Maybe we should call this one the North American League Championship Series.
Between the Toronto Blue Jays’ involvement and the Seattle Mariners’ close proximity to the Great White North, there will be a (metric) ton of Canadian eyes — from British Columbia to Ontario and points beyond — upon the best-of-seven ALCS that begins on Sunday night at Rogers Centre.
And of course, you don’t have to be a Canuck to be captivated by the first ALCS to not feature the Yankees or Astros (or both) since 2016, when the Jays lost to Cleveland.
With Toronto having not reached and won the World Series since 1993 and Seattle the only MLB team to have never appeared in the World Series, the AL will be sending some fresh meat (and we don’t mean Canadian bacon) to the Fall Classic, one way or another.
So, which way will this one go?
Your guess is as good as ours. Though the Blue Jays have the home-field advantage earned from their superior regular-season record (94 wins to the Mariners’ 90) and a major rest advantage from their tidy AL Division Series triumph over the Yankees vs. Seattle’s 15-inning marathon win in Game 5 over the Tigers, these two clubs did have similar run differentials in the regular season (plus-77 for the Jays, plus-72 for the M’s), and the Mariners were a much different team after the Trade Deadline, with a .680 winning percentage in September.
Let’s look at these two squads, position by position, to try to make some sense of this ALCS, er, NALCS.
In an All-Star season in 2025, Alejandro Kirk posted the second-best OPS (.769) and OPS+ (111, or 11% better than league average) marks of his career. He did this while continuing to provide great value behind the plate with his blocking and framing. He also had a big impact on the ALDS win over the Yankees, cranking two homers and a double in the four games.
That’s great value for the Jays, but of course there’s no more valuable catcher in the baseball world right now than Cal Raleigh. The 60 homers (with No. 61 in the ALDS) speak for themselves, but Raleigh is also a game-changing defender who made maybe the most pinpoint throw you’ll ever see in a caught-stealing situation in Game 5 against the Tigers. Raleigh did have a passed ball late in that five-hour affair, but that only underscored the fact that he didn’t have any passed balls in more than 1,000 innings caught this season.
You might not want to pitch to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. right now. The Blue Jays’ $500 million man has had a great career (hence, the $500 million), but this year’s ALDS was his finest moment, to date. He went 9-for-17 with three homers, two walks and nine RBIs. When Vladdy is at his best, like he is right now, the combination of patience (90th percentile this season in chase percentage, 87th in walk rate) and power (90th percentile in hard-hit percentage) is a beautiful thing to behold.
If Bo Bichette is rostered in this series after missing most of September and the ALDS with a left knee issue, it would still seem doubtful that we’d see him at shortstop much, if at all. So Andrés Gimenez would probably continue to man that position instead of this one. In that scenario, Ernie Clement, who was on fire against the Yankees (9-for-14 with a homer and double) is the primary option, with Isiah Kiner-Falefa another possibility (though he could be bumped from the roster to make room for Bichette).
It’s more straightforward for the Mariners. After battling injury in his first season with the Mariners in 2024, Jorge Polanco came roaring back with a 26-homer, 30-double campaign, and his imprint was all over the ALDS, from the two solo shots he slugged off Skubal in Game 2 to the game-winning hit to end the Game 5 classic.
Again, we’ll have to see what happens with Bichette to know how the Blue Jays will handle this spot, but, given the nature of Bichette’s knee injury, it would seem likely that they’ll continue to rely on Giménez’s great glove (10 outs above average this season) and light bat (66 OPS+, or 34% below league average) slotting in here.
J.P. Crawford has been one of the Mariners’ most important players this decade, bringing leadership and a discerning eye at the plate. He was worth 3.7 Wins Above Replacement in the regular season, per Baseball-Reference, and he had five hits, including a homer, in the ALDS.
Depending on matchups and what’s going on with Bichette, the Blue Jays have Addison Barger and Clement as their options here. Both players had a big impact on the club’s 2025 success. Barger posted 21 homers and 32 doubles while also providing a cannon of an arm at the hot corner. Clement was a four-win player, per Baseball-Reference, thanks to his solid offense (.711 OPS) and excellent defense at multiple spots.
The Mariners signaled their seriousness about going the distance this year when they brought back old pal Eugenio Suárez in a Deadline trade with the Diamondbacks. Suarez hit his 50th homer of the year during the ALDS round and is always capable of changing a game with a single swing. He also made one of the best defensive plays of that epic Game 5, calmly throwing home for a big out in the 12th after fielding a broken-bat chopper.
