The Yankees are coming to the Mets in the next round and the Twins are for sale

The Windup newsletter ⚾ | This is The Athletic's daily MLB newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Windup straight to your inbox.

Here's what we know about the Championship Series round: New York, New York. When we come back Monday morning, we will know who the Mets and Yankees are playing. I am Levi Weaverhere with Ken Rosenthal. Welcome to The Windup!

Fun while it lasted: Yankees advance to ALCS

Yankees 3, Royals 1: No disrespect to the Royals — whose 2024 season was truly remarkable given their 56-106 record in 2023 — but this felt a little inevitable.

As Ken wrote a little over a week ago: If the Yankees don't make the World Series this year, they'll only have themselves to blame. Last night Gerrit Cole was the top excuse remover and looked just like he has in the past. He went seven innings, allowing just one run on six hits, striking out four and not allowing a single walk.

Meanwhile, Giancarlo Stanton continued his October renaissance, going 2-for-3 with a walk, including a single in the sixth inning that scored the Yankees' third and final run of the night.

It wouldn't be a Royals-Yankees postseason series if the benches weren't cleared at least once. The grand old tradition finally took place last night when Maikel Garcia caught an Anthony Volpe forearm to the torso on a late slide. (Yes, Jazz Chisholm Jr. was involved, at least on the sidelines.) The center field soiree was short-lived, but the Royals responded by scoring their first run of the game when Vinnie Pasquantino hit Bobby Witt with a single.

It was a good run for the Royals. It never feels good when a season comes to an end, but this might be one of the rare moments where it doesn't hurt quite as bad. It was a truly amazing turnaround.

In the meantime, the Yankees get a few days off while they wait to find out who's coming to town on Monday.

More Royals-Yankees: Joba Chamberlain has World Series rings with both Kansas City and New York. He was present at the meeting between his former teams yesterday.

Ken's Notebook: The Darvish Mystery for Game 5

As much as we love crunching numbers, baseball doesn't always follow mathematical logic. But as the Dodgers prepare to face Padres right-hander Yu Darvish in tonight's Game 5 of the Division Series (8:08 p.m. ET, FOX), two different statistics are giving them encouragement.

Mind you, Darvish was brilliant in Game 2 against the Dodgers, allowing just one run on three hits and enduring a 12-minute delay as fans at Dodger Stadium threw baseballs and beer cans onto the outfield turf in his seventh and final inning.

However, this start took place on eight rest days. The 38-year-old Darvish will pitch tonight on the usual four days of rest. In four starts this season, his ERA under these circumstances was 6.43 and his opponents' OPS was 0.905. In 20 such starts over the last three seasons, his ERA was 4.97 and his opponents' OPS was 0.759.

And that's not all.

As good as Darvish was in Game 2, he only hit three strikeouts and benefited from excellent defensive plays from each of his three outfielders, including Jurickson Profar's home run raid on Mookie Betts in the first inning.

So while the Dodgers were just 3-of-22 against him, their .265 expected batting average based on quality of contact was the sixth-highest against Darvish in 17 starts this season. Her expected slugging percentage of .449 was the fifth highest.

What does it all mean? Who knows? Darvish has performed well overall since returning from the restricted and injured list on Sept. 4, posting a 3.06 ERA in 32 1/3 innings, including his start in Game 2. The Dodgers have him this year cannot be solved either in the regular season or in the postseason. In three starts against them, Darvish has a 1.59 ERA and has limited them to a .426 OPS.

That's why they play the games, right? Something has to give in Game 5, in which the Dodgers start righty Yoshinobu Yamamoto and follow him with a parade of relievers. On paper, Darvish should have the advantage. Or maybe not.

Another game 5: Guards are still inside

Guardian 5, Tiger 4: In Game 3, Guardians manager Stephen Vogt was pilloried for his early pinch-hitting decisions. In Game 4, one of the same substitutions made the difference.

At the end of the sixth, things looked bleak for Cleveland. Wenceel Pérez's RBI single had given the Tigers a 3-2 lead with just nine outs separating them from the ALCS. But early in the seventh, after a single by Steven Kwan, Vogt made the same move he had made in the third inning a game earlier: left-hander Kyle Manzardo out, right-hander David Fry in.

Tigers manager AJ Hinch also countered from left to right, replacing Sean Guenther with Beau Brieske. But this time the chess game went in the Guardians' favor. Fry hit a two-out, two-run, pinch-hit go-ahead home run.

There was another parallel between Game 4 and an earlier game in the series: Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase – who had accounted for all the scoring with the dramatic three-run home run in Game 2 – was called into action again in the eighth inning for a longer one Storage than usual. He allowed it one This time he scored the ninth run, but there was a safety squeeze early in the inning – Also by Fry – had given Cleveland a two-run cushion.

It was the difference in the game, and with the one-run win, Cleveland forced a decisive Game 5 at home. Tomorrow, Detroit will send star Tarik Skubal to the mound to face a pitcher named “TBD” (8:08 p.m. ET, TBS).

Big Offers: Twins for sale?

In 1984, Carl Pohlad bought the Minnesota Twins for $44 million, about $667,000 more than Max Scherzer or Justin Verlander earned in 2023. The team was passed on to Carl's son Jim in 2009 when the elder Pohlad died and grandson Joe took over the team's day-to-day operations just under two years ago.

Yesterday it was announced that the next owner will be the first in 40 years to have a different last name. The team is for sale.

The Pohlads should get a decent return on their investment. Estimates of the team's value range from $1.46 billion (Forbes) to $1.7 billion (Sportico). The new owners will need a little more than that if they want to appease fans — the team's payroll has been a point of contention in recent years and likely contributed to the shocking collapse that left them out of the postseason this year.

There might be some who say that's not the case all Owner's fault. After all, the Twins were one of the teams hardest hit by the ongoing Bally Sports bankruptcy drama.

But as Dan Hayes reports in the link above, payroll issues were nothing new:

“Since 2013, the club has ranked 17th to 21st in the MLB payroll. By 2016, the team had fallen to under two million viewers in a 59-103 season. Despite reaching the playoffs four times in the last eight seasons, the Twins have struggled to resonate with their fans, surpassing two million viewers only twice.”

Whoever the new owners are, their first order of business should be to invest in the team's future.

Handshakes and high fives

(Top photo: Denny Medley / Imagn Images)