This past weekend was a big one in the American League Wild Card standings. Granted, "big" should not be confused with "clarifying".
Sure, the New York Yankees took three of four from the Boston Red Sox to strengthen their grip on the top spot. Beyond that, though, the race for seeds No. 5 and 6 in the AL bracket are still as up in the air as ever, with the Cleveland Guardians surging, the Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles refusing to go away and the Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers just trying to hang on for dear life. (The Texas Rangers, meanwhile, remain almost perfectly mediocre, as they have all season long — a feat in and of itself.)
All of which should set us up for an awfully fun final month of the regular season. There might not be a ton of drama toward the top of the Wild Card picture, but there are still several different possible permutations when it comes to which teams reach October and who will be playing who once they get there. The American League has been unpredictable all year long, so don't be surprised if this comes down to the final week.
Thankfully, we have some help in predicting how the AL Wild Card race will play out, courtesy of Opta's supercomputer — a projection model that takes statistics like strength of schedule and even injuries into account to give us up-to-the-minute playoff odds. Here's what they say.
AL Wild Card standings are up for grabs
Seed | Team | Expected Wins | Expected Losses | Playoff % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
WC1 | Yankees | 92.7 | 69.3 | 100 |
WC2 | Red Sox | 87.7 | 74.3 | 98.2 |
WC3 | Guardians | 82.2 | 79.8 | 51.8 |
OUT | Rangers | 79.4 | 82.6 | 31.9 |
OUT | Blue Jays | 80 | 82 | 22.7 |
OUT | Orioles | 80.2 | 81.8 | 22.2 |
OUT | Mariners | 76.5 | 85.5 | 9.6 |
OUT | Twins | 76.6 | 85.4 | 3.2 |
OUT | Tigers | 76.5 | 85.5 | 2.6 |
Why do the Rangers and Guardians have significantly higher AL playoff odds?
Entering play on Monday, the Guardians lead Toronto by just one game and Baltimore by two in the loss column. The Rangers, meanwhile, are looking up at both the Jays and O's in the standings. So: What gives with the playoff odds above, which favor Cleveland and Texas?
The answer is simple: While Toronto and Baltimore are well off the pace in the AL East thanks to the red-hot Rays, the Guardians and Rangers each have plausible paths to winning their respective divisions. Granted, Texas is more likely than Cleveland, as the Rangers are just 1.5 games back of the Astros in the AL West while the Guards trail the White Sox by 3.5 in the Central. Still, neither of those margins are insurmountable, which helps explain why their odds of making it to the postseason in some form or fashion are higher than their Wild Card rivals.
Why Cleveland is favored over Blue Jays, Orioles for final AL Wild Card spot
Left for dead earlier this summer., the Guardians have turned it on of late, winners of eight of their last 10 games in order to snatch control of the final Wild Card spot. This is still a wide-open race, but Opta does have Cleveland as the odds-on favorite to hang on over both Toronto and Baltimore.
The schedule is a big part of the reason why. The Guards have the sixth-easiest slate in the league in September, with just two series against winning teams (the Red Sox and White Sox). They do still have to play both the O's and Blue Jays, though, which could prove decisive when it comes to determining which team winds up with the third and final playoff spot. And the Jays have a pretty easy closing stretch themselves, including matchups with the A's, Royals, Tigers and Reds in addition to Cleveland, Baltimore and Texas. The head-to-head matchups between the four most relevant teams will almost certainly sort things out.
MLB playoff picture: Where will AL Wild Card teams play?
- No. 1 (BYE): Tampa Bay Rays
- No. 2 (BYE): Chicago White Sox
- (3) Houston Astros vs (6) Cleveland Guardians
- (4) New York Yankees vs (5) Boston Red Sox
It might not be fair, but it is the way the postseason format works. The Yankees have been substantially better than both the White Sox and Astros, yet they're locked into the No. 4 seed in the AL bracket barring a last-minute sprint pasta Tampa for the division. New York against Boston in a best-of-three — a rematch from last October — is maybe the surest thing in this playoff picture right now.
From there, it all depends. If Chicago holds on in the Central, they'll almost certainly secure the second first-round bye. The AL West is very much up for grabs, meaning the Astros could wind up winning the division or out of the postseason entirely. While the expanded postseason format rubs some baseball fans the wrong way, it also leads to more MLB Playoff action and, thus, more drama. What else could you really want?
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