The MLB Playoffs are a wonderfully human experience. A mostly random progression of more-or-less-likely discrete events eventually produces a champion, but we assign an internal logic to the proceedings. Who was the most important? What was magical? Is there actually an internal logic or meaning to all this? Probably not, but we assign one. Because that is what it means to be alive.
"Most important" is a different set of player than who's the "best," and you'll find some fun (or highly irritating) abnormalities between your mental list of who the top 15 players in MLB are and this list, adjusting for my completely arbitrary definition of importance. Please do not resist.
1. Pete Crow-Armstrong
If you had suggested before this season that someone not named Shohei Ohtani would top the list of the most important players in the MLB playoffs as the Los Angeles Dodgers go for a three-peat, I would have called you crazy. I also would have called you crazy if you suggested the Pete Crow-Armstrong would throw down 10.7 WAR, but here we are.
PCA is so overwhelmingly the most important player in the playoffs — he has carried the Chicago Cubs to the postseason, joined the 40-40 club and is one of the greatest fielders in the history of baseball. If the Cubs accomplish anything this postseason, and they can, it will be on the shoulders, back and quadriceps of PCA.
2. Shohei Ohtani
A huge step back for Shohei falling all the way down to number two on the list, but one of the greatest players in baseball history was always going to be somewhere near the top. He’s the most intimidating player to face as a pitcher in the playoffs, and the Dodgers three-peat chances are going to live and die with which Shohei Ohtani the Dodgers get.
He hasn’t been healthy, and when he has played this has not been his finest second half. There are real questions about if Ohtani should pitch at all going forward, given he hasn’t managed a full season of pitching work since 2023 — the Dodgers would probably rather have the 1.000+ OPS hitting machine than the barely .900 OPS version that may-or-may-not pitch when their rotation is already beyond stacked to the nines. In any case, it will be Ohtani the batter who makes or breaks Los Angeles’ postseason, as usual.
3. Aaron Judge
Do you know what’s going on with Aaron Judge? Nope! Because neither does his manager, Aaron Boone. Yankees fans are probably a bit fed up with the melodrama surrounding Judge’s return and how irregular it has been; he eschewed the traditional rehab assignment, promptly got re-injured, was ruled out of the Wild Card Series and then un-ruled-himself-out to the surprise of the Yankees organization. That’s not very cooperative, especially since Judge was straight-up bad after he returned from his injury.
But this is the most important list, not the “who led MLB in WAR this season” list, and Judge was, is and ever shall be the Yankees singular win condition. Babe Ruth is not walking through that door, and Judge’s ability to play or not to play right field could really decide things; if his calf is too injured and he has to DH, that means either Paul Goldschmidt or Ben Rice will be out of position — that’s bad news bears right there.
4. Yordan Alvarez
So long as we’re sufficiently time-limiting, Yordan Alvarez is probably the best hitter on the planet until Aaron Judge’s calf gets itself in order. And even then, Alvarez is the kind of monster that your whole bullpen will have to plan around. Screw around with him, and you’ll find your entire season is forfeit to a team that went 81-81. All because of one man.
I’ve written extensively about Yordan Alvarez this year and his unique ability to send baseballs to the troposphere — essentially, he combines power and contact like nobody we’ve ever seen since we could track uber-specific contact numbers. Nobody has ever been this prolific a home run hitter while also making contact with over 90 percent of pitches thrown in the zone. It’s just … not something one does. But Alvarez does it, and I do not want to be the pitcher tasked with getting him out with men on base. Not one little bit.
5. Jacob Misiorowski
You will see nine hitters in 10 spots before we have our little run of pitchers on this list, but Misiorowski cracks the top five because of his potential cultural importance in addition to his baseballical value. I think Misiorowski could dominate public conversation this October if he does his thing throwing 105 and singlehandedly winning games like Tarik Skubal did two years ago. Everyone, even your baseball-hating uncle Terrence who believes football is the only thing worth watching, might know who Misiorowski is by the end of this.
I personally value pitchers with swing-and-miss stuff in the playoffs, not because it’s always better than the contact merchants (Ranger Suarez has insane postseason stats) but because it actually feels somewhat controllable when you’re watching the game. No spreadsheet survives first contact with October, and Misiorowski running dudes over with his four-seamer is going to be worth watching. And it should be worth a few wins, too.
