The most exciting players in the MLB postseason for the first time

There are a lot of fun players in this year’s MLB postseason. People like Mookie Betts, George Springer, Aaron Judge, and Kris Bryant are all back in the playoffs and hoping to help their team to a World Series title. But the operative word in that sentence is back. Because while all of those players are thrilling and bring a spark to their teams, they’ve all been here before. We’re even more excited for the ones who aren’t.

There are a whole lot of players making the first postseason appearance of their career — whether because they’re rookies or because they finally got traded to a contender or just because their longtime team was finally able to turn it around this year.

Here are the players making their first postseason appearance we’re most excited to watch in October.

These two are number one with a bullet, for obvious reasons. Acuña is a rookie and Albies is a young star and they’re both major pieces in why this year’s Braves team was so gosh darn fun to watch.

The division race between Atlanta and Philadelphia was fun and all, but having these two in the playoffs this year is the absolute right outcome of that battle. The Phillies’ young stars are fun too, but they could use another year to fully pull it together before shining in the postseason.

Besides all of his energy and propensity to hit dingers at will (and be unfairly knocked for it), Acuña is also just a complete joy.

LOOK AT HIM.

Albies is just as joyful. While Acuña can seem immensely focused and then explode in bright spots that are always gems, Albies is just a bright spot all the time. One is not better than the other by any means, they are both equally great ways to add some happiness to your life even if you’re not a Braves fan.

Nothing but fun.

Ozzie Albies, mayor of Fun City with an open-ended term limit.

The best.

These two better get to keep being amazing and fun together deep into the postseason. It’ll make October so much better to watch.

One of the few Yankees who wasn’t in this spot last year, Miguel Andujar has had quite the season. He’s been mentioned in the Rookie of the Year race alongside teammate Gleyber Torres, and has surpassed him as the favorite Yankee in that race since the beginning of the year. Andujar hit .297 with a .328 OBP, is slugging .527 and has 27 home runs with a 126 OPS+ in 149 games.

In August, his best month yet, Andujar hit .320 and slugged .623 with a 158 OPS+ and 10 home runs. With 29 RBI to boot. With the Yankees’ power at the plate severely diminished with Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge injured near the end of the season, Andujar remained one of the bright spots. The Yankees may be the Yankees but who are we to turn down 420-plus foot home runs whenever we can watch them.

Brad Hand went from a team that seemed to really be trying to make the playoffs this year but failed in the Padres to a team that probably doesn’t deserve to be in the playoffs but is because of their division in the Indians. Good for Brad Hand.

Between nearly five years in Miami and the last few seasons in San Diego, Hand hasn’t really come close to the playoffs. He’s notched 32 saves this season alone (in his whole career he only has 55 with the vast majority of them occurring in San Diego) and has a 3.24 FIP in his first 28 appearances so far in Cleveland, with 41 strikeouts in 27-2/3 innings. The Cleveland bullpen got a lot of jokes early in the season and it’s still not airtight, but Hand in the playoffs could be a shutdown presence that will be great to follow.

Here’s a big one. If there’s one thing Stanton’s trade to the Yankees can be applauded for it’s finally getting Stanton to the playoffs. He’s been streaky in New York, and the Bronx faithful have noticed, so hopefully that trend stops in October and the only streak he goes on is one of nonstop dingers for as long as the Yankees are in the playoffs.

Sure, a regular season home run race involving Stanton was fun last year but even though he didn’t come close to his 2017 total of 59 (he finished with 38) that doesn’t mean when he blasts one it’s any less entertaining to watch. The rest of New York’s bats could go completely silent in the postseason and it wouldn’t really matter (except, I guess, to Yankees fans) if we get to see Giancarlo absolutely mash in high pressure situations.

I hope David Bote makes the Cubs’ playoff roster, jacks a home run in a clutch moment, and then bat flips to the high heavens.

And I hope he apologizes to NO ONE.

He has six home runs and 33 RBI in 74 games since getting called up to the big leagues in late July and, more memorably, a handful of clutch moments on top of that. So he has all the makings of a postseason hero if he manages to get on the roster.

Nathan Eovaldi is one of three pitchers on Baseball Reference’s list of players with the most career games without a playoff appearance who the Red Sox are bringing to the playoffs this year. He joins Heath Hembree and Tyler Thornburg, and all three of them should buy the front office a nice paper weight or something in thanks.

Eovaldi of course joined Boston halfway through the season when they acquired him from Tampa Bay at the trade deadline, saving him from the bullpenning shenanigans happening in Florida. The Red Sox rotation hasn’t had a sub-4.00 ERA since July and their allowed OPS has been on the rise since June. While Eovaldi hasn’t been lights out he’s been consistent which is going to be important in the postseason for Boston, and it’ll be nice to see Eovaldi perform under pressure after so many years missing out on the postseason.

If there was a doubt about his postseason importance, and why he more than deserves to break his October-less streak, his September 18th start against the Yankees where he went six innings and allowed only two runs and two walks while striking out five should dismiss them.

Yes, Kyle Freeland could easily be the Rockies pitcher in this slot. We are also excited for Freeland to show off his stuff in the postseason, especially since he is the Colorado pitcher who most staved off the Coors Field Curse this year and is rightfully in the NL Cy Young conversation. But German Márquez is here because he’s putting up numbers like the Rockies have never seen.

He ended the season with a franchise record 221 strikeouts in 191-1/3 innings. Against the Phillies in his last start of the season he struck out the first eight batters before Philadelphia pitcher Nick Pivetta (of all people) got a piece of a Márquez pitch. He ended the year with a 3.76 ERA and 3.34 FIP and a 4.74 ERA with a 1.466 WHIP at Coors Field. The Rockies’ rotation and bullpen are handling Coors Field well this year and Márquez is one of the prime examples of how nice that can be to watch when it’s not the norm.

This section is all Mariners because ... woof guys. Come on. So close! There was optimism there for a bit in Seattle, but the postseason-less streak in the Pacific Northwest continues. You can see the point in this chart when Mariners fans got bayonetted through the heart with a blade of reality.

Tough times all around. The players who would have been saved from the specter of a playoff-less career include Felix Hernandez, Edwin Diaz, Kyle Seager, and Dan Vogelbach. Seager is one of only two active position players who are on Baseball Reference’s list of most games without a playoff game appearance.

With Hernandez’s performance dropping off a cliff this year and sending him to the bullpen, the final year of his Mariners contract in 2019 might be his last real chance to remove himself from that list.