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.
How the Playoff Field Has Changed
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.…
