Five World Series matchups we most want to see

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The 2022 MLB regular season is complete and the postseason is set to begin Friday with the brand new Wild Card Series. The best-of-three Wild Card Series runs through the weekend, followed by the ALDS and NLDS beginning Tuesday. The long marathon is over and the sprint to the finish is about to begin.

Here is the 2022 MLB postseason bracket (and here are our postseason predictions):

American League

Bye: No. 1 Astros and No. 2 Yankees
WC: No. 6 Rays at No. 3 Guardians (winner plays Yankees)
WC: No. 5 Mariners at No. 4 Blue Jays (winner plays Astros)

National League

Bye: No. 1 Dodgers and No. 2 Braves
WC: No. 6 Phillies at No. 3 Cardinals (winner plays Braves)
WC: No. 5 Padres at No. 4 Mets (winner plays Dodgers)

The Braves are looking to become baseball's first repeat World Series champion since the Yankees won three consecutive titles from 1998-2000. We are in an unprecedented era of parity in baseball.

Six postseason teams per league means there are 36 possible World Series matchups and we're here to rank the ones we most want to see. What are we ranking the matchups on, exactly? The quality of the teams, historic rivalries, geographic rivalries, stuff like that. Our rankings are highly subjective, but feel free to tell us we're wrong anyway.

After consulting with the other CBS Sports MLB scribes, I present to you the five World Series matchups we most want to see this postseason. Come with me, won't you?

1. Mets vs. Yankees

The two New York teams combined to win 200 games this season, their highest combined win total ever, and they got to those 200 wins in the most torturous way possible. The Yankees had a 15 1/2-game lead in the AL East on July 8, then saw it getting whittled down to 3 1/2 games by Sept. 9 before rallying to win the division. There were days Aaron Judge dragged his team to a W.

The Mets, meanwhile, had a 10 1/2-game lead on June 1 and managed to blow it, and had to settle for a wild-card spot. Only the 1951 Dodgers (13 games) and 1995 Angels (11 games) have blown larger division leads. The Mets went to Atlanta last weekend needing to win just one game to control their destiny, and it was a bridge too far. They got swept.

Regular season win totals aside, the narratives are juicy. Mets owner Steve Cohen wants to be what the Yankees were in the late 1990s, the sport's dominant team with championships aplenty. The Yankees are trying to put an exclamation point on Judge's historic season with their first World Series title since 2009. Think about it: Judge vs. Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom, Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso vs. Gerrit Cole. Fun!

The Yankees and Mets of course met in the World Series once previously, with the Yankees winning the 2000 title in five games. That series was closer than the short duration would lead you to believe. Four of the five games were decided by one run and the clincher ended when what looked like a game-tying homer off Mike Piazza's bat settled into Bernie Williams' glove.

These two teams split their season series -- the Mets won both games at Citi Field and the Yankees won both games at Yankee Stadium -- and the crowds were raucous. A Subway Series would be more than a World Series, it would be a battle for New York sports supremacy. This matchup gives us the best possible combination of great teams and an electric atmosphere throughout.

2. Astros vs. Dodgers

There's history here and it's not pleasant. The Astros beat the Dodgers in seven games in the 2017 World Series, and after Houston was punished for illegally stealing signs that season, Dodgers players were not shy about calling them out.

"Everyone knows they stole the ring from us," Cody Bellinger said.

"It's hard to feel like they earned it," Justin Turner added.

The 2017 World Series was long ago and rosters have changed -- only 10 players to appear in that series are still with the Astros and Dodgers -- though the biggest names remain: Bellinger, Turner, Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, etc. There would be no love lost in this matchup and it's our best bet for some actual animosity in the World Series.

Also, the Astros and Dodgers were the best teams in their respective leagues! By no small margin either. Two great teams that don't like each other makes for good color television.

3. Dodgers vs. Yankees

Give the commissioner and the television network executives a truth serum, and I'm certain they'd tell you this is the World Series matchup they want. The Dodgers and Yankees are baseball's two marquee franchises, they play in the two largest markets, and they have a long history too. No two teams have met in the World Series more than the Dodgers and Yankees.

