We’re Off to the Postseason Races

Today is an important day on the baseball calendar, although you might not see or hear that mentioned anywhere else. At some point this evening, likely around 10:30 PM Eastern, the seventh game of the night will wrap up and the 2024 major league season will cross over into its second half, technically speaking. Half of the 2,430 games on the regular season schedule will have a winner and a loser, and the majority of the league’s 30 teams will have played at least 81 games. To me, it’s the perfect time to check in on the various postseason races around the league. Teams have had plenty of time to prove who they are, but there is just as much time remaining for those narratives to change completely. Let’s dive in.

To give you a quick sense of how things have changed since Opening Day, here is a side-by-side comparison of the potential playoff field as determined by our preseason projections, the most popular picks from our preseason staff predictions, and what the playoffs would look like if the season ended today:

The current projected standings look quite similar to that final column, with two exceptions: the Astros are projected to beat out the Red Sox for the final American League Wild Card spot, and the Padres and Cardinals are projected to swap places in the second and third National League Wild Card positions.

Eight of the current playoff teams were viewed as preseason contenders by our staff, the projections, or both: the Yankees, Orioles, Twins, Mariners, Phillies, Braves, Cardinals and Dodgers. The only row that would win you any money on a slot machine is the NL West, where the Dodgers remain the overwhelming favorites. Still, all eight of those teams are in a good position to make the postseason. The Yankees, Orioles, Phillies, Braves, and Dodgers have postseason odds above 92%, while the Mariners sit at 76.1%, the Twins at 73.9%, and the Cardinals at 45%. As for the remaining playoff berths, preseason favorites like the ever-competitive Astros and Rays, the pennant-holding Rangers and Diamondbacks, and the new-look Giants have struggled to breach the .500 mark. Meanwhile, several unexpected contenders, like the Guardians, Red Sox, Royals, and Brewers, have popped up to make things more interesting.

Of the three AL division races, the easiest to predict right now looks like the AL Central. The Guardians, who finished 76-86 last season and whose biggest splash on the free agent market was Austin Hedges, have 69.0% odds to win their division, slightly higher than those of the Yankees (65.7%) and Mariners (63.4%). Cleveland has an eight-game lead over Minnesota and a nine-game lead over Kansas City, and although our rest-of-season projections still see the Twins as the most talented team in the division – they have outperformed the Guardians in batting value (wRAA), baserunning value (BsR), defensive value (Def), and pitching value (WAR) – an eight-game deficit is hard to come back from, no matter how many sausages you keep in the dugout.

The races in the AL East and West should prove to be much closer, although it’s up for debate where the most compelling battle lies. New York and Baltimore are separated by a single game, while Seattle has a 4.5-game cushion over Houston. However, our projections see the Yankees and Astros as the superior teams, so the Mariners might have just as much trouble defending their 4.5-game lead as the Yankees do their one-game advantage.

The AL East will also likely determine the No. 1 seed in the AL, with the winner almost surely avoiding the Wild Card Series and securing home field advantage at least until the World Series. Conversely, the AL West winner is currently on track to be the No. 3 seed, which is far less advantageous. That said, the AL West race has the added intrigue of the Rangers, who aren’t completely out of the mix despite their 37-43 record. This is largely the same team that won the World Series just last year, and with several reinforcements who should come off the injured list during the second half, Texas could make a fairy tale run at the division crown. The Rangers’ 4.6% division odds aren’t exactly promising, but that’s almost exactly where their World Series odds stood (4.6%) entering the 2023 postseason. Don’t forget, there’s a big difference between zero and literally anything higher than zero. But more on that in a moment.

Things are a little more straightforward in the NL, where the odds, the standings, and common sense all point to the NL Central as the closest division race. The Dodgers are the best team in baseball on paper, and with an 8.5-game lead in the NL West, their division odds are at 94.6%. Meanwhile, the Phillies hold an eight-game lead in the NL East, and they have managed to convince our rest-of-season projections that they are roughly equal in talent to the Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider-less Braves. The NL East rivals have 10 games left to play against one another, so Atlanta still has control of its own destiny. Nonetheless, Philadelphia’s division odds are 82.6%.

