With just 10 days left to go in the regular season, four teams — the Brewers, Dodgers, Guardians, and Yankees — have clinched playoff berths, and while just one division race has been decided, only two others have even a faint pulse. There’s still plenty of drama to be had with regards to the Wild Card races, which essentially boil down to a pair of four-to-make-three scenarios; Seattle might have been a stronger fifth in the AL if certain Mariners who reached third base didn’t insist upon taking very strange walkabouts. Beyond that, it’s also worth checking in on the jockeying for position to claim the first-round byes that go to the top two teams in each league.
Once upon a time, this space would be filled with my reintroducing readers to the concept of Team Entropy, but through the 2022 Collective Bargaining Agreement, Major League Baseball and the players’ union traded the potential excitement and scheduling mayhem created by on-field tiebreakers and sudden-death games in exchange for a larger inventory of playoff games. The 12-team, two-bye format was designed to reward the top two teams by allowing them to bypass the possibility of being eliminated in best-of-three series. So far, however, things haven’t worked out that way, because outcomes in a best-of-five series are only slightly more predictable than those of a best-of-three.
In fact, the National League teams who have received byes under the newish system have lost all four Division Series since, two apiece by the Dodgers and Braves. The 111-win Dodgers were ousted by an 89-win Padres team in 2022, and then last year’s 100-win team was knocked off by the 84-win Diamondbacks. In 2022, the 101-win Braves fell to an 87-win Phillies team, and last year, after winning 104 games in the regular season, Atlanta once again was eliminated by a Philadelphia club that had finished 14 games behind the Braves in the standings. American League bye teams have had more success, going 3-1, with last year’s 90-win Rangers beating the 101-win Orioles for the lone upset. The Astros have taken care of business in both years, with their 106-win club sweeping the 90-win Mariners in 2022 and their 90-win team beating the 87-win Twins last year.
That 3-5 series record of the bye teams isn’t a large enough sample size from which we can draw conclusions, but it has stirred annual discussions about whether the rust induced by not playing a Wild Card series offsets the advantages — the extra rest that allows banged-up players to heal and managers to optimize their rotations. Intuitively, that explanation may make some sense, but it is not supported by the data. As research by Dan Szymborski last year showed, in postseason matchups since 1981 where there existed a notable discrepancy in rest, with one team having a layoff of four or more days facing an opponent that had two or fewer days off, the teams with more rest went 24-11 in their next game. It’s an advantage.
Bearing that in mind, let’s check in on the races for the two byes in each league.
National League
The Brewers clinched their second consecutive NL Central title on Wednesday, an impressive feat given that they traded ace Corbin Burnes last winter, let perennial Manager of the Year candidate Craig Counsell slip away to the rival Cubs, and lost the resurgent Christian Yelich to season-ending back surgery in August. At 88-65 with nine games to play, however, they’re at a decided disadvantage when it comes to claiming a bye, as they’re three games behind the Phillies and Dodgers (both 91-62). They have the toughest remaining schedule of that trio, with an opponents’ weighted winning percentage of .513 according to our playoff odds; they host the Diamondbacks (85-68), to whom they lost on Thursday night, for three more games in Milwaukee, then play three in Pittsburgh (71-81) before closing out the season at home against the Mets (85-68), who entered Friday tied with the Diamondbacks for the second NL Wild Card position. (The Mets hold the tiebreaker there.) Factoring in their losses in the season series to both Philadelphia (2-4) and Los Angeles (3-4), at this writing our odds give the Brewers just a 3.6% chance of claiming a bye.
The Phillies are the team in the drivers’ seat here. Because they won their season series against the Brewers (4-2), Dodgers (5-1), and Padres (5-1) — the latter of whom is still alive in this context, as I’ll explain below — they would win a tiebreaker against each of those teams if they wind up with the same record. They play three more against the Mets at Citi Field, then head home to face the Cubs (78-75), and close the season by visiting the Nationals (68-85). Our playoff odds give Philadelphia a 97.6% chance of clinching a bye, the highest of any team in either league.
