DENVER — The Wild Card series wrapped Thursday and attention now turns to the Division Series, which will provide a first look at the Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers, Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Guardians. The round will feature some old friends and a host of storylines, with early offseason notes emerging around the Colorado Rockies and across the league as October baseball begins.
In Colorado, MLB.com's Jonathan Mayo and Sam Dykstra tabbed Jack O'Dowd (HM PuRP) as the Rockies' Arizona Fall League sleeper prospect. Sports Illustrated's Scott Roche revisited TJ Rumfield — described as one of the brightest spots on the 2026 Rockies team — as a payoff from one of Paul DePodesta's first moves. MLB Pipeline's final Top-100 list also included four Rockies prospects, the same four ranked Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 on the mid-season PuRPs list.
Around the league, old friend Michael Toglia was claimed off waivers by the Seattle Mariners from the Cincinnati Reds after playing just 10 games with Cincinnati in 2026 before a shoulder injury ended his season. In Los Angeles, Shohei Ohtani has been fighting left knee and right biceps injuries and admitted he won't be fully healthy in the playoffs, though the Dodgers remain favored to threepeat given their depth — a situation detailed further in Ohtani's lingering injuries as Dodgers open NLDS vs Braves. Yankees slugger Aaron Judge has battled hamstring injuries for most of the season but was available to play against the Rockies a few weeks ago, with a Yahoo! Sports headline noting an experimental blood treatment clarified in the wire as platelet-poor plasma (PPP), described as relatively unproven by the healthcare industry.
Velocity could define one Division Series matchup. As MLB.com's Zach Sweet wrote, "Fifty-six pitches. That's the most triple-digit heat any postseason series has produced since pitch tracking began in 2008," set during the 2016 Giants-Cubs NLDS, while Jacob Misiorowski has thrown four more triple-digit pitches this season by himself and Mason Miller ranks second in that arms race. Elsewhere, MLB nixed a plan to host a regular-season game at Grand Teton National Park, and The Athletic's Andy McCullough examined whether the Dodgers are villains or a model to aspire to as their title defense could shape MLB's labor debate ahead of a potential lockout in two months, with more context in Four Burning Questions as 2026 ALDS and NLDS Open Saturday.