6. Fernando Tatis Jr.
Well, the Padres did it. They were in hell itself but hit such a turnaround that they basically made a u-turn on an eight-lane highway. Did I think it was possible? No! Would I recommend attempting that at home? Absolutely not! But they jacked up their OPS a full 100 points as a team pre and post-All-Star Break. That’ll do it.
Tatis, meanwhile, executed a personal turnaround so dramatic that the guy I gave an F+ to in early June is pretty much the best non-PCA hitter in baseball. He’s a menacing talent that will give any pitcher beads of sweat down their neck, and he plays the game with an infectious energy that makes the Padres easy to root for. The National League playoffs are going to be absolute carnage, and I’ll bet Tatis has something to do with it.
7. Junior Caminero
I am not a Tampa Bay Rays respecter. I think they’re a gimmick team whose bunts and contact hitting will finally break at the cold, unfeeling reality of postseason baseball. But I am absolutely a Junior Caminero respecter. How can you not respect 80-mile-per-hour bat speed?
Caminero will have to carry an even larger burden than he has in the regular season if the Rays are going to top either the Red Sox or Yankees in round two, since both those teams are analytically better than the Rays and both have better pitching. Caminero, Jonathan Aranda and Yandy Diaz are the only truly scary hitters in their lineup, and the threat of Caminero enables Tampa Bay’s small-ball chicanery. You try to pitch around him and the Rays army of bunt specialists pounces. It might be corny, but it also … might work.
8. Roman Anthony
I’ve been trying to explain to people how important Roman Anthony is to Boston without necessarily having the stats to do so. He’s barely played in 2026, he’s still been great because he is great, but his strikeout numbers since returning have been above his normal excellent standard. Willson Contreras (who may not play in the Wild Card) has been a more important hitter all year, and most teams that saw a lot of Boston probably forgot all about Roman Anthony.
But the man can create an at-bat. Boston has a lot of talented hitters but a number of annoying plate discipline issues — Ceddanne Rafaela swings at everything but hits a decent amount of it, Jarren Duran swings at everything, hits very little of it but when he does hit it every 20th time it can go pretty far. Wilyer Abreu can struggle with fastballs high when he’s not feeling his swing. Anthony, meanwhile, will always get you a quality at-bat, which enables so much for Boston’s offense. Just getting on base leadoff means you have to be more conservative with Boston’s army of plate-discipline-challenged hitters. If Boston beats New York, Roman Anthony is going to have a say.
9. Kyle Schwarber
A little under-the-hood info here: I wrote most of these blurbs on Friday, but I almost had to DELETE THIS ONE because the Philadelphia Phillies tried every trick in the book to miss the playoffs. But they got in, and Kyle Schwarber represents their singular win condition if they want to do better than … whatever that last week and change was.
Schwarbomb has adopted a pull-side approach in his 30s that has made him a much more effective hitter. For guys who accept a high degree of strikeout…ery (I wanted it to rhyme) as unavoidable, you really have to make the most of whatever exit velocity you can manage when you do make contact with the ball. It’s a common trend among older players to pull the ball more, and Schwarber is the endearing version of that development. Home runs are volatile but singularly valuable in the postseason.
10. Miguel Vargas
You’re god damn right I’m putting Miguel Vargas ahead of four Cy Young-caliber pitchers, because while most probably saw him make the All-Star team this year and said “wait, Miguel Vargas? The shockingly average former Dodgers third baseman prospect now on the Chicago White Sox?” Vargas has actually been one of the premier players in baseball this season. He is 5th in MLB in fWAR among playoff position players, and somehow made the top 10 most important playoff players. Good for him.
The spike happened, the spike continued and the spike was real. Vargas has made substantive improvements to his game that stuck and now he’s second only to Junior Caminero as far as offensive third basemen go. He has not gotten nearly enough credit for his contributions to this White Sox team, one that is back in the playoffs after losing 102 and 121 games in their last two seasons. Hilariously, Vargas is only on this team because the Red Sox traded Michael Kopech to the White Sox in 2016 … who then traded Kopech to the Dodgers for Vargas. Who was Kopech originally traded for? Why, the next guy on the list of course: Chris Sale.
