Experts pick ALCS winner, MVP

The American League Championship Series will kick off Wednesday night, and a pair of heavyweights will go head-to-head. The Yankees will travel to Houston to face off with the Astros for a trip to the World Series. Here's how the experts think it will go down.

• ALCS Game 1, presented by loanDepot: Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. ET/6:30 CT on TBS

MLB.com polled its reporters and analysts for their ALCS predictions:

• Which team will win the series?
• Who will be the ALCS MVP?
• How many games will the series last?

Here are the results.

• Experts pick NLCS winner, MVP

Which team will win the ALCS?
There’s a clear ALCS favorite among MLB.com experts. The Astros were picked by 80 percent of voters (64/80) to move on to the World Series.

Not only does Houston hold home-field advantage, but they’ve had a few days off while the Yankees played a decisive Game 5 on Tuesday.

Who will win the ALCS MVP?
Perhaps to no surprise, one ALCS MVP candidate sticks out: Houston’s Yordan Alvarez. The left-handed slugger already has two game-winning home runs this postseason, and MLB.com’s panel is betting there will be more big moments to come. Alvarez was picked by 33 of the 80 voters as their ALCS MVP prediction.

In total, 16 different players received votes.

Here are the players who received votes, in order:

Yordan Alvarez (HOU): 33
Aaron Judge (NYY): 8
Jose Altuve (HOU): 8
Kyle Tucker (HOU): 6
Alex Bregman (HOU): 5
Justin Verlander (HOU): 4
Jeremy Peña (HOU): 3
Framber Valdez (HOU): 2
Anthony Rizzo (NYY): 2
Luis Garcia (HOU): 2
Gerrit Cole (NYY): 2
Giancarlo Stanton (NYY): 1
Harrison Bader (NYY): 1
Héctor Neris (HOU): 1
Oswaldo Cabrera (NYY): 1
Yuli Gurriel (HOU): 1

How many games will the series last?
While the Astros are overwhelming favorites, it's anyone’s guess how long the series will last. Voters were fairly torn on how many games it would go, splitting between a quicker, four or five-game series and a longer one.

Half of the voters (40) said the series will go six games. Two voters predicted a sweep by the Astros. Another 14 said Houston would take the series in five.

Here's how all the predictions broke down:

Astros in 7 games: 10
Astros in 6 games: 38
Astros in 5 games: 14
Astros in 4 games: 2

Yankees in 7 games: 13
Yankees in 6 games: 2
Yankees in 5 games: 1