Here is a rivalry recap. Historically, more than one out of every 11 World Series to date has featured these two teams.

1941 World Series: Yankees win 4-1
1947 World Series: Yankees win 4-3
1949 World Series: Yankees win 4-1
1952 World Series: Yankees win 4-3
1953 World Series: Yankees win 4-1 (at 25, Vin Scully becomes youngest World Series broadcaster ever)
1955 World Series: Dodgers in 4-3 (Jackie Robinson steals home in Game 1)
1956 World Series: Yankees win 4-3 (Don Larsen throws a perfect game in Game 5)
1963 World Series: Dodgers win 4-0
1977 World Series: Yankees win 4-2 (Reggie Jackson hits three homers in Game 6)
1978 World Series: Yankees win 4-2
1981 World Series: Dodgers win 4-2

This rivalry has given baseball some of it's greatest, most iconic moments ever, but it's been a while, you know? An entire generation of baseball fans (2-3 generations in baseball years) have not seen the Dodgers and Yankees hook up in October.

Whenever the Dodgers and Yankees meet during interleague play, it's an event. Like the World Series in the summer. Yankees fans are all over the world and there are still a lot of Dodgers fans in New York, with fandom handed down through the generations from the franchise's Brooklyn years. Dodgers vs. Yankees in the World Series would be outrageously fun.

4. Mariners vs. Padres

When I sketched out my preliminary rankings, this matchup kept moving up and up and up. I'm excited to watch two teams that are newbies to the postseason. The Mariners have not played October baseball since Ichiro's rookie year in 2001 and the Padres qualified for the 2020 postseason, but I think we all want to forget 2020. Instead, this is San Diego's first postseason trip in a full season since 2006.

No Fernando Tatis Jr. takes a bite out of this matchup, but we'd still have Manny Machado and Julio Rodríguez, Luis Castillo and Yu Darvish, Juan Soto, Eugenio Suárez, Washington native Blake Snell, former Padres Ty France and Andrés Muñoz, on and on we could go. Mariners vs. Padres would be a sneaky great World Series matchup with a lot of fun players and two really dedicated fan bases. Those fans have sat through a lot of bad baseball waiting for this October.

5. Astros vs. Mets

The No. 1 storyline here would be the managers. Dusty Baker and Buck Showalter have combined to manage over 7,000 big league games -- they rank ninth and 20th on the all-time managerial wins list, respectively -- yet neither has won a World Series (Dusty did win a ring as a player with the 1981 Dodgers). The teams are great! Sign me up for deGrom and Scherzer vs. Verlander and Framber Valdez eight days a week and twice on Sundays. Ultimately, this series would guarantee one of the game's greatest managers ever finally gets a ring, and that's pretty cool.

Honorable Mentions

Astros vs. Braves: This was No. 6 on my list. A World Series rematch is usually a lock for a top five spot, but I find myself more intrigued by a few other possible matchups, so this one is left on the outside looking in. Two great teams though, with a bit of a history that extends beyond last year's World Series (dating back to Houston's time in the National League).

Astros vs. Cardinals: Really, I just want to see Albert Pujols do this again:

That plus a World Series title would be a legendary capper to an all-time great career.

Blue Jays vs. Padres: Similar to Mariners vs. Padres, this would be two postseason relative newbies with many really great and really fun players hooking up in the World Series. Hard to beat Vladimir Guerrero Jr. vs. Darvish one inning and Soto vs. Alek Manoah the next.

Cardinals vs. Yankees: The team with the most World Series titles vs. the National League team with the most titles. The historical references might be insufferable, but the Pujols and Yadier Molina (and Adam Wainwright?) farewells would be pretty cool, I think. Also, the Yankees traded Jordan Montgomery to the Cardinals (for Harrison Bader) at the deadline in part because they didn't believe he'd be part of their postseason rotation, so there's chip on his shoulder potential here too.

Mariners vs. Mets: With the series coming down to Edwin Díaz vs. Jarred Kelenic in Game 7, naturally.