11. Chris Sale
I don’t think Chris Sale could have had a better season if he could pull out the magic pen and write it into existence. At 37 years young, Sale was like “what if I threw my fastball 96 instead of 94,” started using it way more and just cooked everyone for 162 sterling innings. It’s pretty irrefutable that 2026 Sale was better than the 2024 version that won the Cy Young, and had Misiorowski just chilled the heck out a little bit he would have gotten another one.
Sale is the cornerstone of a Braves rotation that leaves a lot to be desired; I am admittedly dubious on their World Series hopes given their lack of starting pitching. But if we approach this list with the prior that the Atlanta Braves would definitely be in the mix? Sale might be the single most important player. He’s essential.
12. Cristopher Sanchez
Sanchez looked, at one point in the season, like he and Misiorowski would be going for one of the great Cy Young battles of our time. That didn’t pan out, but Sanchez still had an incredible season and anchors the Phillies extraordinary on-paper pitching staff even with a murky Jesus Luzardo injury. He and Zack Wheeler will be the great advantage the Phillies have over the Braves … because otherwise they have their work cut out for them.
Sanchez is a baller, though, and has relentlessly improved his arsenal for the last several years to become one of the premier arms in Major League Baseball. If you want to believe in the Phillies (I’m rather ambivalent) you will have to believe in Cristopher Sanchez. You have to. You must. No, there’s no other option.
13. Cam Schlittler
Aaron Boone 4D chess notwithstanding, Cam Schlittler will start Game 1 against the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday on the heels of a tremendous Cy Young campaign. I doubted him throughout the way, and liked Dylan Cease’s underlying metrics better until the 11th hour when they all fell apart, but Schlittler deserves his flowers: this was a major, major season from the young righty, and it’s no small thing to grab the Yankees ace spot by the horns and take it.
Schlittler would easily be higher on this list if we were talking “best players,” but he has so much support with New York’s epically good rotation and supporting bullpen. The mostly unknown Schlittler destroyed Boston last season to send them home in the very series they’re about to play, and will now be tasked with the ultimate pressure cooker in Game 1. Should Boston tap Payton Tolle as their starter, this could be an all-time great showdown of Red Sox/Yankees young aces. Drink it in.
14. Tarik Skubal
Oh yeah, Tarik Skubal, remember him? The guy that had us all furiously refreshing our feeds for weeks as he and the Detroit Tigers mulled their future? Yeah, he’s on the Dodgers now, he’s still completely insane at baseball and could be coming soon to a World Series near you!
The hardest thing to do in sports is to repeat; it’s impossible to quantify exactly why other than the simple probability of winning a championship coming into a season is 1 in 30 so it’s pretty hard to do twice in a row. The Dodgers … already did, so it’s even harder to do it again … because math! The other feature of repeating that’s so hard is much of the team loses the hunger required to dig as deep as humanly possible to get it done. That’s why successful dynasties are always moving in new pieces who haven’t yet had a taste, and Skubal is that kind of player for Los Angeles. He’s always one of maybe oh I don’t know four-ish guys on earth capable of single handedly beating any lineup of hitters on earth. So there’s that too.
15. Brice Turang
It’s hard exactly to explain how good Brice Turang is since none of his numbers really jump out at you like the home run totals of PCA or the absurd OPS of Yordan Alvarez, but here’s the score: he is one of the best, if not the single best, defensive second basemen in the sport, hit 21 home runs this season, had 100 RBIs and posted 7.3 bWAR which is nerd for really stupidly good. It’s unreal to be this impactful an offensive player and this good a defender.
Fans of the Brew Crew will probably lose it with me that he’s this low, but Turang’s underlying data doesn’t tell me he’s the kind of hitter that singlehandedly wins you games. He’s merely a great hitter and a great defender — everything you want, to be sure, but not the superheroes above him. Why he’s five spots lower than Miguel Vargas? Well, because the White Sox rely on him for more than the Brewers rely on Turang for. He’s the backbone of the best team in baseball, but the best team in baseball has more in their back pocket. Not a bad problem to have.
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