Major League Baseball: X-Factors for potential postseason teams

With just two weeks left in the Major League Baseball regular season, potential contenders are gearing up for postseason play.

No matter what you achieve during the grueling six month regular season, Major League Baseball has always been about what you accomplish in October, during the postseason.

Divisional winners, including record setting win totals, mean nothing once the playoffs begin. Just ask the 2001 Seattle Mariners, who won an American League record — tying the all-time Major League Baseball total–with 116 wins, coming up just short of making the Fall Classic. Also in 2015, the St. Louis Cardinals won 100 games, before bowing out to their hated divisional rival, the Chicago Cubs, rendering those victories nearly meaningless.

Speaking of those “wild Cards”, they’ve proven time and time again that if you qualify for postseason play, anything can happen. Even though they won their division in 2006, they had MLB’s lowest win total with only 83 victories, but caught fire in October, beating the Detroit Tigers for the ultimate crown, knocking off the heavily favored New York Mets in the process. Who can forget the rally squirrel of 2011, who aided the Cardinals to an improbable World Series title run?

Do any of the 2017 contenders have what it takes to win it all and dethrone the Chicago Cubs? Will the Cubbies be the first team to repeat since the 2000 New York Yankees?

Each team has their own obvious strengths, but what variables or X-factors does each potential playoff team posses?

We will take a look at each MLB division, exposing the key factors for each potential playoff team’s chances of making a run deep into October, then decide who will ultimately take the crown.