The Dodgers clinched their 12th straight playoff appearance on Thursday, courtesy of Shohei Ohtani’s 50/50 fireworks show in Miami. They’re in good but not great shape in this context, and not just because their rotation has been decimated to the point that both Tyler Glasnow and Gavin Stone, their only pitchers who have thrown more than 90 innings this season, have been ruled out for the postseason due to arm injuries. While they have by far the easiest schedule of any team the rest of the way (.452 strength of schedule), in between their two three-game series with the Rockies (at home this weekend, at Coors Field for the final one), they face the Padres (87-66) for three in Los Angeles from September 24-26. San Diego has already clinched the season series between the two teams by dint of its 7-3 head-to-head record thus far, so if the two teams were to finish with the same record, the Dodgers would be a Wild Card team. If they do win the division and somehow finish with the same record as the Brewers, the Dodgers hold the tiebreaker, having gone 4-3 against Milwaukee. Thus our playoff odds still give them a 92.7% chance of claiming a bye and a 93.7% chance of winning the division, but the door remains ajar.
The Padres, who lead the NL Wild Card race, might get whiplash given the jarring contrast between the team they close out their regular season home schedule with this weekend, the decrepit White Sox (36-117), and their road trips to Los Angeles and Arizona. In addition to owning a tiebreaker over the Dodgers, they also own one over the Brewers, against whom they went 5-2 this season. Those two aces in the hole help to improve their odds to a 6.3% chance of winning the division and a 5.8% chance of claiming a bye — not huge, but they have the best chance of crashing this party.
American League
As with the NL, the race for the two AL byes boils down to four teams, with two of them extremely heavily favored at this point. One of those two spots is virtually certain to go to whichever club wins the AL East. With six wins in their last eight games, the Yankees (89-64) have widened their division lead over the Orioles (85-68) from half a game to four games. That’s boosted their odds of winning the AL East to 95.9%, with their odds of claiming a bye essentially the same (95.8%). With a .495 strength of schedule the rest of the way, they don’t entirely have a cakewalk. In addition to three games in Oakland, they have three very important ones at home against the Orioles (September 24-26) before closing the season with three hosting the Pirates.
The Orioles haven’t had a winning month since June, going 32-37 since the start of July, 27-30 since the All-Star break, and 7-9 this month. Not only do they have to overcome their four-game deficit in the AL East race, they have to do it against the toughest slate for a remaining AL contender (.532 strength of schedule), hosting the surging Tigers — who at 80-73 are tied with the Twins for the third AL Wild Card spot — for three, then going on the road to face the Yankees and Twins. Note that the O’s currently lead the Yankees 6-4 in their head-to-head series; at the very least, capturing the season series and thus the tiebreaker is of vital importance. Baltimore’s odds of claiming the bye are down to 4.0%. It’s not great.
The Guardians (89-65) just took three out of four from the reeling Twins, cutting their magic number to clinch the AL Central to three. They finish up their season with three games against the Cardinals (77-76) in St. Louis, followed by five at home — two against the Reds (74-80) and three against the Astros (83-70). If the Guardians do finish with the same record as the Yankees, they’d be they second seed because they lost the season series, 4-2. Cleveland is also down 2-1 in the season series with the Astros, on the off chance that one comes down to a tiebreaker.
It’s tough to believe that tiebreaker would be necessary given that Houston needs to make up a six-game advantage with nine to play. The Astros host a dreadful Angels squad (62-91), whom they beat Thursday night, for three more games this weekend, then the Mariners (78-75) for three before traveling to Cleveland for the final weekend. Tiebreaker-wise, Houston won the season series against the Orioles (5-2) but lost the one with the Yankees (1-6).
I wish I could tell you this is all going to be as exciting as the final couple of weeks were in the before times, but this ain’t Team Entropy. Still, there’s something at stake for each of the aforementioned teams, and as noted, there’s still some meat on those Wild Card bones. We’ll catch up on those races soon.
