We've officially reached the final week of the 2025 regular season, a 162-game marathon now reduced to a six-game sprint to the finish on Sunday afternoon. Several teams have already secured their spot in the postseason; for others, though, it's time to put up or shut up with October baseball on the line.
To say that this season has been a roller coaster for the New York Yankees would be a colossal understatement. Despite losing Juan Soto in free agency and ace Gerrit Cole to Tommy John surgery in the spring, the team got off to hot start atop the AL East ... only to nearly collapse out of the playoff picture entirely during a midsummer swoon that at one point saw them lose 16 of 22 games.
But hanks to another incredible season from potential AL MVP Aaron Judge and one of the deepest offenses in baseball, the Yankees have righted the ship a bit of late, and now sit in pretty good position with the playoffs around the corner. So, just what does New York need to do over the season's final week to secure their spot in October?
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What is the Yankees' magic number to make the playoffs?
Magic number for AL Wild Card spot: 3
Here's how the AL standings look entering play on Monday, Sept. 22:
- Toronto Blue Jays (90-66, AL East champs)
- Seattle Mariners (87-69, AL West champs)
- Detroit Tigers (85-71, AL Central champs)
- New York Yankees (88-68, No. 1 AL Wild Card)
- Boston Red Sox (85-71, No. 2 AL Wild Card)
- Cleveland Guardians (84-72, No. 3 AL Wild Card)
In the hunt:
Houston Astros (84-72)
Texas Rangers (79-77)
The Yankees are still technically alive for the AL East crown, though it remains a long shot. New York is two games back of the Toronto Blue Jays with six games to play, although it's functionally a three-game deficit because the Jays hold the head-to-head tiebreaker. Even if the Yankees go, say, 5-1 over the final week of the regular season, Toronto will need to finish just 3-3 in order to secure the division.
So New York will likely be focused on the Wild Card picture, one that's grown considerably more crowded over the last couple of weeks. The Yankees are three games clear of the Red Sox for the top AL Wild Card spot entering Monday, with both the Guardians and Astros four games back. Cleveland and Houston are the teams to watch for our purposes here: As long as New York finishes above both of them in the standings, they're guaranteed of a spot in October.
The Yankees split the season series against the Astros and Guardians, which means the tiebreaker then becomes which team has the best record within their own division. New York loses that battle to the Guardians, who are a remarkable 34-15 against the AL Central. They're in better shape against Houston, though: The Yankees are currently 24-25 against AL East competition, 1.5 games better than Houston's 22-24 mark against the AL West. But that could change over the season's final week, as New York has three more division games against the Orioles while the Astros have six more division games against the A's and Astros.
So, assuming the Yankees don't have the tiebreaker advantage to fall back on, they'll need to avoid dropping four games in the standings over the final six games in order to clinch a playoff spot. That means their magic number is three: Any combination of three Yankees wins and Guardians/Astros losses will get the job done and ensure that, at the very least, both Cleveland and Houston won't leapfrog New York.