[ArquimedezPozo]

But more importantly, Series 17 is underway! 2019 Washington Nationals (48.3 WAR, 21st seed in NL bracket) vs. 1906 Cubs (55.9 WAR, 8th seed in NL bracket)

Preview:

1906 to 2019: 113 years, the biggest gap in time between any two teams in the first round. That alone makes this worth watching.

On paper, this should be a pretty big mismatch: the team with the single greatest winning percentage in baseball history - the 1906 Cubs, who went 116-36 (.763) against a Nationals Wild Card team that was only barely above .500 at the All Star break and whose 93 regular season wins ranks pretty low among WS champions. And maybe it will be, but there is also potentially reason to think it will be competitive. For one, the Nationals were a team built more on starting pitching than a lot of their competition, with two fantastic frontline starters in Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg. That plays into the strengths of a series whose era settings will be in 1906 rather than 2019. For another, the Nats' offensive strength lay more in on base skills than on power, which won't be as affected by a switch to 1906. They're still certainly at a big disadvantage, but probably not as big a disadvantage as, say, the 2019 Yankees would have been at.

So let's talk about this incredible Cubs team. First the offense, because they scored runs in bunches. They were far and away the highest scoring club in the NL in 1906: they scored 704, and the next best team - the NY Giants - scored 625. They did it by being essentially go across the board; they weren't necessarily first in every hitting category, but they were almost always at least second. They hit for power after a fashion too - 20 homers, good for the second highest total in the league behind Brooklyn's 25 (yes, the leading HR hitting team in the NL in 1906 hit fewer home runs than Brett Gardner did in 2019); a league leading 71 triples; and a second-best 181 doubles, all of which gave them the best slugging% in the league. That went along with the second best OBP, second fewest strikeouts, and second most stolen bases in the league. Impressively, a lot of that was the work of four main hitters: Frank Chance, the hard-hitting 1B who hit .319/.419/.430; 3B Harry Steinfeldt; C Johnny Kling; and OF Frank Schulte, who led the club with a whopping 7 homers.

Cubs pitching, though, was even better. Their 381 runs allowed was almost 100 fewer than the next best team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, who allowed 464. They easily led in strikeouts, though they also walked their fair share of batters. But the real key was simply that they just didn't allow any hits -*as a team, they averaged 6.6 hits per nine innings, a full hit and a half better than the next club down the list. While relying most on Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown and Jack Pfiester - both of whom had ERAs below 2, including Brown's league-leading 1.04 mark - they also got excellent contributions from four other starters over the year, each and every one of whom was significantly above average in their value and output. Carl Lundgren was the worst of the bunch, because he was*the only pitcher with an ERA above 2, at 2.21. Even for 1906, that was very impressive. So runs are going to be at a serious premium for the Nationals in this series.

Speaking of the Nats, this was a club that was 19-31 in May and climbed out of that to become, as many recently branded them, the most improbable WS winners ever (though the 1969 Mets probably have something to say about that). They did it through good, timely hitting from Juan Soto, Trea Turner, Anthony Rendon, and the criminally underrated Howie Kendrick, who has been an offensive force under the radar for years. But much more than that, they did it with great pitching, from one of the greatest pitchers of the era Max Scherzer, to Nationals lifer Stephen Strasburg, to newcomer Patrick Corbin, to journeyman Anibal Sanchez. Their bullpen struggles hampered their overall staff numbers and effectiveness, but in a short series - using 1906 standards with three-man rotations where pitchers will go deeper into games - the Nats starters could be a potent weapon.

So, let's head to West Side Park, where the Cubs plied their trade in the days before Wrigley was built, and see what the second half of the first round has in store.