Robbie Ray out of the bullpen to face Yordan Alvarez. Wrong decision. Alvarez blasts a game-winning three-run homer.
Why they haven’t won: Bad offenses and, for the longest time, bad drafting. And just missing the playoffs.
The Mariners couldn’t win in the mid-to-late ’90s despite a roster that featured Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, Alex Rodriguez and Edgar Martinez. Then came the miracle season of 2001, when they won a record 116 games with only Martinez still on the roster. Then came the long playoff drought, from 2002 to 2021. Those teams were marked mostly by inept offense: They once finished last in the AL in runs four straight seasons. In 2010, they traded for Cliff Lee and went all-in on pitching and defense. ESPN The Magazine put them on its cover. They lost 101 games.
Jerry Dipoto was hired as GM after the 2015 season and began turning things around. He drafted Logan Gilbert and George Kirby in the first round in 2018 and 2019, Cal Raleigh was a third-round pick in 2018, Bryan Woo was a sixth-round pick in 2021. The organization signed Julio Rodriguez in 2017. Since 2021, the Mariners have had five straight winning seasons and are seventh in the majors in wins — but this is only their second playoff appearance, having just missed in 2021, 2023 and 2024.
Why this could be the year: With Raleigh’s historic campaign leading the way, this is the best offense the Mariners have had in 25 years, with their highest wRC+ since 2001. Dipoto’s deadline trades for Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suarez created one of the best one-through-nine groups in the majors. They ranked third in the majors in home runs, and Rodriguez, Randy Arozarena and Naylor (!) each stole 30 bases. The Mariners’ bullpen isn’t super deep but the late-game foursome of Andres Munoz, Matt Brash, Eduard Bazardo and Gabe Speier has been reliable.
As that stretch of 17 wins in 18 games in September showed, the starting pitching might finally be living up to the preseason expectations following a stellar 2024 season. The concern is Woo’s health. Seattle’s best starter all season with 15 wins and a 2.97 ERA, Woo left his final start with inflammation in his pectoral muscle. The Mariners still have Gilbert, Kirby and Luis Castillo, but if the only franchise never to reach a World Series is to get there, a healthy Woo feels necessary.
Last World Series title: 1984
Last World Series appearance: 2012 (lost to the Giants in four games).
Closest call since then: Lost the 2013 ALCS to the Red Sox in six games.
Three painful postseason moments:
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Leading 5-1 against the Red Sox in Game 2 of the 2013 ALCS and looking to go up two games to none in the series, David Ortiz ties the game in the eighth inning with a two-out, first-pitch grand slam off Joaquin Benoit, a play that sees Tigers right fielder Torii Hunter take a tumble over the wall and into the bullpen area at Fenway Park. The Red Sox walk it off the next inning with the help of an error and wild pitch.
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Game 6 of the same series, the Tigers are leading 2-1 in the seventh inning of Game 6 when Jose Iglesias makes another critical error. Jose Veras enters to face Shane Victorino, who belts a grand slam.
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Game 5 of last year’s ALDS against Cleveland, score tied 1-1 in the fifth, Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal serves up, yes, a grand slam to Lane Thomas.
Why they haven’t won: Couldn’t get it done with the Justin Verlander/Miguel Cabrera/Max Scherzer teams.
The Tigers had two long dry spells of ineptitude since that last championship in 1984. From 1994 to 2005, they suffered 12 consecutive losing seasons, including years with 106, 109 and 119 losses. From 2017 to 2023, it was seven straight losing seasons, including a 114-loss year in 2019.
Between those bad spells, however, were teams featuring the three future Hall of Famers. The Tigers made four straight postseasons from 2011 to 2014 but couldn’t get over the top. Dave Dombrowski’s teams were always top-heavy in stars but lacking in depth — and, usually, it was the bullpen that would bite the Tigers in the playoffs. Then Scherzer left as a free agent, Cabrera battled injuries and stopped hitting and Verlander was prematurely traded in 2017 with minimal return. The Tigers entered a rebuilding period that finally resulted in the franchise’s first playoff appearance in a decade in 2024.
Why this could be the year: The end of the regular season certainly doesn’t inspire much confidence after the Tigers went 7-17 in September and blew a 10-game lead to lose the division title. They just need to find their first-half mojo when they had the best record in the majors on July 6. It helps to have an ace like Skubal who can carry the rotation, and A.J. Hinch still has the same versatile roster he deployed so successfully for most of the season. Many believe Hinch is the best in-game manager in the business, and maybe that will be the difference-maker in a wide-open postseason.
Last World Series title: 1990
Last World Series appearance: 1990 (beat the A’s in four games).
Closest call since then: Lost the 1995 NLCS to the Braves in four games.
Three painful postseason moments:
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In Game 1 of the 2012 NLDS against the Giants, Reds ace Johnny Cueto leaves his start after eight pitches with a back injury. The Reds lose the game and, minus Cueto the rest of the series, lose in five games.
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In Game 5 of that series, the Reds are trailing 6-3 but rallying with two on and nobody out in the bottom of the sixth. But Ryan Hanigan strikes out looking on a 3-2 pitch and, with the runners moving, Jay Bruce is thrown out trying to steal third. Rally over. The Reds lose 6-4.
