MLB Playoff Predictions: Are There Any Surprises in Store for the Final Stretch? ...Middle East

Contrary to popular belief, there is still much to be decided over the final month of the MLB regular season. So we’re going to the Opta supercomputer to get a sense of what will happen in the key playoff races.

It was thought to be a fait accompli.  

The thrill of September playoff chases had been stolen away. And the Major League Baseball playoff field seemed set without much drama to be had aside from some minor fights for seeding.

But the great (and cruel, depending on your perspective) thing about baseball is that things can change in a hurry. You can be sitting atop the division alongside the Los Angeles Dodgers in early June, see those hopes plummet over a horrendous two months and get them back with a 10-1 push into September.

(Yes, we’re referring to the roller coaster that has been the San Francisco Giants’ season.)

Or you can be on top of the world after an aggressive trade deadline, only to slowly tumble toward the ground. The Seattle Mariners won 10 of 11 to move into a tie for first with the Houston Astros in the AL West in the wake of the deadline. But they dropped 14 of their next 20 games despite all Cal Raleigh’s home runs, leaving their playoff drive on the brink of disaster.   

Logic, season-long success, or even hot play in late September, don’t dictate the results in October. And even if nothing historic occurs, there’s plenty of crucial battles to determine playoff positioning before the short series take over.

Our season win projections, playoff probabilities and TRACR rankings can help us understand what little separation may exist between baseball’s top contenders, and what’s at stake in the pennant races as we round into the homestretch.

Here are some of the biggest takeaways from the numbers.

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The AL East Race

The division might have both the most disappointing team (Baltimore Orioles) and the biggest surprise (Toronto Blue Jays). At the start of the season, no one expected the Jays to hold a 3.0-game lead over the New York Yankees entering play on Sept. 5.

But can they hold it over the final month?

This weekend’s critical series between Toronto and New York at Yankee Stadium could have a lot to say in the matter. The Boston Red Sox, who are just 3.5 games back, will no doubt have Garrett Crochet (fourth in MLB in total raw value-) lined up to pitch during their three-game set north of the border over the final week of the regular season.  

The Opta supercomputer says: The Jays, who feature two of the top seven batters in total raw value+ (Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and George Springer), will hold on and win the AL East with 92.2 projected wins, compared to 90.8 for the Yankees and 89.1 for the Red Sox.

But it’s interesting to note that the supercomputer also gives New York a higher probability of making the ALCS, World Series and winning it all.

This stems from a couple of factors: The Yanks, who have won nine of their last 11, still have Aaron Judge (second in the majors in total raw value+) and are the top-rated team in the American League. That’s according to TRACR, which measures a club’s strength compared to a league average team in terms of runs per nine innings.

As you probably can guess, the defending AL champs are No. 1 in offensive TRACR at 1.19, well ahead of the second-ranked Milwaukee Brewers at 0.82.

They’re also tops in the AL in overall raw value (RV), which measures both batter and pitcher performance based on contact+, discipline+ and BIP+ generated throughout the season. So based on their performance, the Bronx Bombers have an expected record of about 81-56, which is well ahead of Toronto’s 74-64 mark (8th in RV; the Red Sox are 11th).

Projected AL East Standings

The AL West Race

As we mentioned, the Mariners are trending in the wrong direction. Once tied atop the division with the Astros, they dropped 4.0 games in the standings in less than three weeks. Seattle gained a half-game back thanks to Houston’s loss to the Yankees on Thursday night.

The Texas Rangers, meanwhile, were left for dead after a 3-11 swoon in August. But they had what could have been a bout of terminal lucidity, winning nine of 10 to get within 1.5 games of sixth-seeded Seattle before losing their last two in Arizona.

It figures to be a tough climb for Texas with Corey Seager (eighth in total RV+) out indefinitely after undergoing an appendectomy, but the Rangers are also first in MLB with a minus-0.69 defensive TRACR (measures run prevention, so pitching and defense).

The AL West-leading Astros haven’t exactly been dominant, aside from ace right-hander Hunter Brown (sixth in total RV-). The Astros’ 22-29 record is the fourth-worst mark in MLB since July 7. As a result, Houston, which is trying to hold on for its eighth division title in nine years, ranks behind both the Rangers (fifth) and Mariners (17th) at 19th in TRACR.

So this could be a case of objects in the mirror being closer than they appear.