The Blue Jays signed Anthony Santander to a five-year, $92.5 million contract prior to 2025. But, given his struggles this season and only recent return from injury, he was not necessarily a lock to be rostered in the ALDS, in which he went 2-for-10 against the Yankees. Davis Schneider, who had a .797 OPS in 82 games this season, made two of the starts at this position for Toronto and went 2-for-6 with a double.
We’re still waiting to see if “Playoff Randy” will report for duty this October. So far, Randy Arozarena went 4-for-23 with eight strikeouts in the ALDS. But regular-season Randy was an All-Star (.760 OPS and 119 OPS+ with 27 homers and 32 doubles), and we’ve certainly seen him light up the October stage before.
After battling injuries in the first half of the season, Daulton Varsho wound up with his best season as a Blue Jay, with 12 homers, 35 RBIs and an .861 OPS in August and September. The hits kept coming in the ALDS, in which Varsho went 7-for-16 with three doubles and two homers. He’s also one of the best defensive center fielders in the game.
But the Mariners have Julio. For whatever reason, three-time All-Star Julio Rodríguez is always at his best in the second half, and that was again the case this year, as he posted a .900 OPS, 18 homers and 14 doubles after the break. He was relatively quiet in the ALDS, but he did rip the game-winning RBI double in Game 2.
The Blue Jays’ starts here in the ALDS went to Nathan Lukes, Myles Straw and Santander. Lukes, whose arm is an asset in right, had one of the biggest hits of the series with a two-run single in the seventh inning of the clincher — a nice moment for a guy coming off a solid first full season in the Majors. And Straw was a low-key offseason acquisition who wound up providing terrific impact with his elite defense. If Bichette is rostered and DH’d, then you can expect to see George Springer here. He made 33 starts in right and 10 in left in the regular season, though he only played in right nine times since the beginning of August.
The Blue Jays have not experienced Springer’s October hero mode yet. He started his eighth postseason by going 3-for-17 with five strikeouts against the Yankees. Still, this has been a resurgent season for Springer, who had 32 homers and .959 OPS. And as noted above, we could see Bichette (.840 OPS, 18 homers, 44 doubles this season) here if his knee cooperates.
The Mariners will continue to rotate between Dominic Canzone (.840 OPS in the regular season) vs. righties and Mitch Garver (.639 OPS) against lefties. They combined to go 2-for-11 with two RBIs in the ALDS.
If both of these clubs were rolling into this series fresh as daisies, we’d be inclined to go with the Mariners here. Though their rotation was better at home than on the road this season, it’s a deep and competitive group.
But we all watched what it took to get through that Tigers series — and Game 5, in particular. Namely, Game 5 took five-plus innings from George Kirby and multi-inning relief outings from both Logan Gilbert and Luis Castillo. The Mariners could potentially get an ALCS boost from the return of their best starter from 2025, Bryan Woo (2.94 ERA, 128 ERA+), but keep in mind his progression from a pectoral injury was at a point that would likely require a Minor League rehab assignment in the regular season. He hasn’t appeared in a game in nearly a month.
The Blue Jays have the built-in advantage of rest for Kevin Gausman, rookie sensation Trey Yesavage and Shane Bieber. Chris Bassitt and Max Scherzer are their options later in the series. We can quibble with this or that stat, but, ultimately, that all seems pretty pointless at the moment, given that the Mariners are scrambling at the start of this ALCS and the Blue Jays are not.
Same rationale here. Though the Mariners had the sixth-best bullpen in MLB by ERA, they needed 23 2/3 innings from their relievers in the ALDS. Each of Matt Brash, Eduard Bazardo and closer Andrés Muñoz had their longest career outings at one point or another in that series, while high-leverage lefty Gabe Speier seemed to run out of gas in giving up key runs in Games 4 and 5.
Toronto’s bullpen was middle-of-the-park in ERA this year, and blowing a 6-1 lead in Game 3 against the Yankees showed the Jays’ potential vulnerability here. But theirs is also a group that was at its best in the home stretch, with Jeff Hoffman (0.84 ERA in September), Braydon Fisher (1.59) Yariel Rodríguez (1.74) and Seranthony Domínguez (2.16) all finishing strong, and those principal figures of the ‘pen will be rested and ready. It’s worth noting that while Hoffman was dangerously homer-prone this year (2.0 per nine innings), he’s allowed just one long ball in his last 12 appearances, counting the postseason.
What a fun matchup. These are going to be electric atmospheres at Rogers Centre and T-Mobile Park, because these fervent fan bases have both been waiting a long time for a World Series opportunity.
Given the nature of what it took to get to this point for the Mariners — and the way Guerrero looks locked-in — I’m inclined to take Toronto in six games. But I’d certainly sign up for seven.
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