The Upcoming MLB Season Told Through March Madness

There’s something magical about this time in the sports calendar where baseball Opening Day gets to overlap with a time so special as March Madness where everyone fills out their brackets together for a month and is immersed in college stories; that sort of unpredictability paired with projecting where a 162-game marathon of a season is exhilarating.

That means there’s no better way to tell the stories projected for this year in Major League Baseball than by comparing it with the Madness of March – the bracketology, the stereotypes, and the chaos we get annually.

These are stories of baseball with March Madness comparisons.

Picking Duke // Picking the Dodgers to win the World Series

You’re picking the boring favorite, probably. No one is going to judge you for it.

Picking Teams in Your Bracket by the Mascot // Picking the Yankees to Repeat in the AL

There are some people that fill out a bracket with absolutely no rhyme or reason to it or having followed the season at all- they just want to be in on the fun going off of what they DO know, be it from recognizing the “Kansas is usually good brand” or believing that a Bulldog mascot is superior.

That is picking the BETTING FAVORITE New York Yankees to repeat as American League Champions is: doing it with no logic, just branding.

Even after the following has happened:

• Losing Juan Soto in free agency
• Losing Gerrit Cole to Tommy John Surgery
• Losing Rookie of the Year Luis Gil for at least 3 months
• Losing Giancarlo Stanton with no timetable for his return
• Losing Clay Holmes to the injured list to start the year

They are somehow still favored to come out on top. Maybe it’s the “Tiffany franchise” aspect of it, and they did do their best to make up for the Juan Soto loss in the aggregate acquiring Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt, Max Fried, and Devin Williams, but the injuries suddenly have them starting Will Warren and Carlos Carrasco with Austin Wells leading off. It may not be a complete fall-off, but they’re light-years away from where they were last year when they won the AL with Soto and now seem much closer to “Aaron Judge and a lot of stuff.”

The 12 Seed That Ruins The Bracket // The Arizona Diamondbacks

The Los Angeles Dodgers and what they’ve built are universally viewed as in a different stratosphere with how deep they are even FOLLOWING a World Series- it’s them and everyone else in a different sport entirely throughout the regular season after we started questioning whether or not they were bad for baseball.

That essentially takes away the idea for any of the other NL West members winning the division, but with the expanded playoffs and the unpredictability of baseball in that if you make it to October, you have a chance, there’s still a lot to play for.

March Madness has that same sort of unpredictability, and the cliche pick is always taking the mid-major 12 seed to upset a 5-seed that’s likely a team from a power conference. The Diamondbacks want to be that 12 seed in the bracket in the NL. The Dodgers’ acceptably being in a different world allows them to play without pressure, and we’re not two years removed from their eliminating them as a wildcard in October and making it to the World Series. This team may even be better than that- they signed Corbin Burnes to a massive extension, Ketel Marte is head-and-shoulders the best second baseman in the league, Corbin Carroll was an MVP sleeper before dealing with injuries in the first half and will be looking to get back into form, and they had the best offense in baseball last season.

Do you think Josh Naylor, the man who rocked the baby in Gerrit Cole’s face in the postseason when his Guardians played the Yankees, isn’t salivating at the idea of being the division foe that challenges the immortal Dodgers? They may not be division favorites, but they’re the team that wants to be the overlooked mid-major.

The Sister Jean-ification Candidate // Paul Skenes and Livvy Dunne

There are some stories off the court that we absolutely love about March Madness and are a large part of what makes the sport so special: we get attached to individuals that we had never heard of for a month in some of the highest stakes entertainment that we may not have gotten otherwise.

PHOTO: David Banks/Imagn Images

Unfortunately, we can milk those too much to where it goes beyond the actual basketball, and we may turn on them from being shoved down our throat at any given moment during the broadcasts and turn into a Sister Jean. In 2017, when Loyola Chicago made a Final Four run, our hearts fell for a sweet old woman in a wheelchair who went to every Ramblers’ game. She was then all we heard about on social media or in every press conference rather than the fact that Cameron Krutwig getting buckets and it turned into a “I’m sick of Sister Jean” debate. We’re already seeing that with Aura Khan this year, the viral McNeese manager.

Paul Skenes is the best pitcher in baseball. He’s not going to tell you he is because he knows pretty much one thing in his interviews: I play baseball. He won’t give you the dog and pony entertainment show, and he doesn’t have to. He IS, however, dating LSU sweetheart and famous athlete and social media influencer, Livvy Dunne. They could not be more opposite in what they give to the media but seem to be a lovely, happy couple that has Livvy at many of Skenes’s games.

