Welcome to the final week of the 2024 Major League Baseball season. This year, it comes with the added certainty that the Milwaukee Brewers will be in the playoffs, having clinched the National League Central crown last week.

Now, it's just a matter of learning the first opponent.

Though the Brewers have a miniscule chance of securing a first-round bye in the National League, it's almost a lock that Milwaukee will face a wild-card opponent in a best-of-three series at American Family Field Oct. 1-3. The Philadlephia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers appear to be in optimal position to grab one of the top two spots (though keep an eye on the San Diego Padres, who can still sneak up on Los Angeles and owns the tiebreaker between the two teams).

Among the likeliest opponents to face Milwaukee are Arizona, Atlanta, the New York Mets and San Diego. Which would you rather face?

The Diamondbacks just took three out of four against the Brewers, and the fourth game featured an 8-0 lead before the Brewers staged a dramatic comeback. The Diamondbacks came to Milwaukee last year and ended the Brewers' season, two games to none. Arizona is the top-scoring team in all of baseball, and it's not close.

The Mets are a red-hot team that has bounced back in a big way after a dismal 2023 season and has captured the heart of New York during this surge into a playoff spot. Former Brewers general manager David Stearns now leads New York and has quickly built the team into a winner, even including a couple former Brewers in outfielder Tyrone Taylor and Jesse Winker, a midseason acquisition who has fared well for the Mets.

The Mets have one of the best closers in baseball in Edwin Díaz and a bevy of left-handed pitchers, which is often a difficult thing for the Brewers to deal with. The Brewers will also see the Mets in the final three games of the regular season, which could create some storylines if they wind up facing off in the postseason, too.

The Mets and Diamondbacks enter the final week tied for the final wild-card spot, but New York has the tiebreaker, which means if the season ended a week early, the Diamondbacks would be the No. 3 seed and reporting to Milwaukee.

Don't count out Atlanta, two games back of both the Mets and Diamondbacks. The Braves have a tiebreaker against Arizona and can earn one against the Mets with a crucial three-game series this week before the Mets come to Milwaukee.

Beset by injuries, the Braves have been scratching and clawing all year to stay in the postseason chase, and they boast the likely National League Cy Young winner in Chris Sale, plus an offense led by Marcell Ozuna and a rejuvenated Matt Olson.

San Diego is a longer shot. Coming into the week, the Padres have a three-game lead over the Mets and Diamondbacks, and both teams would have to bypass San Diego for the Padres to fall into that final wild card.

The Padres, still a mild threat to win the West from the Dodgers, have been led by their own rookie Jackson in 21-year-old Jackson Merrill, plus an excellent 1-2 pitching punch in Dylan Cease and Michael King. That doesn't even get into some of the more established star-power names on the roster, namely Manny Machado, Yu Darvish, Fernando Tatis Jr., Jake Cronenworth and Xander Bogaerts.

Which foe would you rather see?

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Who do you want the Milwaukee Brewers to face first in the playoffs?