LAS VEGAS — Whether it’s a team surging together at the right time just as a nervy curveball clinches the pennant in Queens or an inning that comes apart because of a fluke finger injury days earlier in Pittsburgh, Major League Baseball’s ever-expanding postseason is chocked with unpredictability. It can turn an 83-win team into a champion or send a sixth seed to the pennant.
As far back as 2004, a baseball executive referred to the short series of the playoffs as a “crapshoot,” and clubs describe building rosters, as one Atlanta executive said a year ago, “to get in and see what happens.