The Brewers are still the clear frontrunners in the NL Central – they have higher division odds (73.6%) than any team in the AL – but it’s much easier to imagine Milwaukee collapsing down the stretch than either Los Angeles or Philadelphia. The Cardinals, currently six games back in second place, have slightly better rest-of-season projections. More importantly, I’d argue St. Louis has a higher floor thanks to a much more reliable starting rotation. A six-game lead with half the season left to play should be enough for the Brewers to claim their third division title in the past four years, but one more starting pitching injury could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Funnily enough, while this might be the closest division race down the stretch, it’s also going to be the least consequential; there’s a high likelihood the winner of the NL Central faces the runner-up in the first round of the NL playoffs.

In my humble opinion, the divisions will host the more captivating races over the second half of the season. However, we are in for some excitement in the Wild Card races, too, given the sheer number of teams in the mix. The Orioles and Braves are likely to claim the top spots in the AL and NL, but after that, things get complicated quickly. Five teams are within four games of the final Wild Card slots in the AL, while seven teams are at least that close in the NL. What’s more, there are a handful of additional teams sitting further back that I’m not ready to say are completely out of the race.

If the season ended today, the Twins would take the second AL Wild Card spot, while the Red Sox would beat out the Royals for the final playoff berth by the tiniest decimal point. The Twins are performing roughly how most people expected, although the emergence of the Guardians has bumped them down from division favorites to Wild Card contenders through little fault of their own. Meanwhile, the disappointing performances of the Astros, Rays, Rangers, and Blue Jays have made room for surprisingly competitive teams like the Red Sox and Royals to enter the conversation. The Astros and Rays are close enough and talented enough that they’re still very much in the race, while the Rangers and Blue Jays are just close enough and just talented enough that I’m not going to write them off completely. I also feel compelled to mention the Tigers, a dark horse candidate to contend entering the season. They have not played particularly well this year, but the race is close enough that you can squint and say they’re still in the mix. At the very least, if we’re going to include Texas and Toronto in the playoff picture, we can’t ignore Detroit:

Things are even closer in the NL, where seven teams are hovering around .500 and bumping up against one another in the Wild Card standings. That includes contenders we expected, like the Cardinals, Padres, Diamondbacks, and Giants; the slightly more surprising Mets; and the plucky Pirates and Nationals. The Reds are 4.5 games out, but they’re one of only four teams in the Wild Card race with a positive run differential (+6). Finally, the Cubs are five games back, with the third-worst record in the NL. That said, they were in the mix as much as anyone before the season began, and they still have the talent to get back in it.

Ultimately, the Nationals (3.5 games back) are still long shots, and it’s hard to imagine the Pirates staying in the race. It’s a little easier to envision the Cubs or Reds putting together a big winning streak, but they have several teams to leapfrog before they’re back in the playoff picture. Still, that leaves five closely matched teams competing for the final two spots, with the potential for another contender or two to make things even more interesting:

As crowded and unpredictable as the Wild Cards races seem, this might not be so unusual in the age of the 12-team playoff format. Around this time last year, Chris Gilligan wrote about the playoff race, noting how the field was more bunched together than it had been in 2022. Here’s what that looked like:

And here’s how things look this year, for comparison:

This year’s distribution looks a lot more like the one from 2022 than 2023, with the highest bars at the very back and very front. The top teams have separated themselves from the pack more convincingly this year than last, and four additional teams are in the bleak 0-10% playoff odds group. As Chris noted, 21 of the 30 clubs had between a 10% and 90% chance of making the playoffs around this time last year. Currently, just 14 of 30 teams sit within that range.

The first half of the season tells us a lot of what we need to know about the playoff picture. For example, take a look at this side-by-side comparison of the 2023 playoff field according to preseason projections, projections through games on June 26, 2023, and actual results:

Our 2023 preseason projections correctly predicted only three division winners and seven playoff teams. By this date last year, the projections correctly identified five of the six eventual playoff teams in each league.

At the same time, there’s a reason they still play the games in the second half. The Astros’ odds to win the AL West were just 22.2% this time last year. Those are worse odds than all three of the second-place clubs in the AL right now. Moreover, the Orioles’ odds in the AL East were just 7.6%. If they could turn those odds into a division crown, I’m not counting out anyone this year except the Angels, White Sox, Athletics, Marlins, and Rockies.

Imagine if I were to tell you that when I check the weather report in the morning, I use a simple heuristic to decide if I need to take my umbrella out for the day. A 60% chance of rain or higher means it’s definitely going to rain. A 30% chance of rain or lower means it’s definitely not going to rain. If that sounds silly to you (and it should), then it would be just as foolish to make that assumption when it comes to playoff odds. The first half of the 2024 season has provided us with plenty of information to predict the eventual playoff field, but if you don’t anticipate any surprises, you might end up soaking wet.