After the NFL ratings that Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift get, you KNOW that baseball has to make

money off of this royal couple somehow. You’ll see them everywhere, and soon people will turn on Skenes, whose routine 100 mph fastballs should be appointment television for anyone. We need to let Livvy and Paul just be Livvy and Paul so that we don’t milk this cow dry in order to bring the casual fan to the world of baseball.

The 8-9 Matchup Awaiting to Play the #1 Seed // The Top of the NL East

Each year we ask ourselves, “Could this frisky 8-9 seed pull off the first weekend upset against a 1 seed?” to have some chaos. Year after year, the top teams of the NL East, the Dodgers, Mets, and Phillies, have been waiting to take aim at the Dodgers in the NL.

All three have spent and behaved like it in free agency, and that division will be a blood bath all season long for one of them to have a shot.

The Cardiac Kemba Walker Candidate // Elly De La Cruz

If you were watching, you’ll always remember where you were when Kemba Walker hit the most cold-blooded step-back jumper to win UConn the Big East Tournament before taking them on his back all the way to a 2011 National Title. Each year, there’s always a candidate for a star to go scorched earth and take a team that wasn’t an overwhelming favorite all the way to glory.

That’s the way that Terry Francona and the world does, and SHOULD, feel about Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz. Francona retired and could have walked into the Baseball Hall of Fame, but he came out to manage the Cincinnati Reds! Elly plays like a superhero, still discovering his powers at 22 years old, 6’5, 200, with the fastest sprint speed in baseball. While he led the league in strikeouts with his massive frame and is clearly still learning the game, a mind like Francona’s could unlock something special there that we just haven’t seen before.

The Reds play in Great American Small Park, which means lots of chaotic runs, but they re-upped their pitching staff, brought in Tito to manage, and will have only 2 players in their starting lineup over the age of 30. It’s a young core that Elly could lead with his hair on fire in what’s a winnable NL Central. When he came onto the scene in 2023, the CINCINNATI REDS of all teams were the national sports story for a month. He has that capability to do it in Kemba fashion.

The Gonzaga “It’s Gotta Happen Some Time” Candidate // Baltimore Orioles

These teams have been referred to with a variety of comments depending on who you are when you fill out a bracket- some might say, “I never trust this team in March,” while others may say, “They’re finally due, and this is the year!” Gonzaga was the dominant mid-major-turned-New Blood that year after year was the “They’ve still never made a Final Four!” and coach Mark Few had that stamp on him until he didn’t, just as Jay Wright at Villanova had that same label before winning two titles in three years.

The Baltimore Orioles have lost 10 postseason games in a row. After tanking and being one of the most abhorrent franchises in the doldrums of the American League, they flipped it into being in the midst of the golden age of prospect talent ever since the Adley Rutschman call-up and have had back-to-back postseason appearances. There’s even new ownership that loves the team, is in the Splash Zone, and gave himself his own bobblehead night!

That being said, they have all these assets of prospects that just can’t get on the field because there are only 9 spots in the lineup, and rather than make any moves or signings, the Orioles punted and have gotten two sweeps. A lackluster offseason in which they didn’t get Corbin Burnes or Anthony Santander back has turned a team we thought had the brightest future into a team you may or may not want to trust in October because of their past.

It’s gotta happen sometime, right?

The Commercial that Repeats So Much that You Become Sick of It // Chicago White Sox Shakes

When you’re constantly on the same channel watching the March Madness games, there’s the annual “commercials we see every single break” that we all get to collectively complain about together. Maxwell the Pig from the Geico commercials should be smoked over an open flame this year, and we’ll never get over the scars of the Orange Vanilla Coke jingle of 2019.

The Chicago White Sox had the worst record in modern baseball history last season. But you know what they told you about arguably even more than the box score? The concessions at Rate Field, particularly a photo or video of the Campfire Shake in every other social media post as if to say, “Hey, we may have the worst roster ever assembled, but at least we’ve got a great food selection for you when you come to the ballpark!”

They’re running it back this season already with photos of the Celebration Shake.

We need to hold them accountable and see if we get more Luis Robert posted highlights or photos of the Celebration Shake on their socials.

PHOTO: David Banks/Imagn Images