By: Mike Carter
In what is surely an understatement, baseball is a funny game.
Think back to early March of this year. Optimism reigns supreme. You look at the ways your team can compete for the whole season. You look at the schedule and pick out series you think your favorite team can win. Your team revels in a six-game winning streak; dejection follows in the midst of a five-game losing skid. Your emotions go up and down with every win and loss; every home run brings you excitement and a sense of wonder…and you think, “if this guy can just stay hot” or “maybe this is the beginning of a superstar.” And the reality hits in June.
Your team sits in the middle of the pack in the standings. Injuries spring up, seemingly out of nowhere. Your #2 starter has an elbow injury. Your best hitter pulls an oblique. Your closer suddenly can’t get anyone out. You stop watching for a few weeks to squeeze in that last family trip before summer ends, attend neighborhood barbecues, and hit the local swimming pool on Saturday. The kids get back to school and their activities begin in earnest. You pick up your phone one Sunday morning in late August and look at the standings. Realizing your team is out of it, you look more closely and notice something interesting: the division leaders have hefty leads, and the Wild Card races are as thick as ever. Your intrigue comes back to you, and you begin to think: we are less than six weeks away from the playoffs. And you fall right back in love again with this crazy, humbling game that causes neuroses in so many of us, even if like me, your team has no chance to make it to the postseason.
Maybe you are a fan of a team that has a comfortable lead and will coast right into the playoffs. Maybe you’re thinking about how your rotation lines up for the postseason. But for most of us, we find a second team to root for and follow their trials and tribulations over the next few weeks.
I love the Wild Card. If you have read this blog before, you know I favor expansion of the Wild Card round. I like the idea of a best-of-three series, even if it meant slightly shortening the regular season. A one game, winner-take-all set-up does not allow the intrigue this round could if MLB would expand it. Teams that play in the Wild Card round have no chance to regroup before this one-game playoff. In a three game series, as a fan you’d get a chance to see what got that team to the playoffs. Think a minute here: say, by some wild finish to the season, the New York Mets make it to the Wild Card round. But to get there, they need to use Jake DeGrom on the last Saturday night of the season. If they play one game on Tuesday, they can’t use DeGrom, their ace, and one of the five best pitchers in baseball. In a three game series, they would be able to use him, ostensibly, even if on short rest. The current set-up deprives fans of seeing great players they might not otherwise have access to during the season. MLB should be marketing this differently; they want younger and more fans to watch the product but do very little to get kids involved, except in small pockets. It’s almost tragic.
Enough proselytizing from me. Let’s look at these pennant races.
As of this morning, the two tightest races come in the AL and NL Central. The Minnesota Twins have a 2.5 game lead over the resurgent Cleveland Indians in the AL. In the NL, the St. Louis Cardinals have a .5 game lead over the Chicago Cubs, 3.5 over the Milwaukee Brewers. Every other race in the four other divisions is at least a six game lead for the first place team (that’s the Atlanta Braves, six games ahead of the surging Washington Nationals). The Los Angeles Dodgers hold a staggering lead in the NL West, 20.5 games over the Arizona Diamondbacks. The New York Yankees lead the Tampa Bay Rays by 8 games in the AL East, and the Houston Astros hold a 7.5 game lead over the Oakland Athletics.
Let’s pause here a second again. Isn’t it amazing that the Rays and the A’s seemingly find a way every year to be in the thick of these races? They are your Wild Card leaders this morning in the American League. Small market teams, with small market payrolls, and they just find a way to win more often than they lose. Great managers and front offices that think outside the box allow these teams to fly under most radars and keep a winning product on the field. Tampa uses openers and bulk relievers several times per week; their starting rotation has been decimated by injuries. Here’s a test for you: can you name five guys on either team? Some of you can, but I bet some of you cannot. Shrewd investments in players many fans don’t know allow these teams to stay ahead of their peers. They simply do far more with less, and they win doing it. It’s also worth pointing out that both teams’ use of advanced statistics allow them an edge. I think even most casual baseball fans are becoming familiar with statistics that tell a better and deeper story than the tried and true ones. We will talk about that another time.
The Indians are right there, too, only .5 out of the top of the Wild Card. Jose Ramirez has woken up after a slow spring and pairs with Francisco Lindor to give this team two superstars. If they are able to get pitchers Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco back, they could get into the playoffs. I don’t think they have the depth to contend for the pennant, but they could get in with better health. I still think it is the Rays and the A’s that make it for the American League.
It gets murkier in the National League. The Nationals and the Chicago Cubs lead the contenders for the Wild Card, but the previously mentioned New York Mets (you thought I was joking earlier, didn’t you?), Philadelphia Phillies and the Milwaukee Brewers lurk 2, 2.5 and 3 games back in the standings. A team can rip off a seven or eight game winning streak and create some distance here, but the NL has just seemingly beat each other up all season. My best guess is this: the Cubs end up winning the NL Central, as no team has distinguished itself from the pack here. Many fans will argue that the NL Central is the best division in baseball, but that’s not accurate. These teams have all been mediocre this year. If the Cubs win the division, that leaves four other teams with a realistic shot, here at the end of August, to get into the playoff round. The Nationals are a sleeping beast in my mind; a look at their roster shows they could make a deep run if they get in, although they have issues with their bullpen and the seemingly iffy health of ace Max Scherzer. They could be a nightmare though in the playoffs. I think they make it.
Who is the other NL team that manages to get in? We don’t have a crystal ball, but here goes. I don’t think the Phillies have enough pitching to compete in September. I think they fade. The Cardinals and Brewers are always part of these discussions, but they have similar issues: mediocrity, inconsistent starting pitching, and poor run differentials. Which brings me to my choice: the Mets. Did you know they are 27-10 since the All-Star Break? The Mets keep bucking conventional wisdom. Looking like they would be a seller at the deadline, they instead kept their key pieces and added Marcus Stroman from the Toronto Blue Jays. They certainly have the starting pitching with DeGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Stroman and Zach Wheeler to make a run. Their bullpen is a mess with Edwin Diaz being a colossal flop thus far. But they might also get some health back with Jeff McNeil and maybe even Brandon Nimmo coming back soon. I think they can keep this up and get to the playoffs.
See how fun this is? People forget that the MLB season is a long, grueling marathon, a test of strength and endurance that snakes along for six months every year. Who would have thought the Mets would ever be in this two months ago? What a joy it is, even if your team isn’t in it right now, to watch these races come down to the final days. I don’t think any other sport has greater excitement for playoff runs like MLB does, each and every year. I love baseball. Always have, always will, and none of the background noise will ruin it for me.
What do you think? Who is going to make it to the playoffs?
Baseball is a funny game.