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In Game 1 of the 1995 NLCS, Pete Schourek is trying to finish off a shutout, leading 1-0 heading into the top of the ninth against Atlanta. The Braves tie it up, however, and win in 11 innings. The Braves win Game 2 in extra innings as well and go on to a four-game sweep.
Why they haven’t won: Bad owners … and one very bad trade.
The Reds were competitive throughout the 1990s and won 96 games in 1999, the year Carl Lindner bought the team from Marge Schott, although they lost a tiebreaker game to the Mets and missed the playoffs. That offseason, GM Jim Bowden pulled off one of the biggest blockbusters in MLB history, acquiring Ken Griffey Jr. from the Mariners.
The trade turned out to be a disaster. Griffey had trouble staying healthy and wasn’t very productive while chewing up a large chunk of the payroll. The Reds had a losing season every year from 2001 to 2009. Bob Castellini purchased the team in 2005, and a new wave of young players led by Joey Votto, and with manager Dusty Baker at the helm, made the playoffs three times in four seasons, including two National League Central titles. The Reds’ payroll climbed as high as 11th in the majors in 2014 but that didn’t last long. By 2016, the Reds were back to 28th in payroll and losing 94 games.
The Reds rarely spend money in free agency. When they signed Mike Moustakas and Nick Castellanos for $64 million each in 2020, it was the first time they had ever signed a free agent for more than $50 million. By 2022, they were back to cutting payroll. Without an owner willing to go the extra mile, the Reds have found it difficult to make the playoffs — let alone win it all.
Why this could be the year: Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo and Andrew Abbott. The Reds don’t score a lot of runs but they have a chance to prevent them. That young rotation trio is reminiscent of the 2003 Florida Marlins, a wild-card team that rode a young rotation to a World Series title, with Greene taking on the role of Josh Beckett, as the hard-throwing ace of the staff and ability to blow away an opponent in any given game. The Marlins also had a 20-year-old rookie named Miguel Cabrera who was batting cleanup by the World Series. The Reds have 21-year-old rookie in Sal Stewart, who has played just 18 games but has already spent some time batting cleanup.
And don’t overlook Terry Francona. He has been here before. He knows how to manage in the postseason, with the necessary urgency and the ability to get players to believe in themselves. He won’t be afraid, for example, to use rookie righty Chase Burns as a high-leverage option out of the bullpen, even though Burns has just 43 innings in the majors and even spent most of short time in the majors as a starter.
Last World Series title: 1993
Last World Series appearance: 1993 (beat the Phillies in six games).
Closest call since then: Lost the 2015 ALCS in six games to Kansas City. Also lost the 2016 ALCS, in five games, to Cleveland.
Three painful postseason moments:
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Game 6 of the 2015 ALCS is tied in the eighth when Kansas City’s Lorenzo Cain draws a leadoff walk. Eric Hosmer then singles to right field with Cain heading to third, and when Jose Bautista throws the ball into second base, Cain keeps on sprinting home for the winning run in a 4-3 victory.
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In Game 2 of that series, the Blue Jays lead 3-0 in the seventh but manager John Gibbons leaves in a tiring David Price to give up five hits and five runs.
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The Blue Jays blow an 8-2 lead at home in Game 2 of the 2022 wild-card series against Seattle. The winning runs come up when J.P. Crawford clears the bases with a bloop double to center field as a diving George Springer collides with Bo Bichette.
Why they haven’t won: A tough division and the bats going dry in October.
After back-to-back World Series titles in ’92 and ’93, the Blue Jays went 20 years without a playoff appearance even though they were rarely bad in that period. They just couldn’t beat the Yankees and Red Sox or, later, the Rays and Orioles. They finally broke through and won the American League East in 2015 with the Josh Donaldson/Jose Bautista team that scored 127 more runs than any other AL team. They lost to the Royals in the ALCS that year and to Cleveland in 2016 — when the Jays scored just eight runs in five games. Remember when Cleveland had to start an obscure minor leaguer named Ryan Merritt, who had started one game in the majors, in Game 5 because they had no other starters? He tossed 4⅔ shutout innings.
In recent years, the Blue Jays went 0-6 in wild-card series in 2020, 2022 and 2023, scoring three runs in 2020, getting shut out once in 2022, and scoring one run in two games against the Twins in 2023. Entering 2025, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has hit .136 in six playoff games (no home runs, one RBI) and Bichette .273 with the same no home runs and one RBI.
Why this could be the year: This is a better Blue Jays club than those last three playoff teams. They have home-field advantage throughout the AL bracket and went 54-27 at home. Since May 27, only the Brewers have a better record, and they do things that work in postseason baseball: They play good defense and they had the lowest strikeout rate in the majors. Kevin Gausman and Shane Bieber give them a strong 1-2 punch and rookie Trey Yesavage could be a huge secret weapon, either as a starter or reliever, despite just 14 innings in the majors. Plus, Guerrero and Bichette (if he’s healthy) are due to finally do something in October.
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