The Opta supercomputer says: The Astros will hold on and win the AL West – but barely. That 3.5-game lead shouldn’t feel insurmountable at all. They’re given 87.0 projected wins by our model, while the Mariners end up at 84.8 and the Rangers at 83.9.

Projected AL West Standings

The NL West Race

Remember when the loaded Los Angeles Dodgers were going to threaten for the best record in baseball history? If not, they were definitely a lock for 100 wins. The division chase was ridiculously over before it even began.

That was the narrative after the World Series champs fortified their team by re-signing Teoscar Hernandez, Enrique Hernandez and Blake Treinen and adding Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki, Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates, Hyeseong Kim and Michael Conforto.

The Dodgers’ over/under for wins was at one point 105.5 at most sportsbooks. Our supercomputer gave them a 16.4% chance of repeating, and a 28.2% chance of at least getting back to the World Series after sweeping its opening series in Tokyo.

But here we are in September, and the once again injury-riddled Dodgers aren’t on pace to have the best record in baseball history. They don’t even have the best record in the National League. Los Angeles has just a 5.7% probability of repeating as champions and a 12.4% chance of reaching the Fall Classic.

Heck, the team wasn’t even in first place as recently as Aug. 23.

But a San Diego Padres nosedive has Los Angeles back on top by 2.0 games heading into play on Sept. 5. While the Dodgers were swept in Pittsburgh and have lost five of six, the Padres have gone 2-8 since holding a 1.0-game lead in the NL West on Aug. 23.

It’s tempting to take into account San Diego’s soft schedule down the stretch with two series against the Colorado Rockies and others against the Cincinnati Reds and Chicago White Sox. But the Padres just lost five of their last six to the Minnesota Twins and Orioles.

The Opta supercomputer says: The Dodgers, who are still ranked pretty high at seventh in TRACR, will fight off the Padres (12th in TRACR), and win the division for the 12th time in 13 years by a couple of games.

But if you’d said at the beginning of the season that LA would only win 90 games, the assumption would probably be that something went terribly wrong.

Projected NL West Standings

The AL Wild-Card Race

What didn’t seem like much of a race less than two weeks ago is now a jumbled mess.

On the morning of Aug. 25, the Mariners had a 3.0-game lead over the Kansas City Royals for the final AL wild-card spot and no one else was even above .500. Entering play on Sept. 5, there are four teams within 3.5 games of the Mariners.

The most interesting teams in this fight are probably the Rangers, who are fifth in TRACR but missing Seager, and the Tampa Bay Rays, who have won seven in a row and rank ninth in TRACR (ahead of the AL Central-leading Detroit Tigers and East-leading Jays).

Texas also has a treacherous remaining schedule with series against the Astros (twice), MLB-best Brewers, New York Mets and wild-card hopeful Guardians. The Rays also have Cleveland, the Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox and two series against the Jays left down the stretch.

Yikes.

The Opta supercomputer says: The Rangers will make folks in the Pacific Northwest extremely uncomfortable but fall just short (0.8 projected wins, per the model) of catching the Mariners for that final spot in the American League playoffs.

Projected AL Wild-Card Standings

(*Has one of the wild-card spots)

The NL Wild-Card Race

How far back is too far with 22 games remaining?

That’s what we’re going to find out about the Giants, who have leapfrogged the Reds and now have no teams between them and the final wild-card spot.

San Francisco, which was 7.5 games behind the Mets on Aug. 23, has moved within 4.0 games of the Mets and 5.0 of the fading Padres after winning 10 of its last 11.

And the rival Dodgers are the only winning team the Giants play from here on out (two series). But San Francisco is 14th in TRACR, which is still behind the Mets (8th) and Padres (12th), and the odds certainly aren’t in the team’s favor.

During the wild-card era, only six teams have come from 4.0 games or more down with 22 or fewer remaining to clinch a playoff berth. But the Tigers accomplished the feat just last season during a 31-13 finish in which they overcame 4.5 games with 19 left and went on to the ALDS.

The Opta supercomputer says: The Giants have 82.6 projected wins, which gets them a little closer to the Mets but not enough to push past them or the Padres.

Despite their late-season slump, the Padres still have a 93.7% chance of making the playoffs, while the Mets have an 80.0% probability and the Giants are far back at 14.6%.

Projected NL Wild-Card Standings

(*Has one of the wild-card spots)

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MLB Playoff Predictions: Are There Any Surprises in Store for the Final Stretch? Opta Analyst.

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