The American League Playoff Picture Is Almost Settled Already

One of the expected benefits of expanding baseball’s postseason field to 16 teams was a playoff race involving practically every team. But with a little less than a month to go in the season, there’s precious little drama in the American League playoff picture.

According to Fangraphs’ playoff odds, there are seven AL teams with at least a 94 percent chance to occupy one of the junior circuit’s eight spots—the Rays, Yankees, White Sox, Indians, Twins, Athletics and Astros. The National League has just four clubs (Braves, Cubs, Dodgers and Padres) with playoff probabilities greater than 65 percent.

While every NL team except for the Pirates and Diamondbacks are projected to have at least 15 percent playoff odds, there are six AL teams whom Fangraphs gives less than a 3 percent chance to play in October—the Red Sox, Orioles, Royals, Mariners, Rangers and Angels.

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In the "middle" are the Blue Jays—whose playoff odds are up to 78.7 percent after Teoscar Hernandez’s walk-off heroics on Sunday against the Orioles—and the Tigers, who have won five in a row against the Cubs and Twins to get back to .500 and increase their odds to 20.9 percent. 

That is a pretty clean divide between the two tiers even though Detroit is only two games behind the Blue Jays and a few other clubs could close the gap with a week like Detroit just had. But you begin to understand why the predictive models are so pessimistic on a late playoff push if you look at each team’s run differential, which is more indicative of a team's true talent and better at forecasting future success than a team's record. The Blue Jays and every team above them in the league standings have at least a +15 run differential. The Tigers and every team below them have, at best, given up 19 more runs than they’ve scored.

How’d we get here, and is there any hope for one of the current also-rans to make a run? It doesn’t seem like any of them are holding out much hope. Detroit has yet to make a trade with the deadline just hours away and nearly every team under .500 has taken on a seller’s stance. The Red Sox and Angels, the two most talented teams of the bunch, are locked in the cellars of their respective divisions because of their wretched pitching staffs.

There are still plenty of reasons to pay attention to the American League. The White Sox, a young team who have matured ahead of schedule, are tied for first place amid a three-team race for the AL Central after Luis Robert cranked a walk-off home run against the Royals on Sunday. The Rays and Yankees epitomize a David and Goliath battle in the East. The villainous Astros and their attempt to catch whistleblower Mike Fiers and the A’s could provide even more fireworks after the two teams' brawl earlier this month stoked the rivalry every baseball fan wanted to see this season.

But if you’re looking for an exciting wild-card race, you’ll almost certainly have to look toward the National League.

Quick hits:

• Sunday was the five-year anniversary of Jake Arrieta’s no-hitter against the Dodgers, which helped him win that year’s Cy Young award over Zack Greinke, then pitching for Los Angeles. But a lot can change in five years. Arrieta was shelled by the Braves, who scored 10 runs in the second inning, seven of which were credited to Arrieta, en route to a wild 12-10 win for Atlanta over the Phillies.

• Adam Wainwright tossed a complete game on his 39th birthday, showing he and battery mate Yadier Molina still know how to work their way around a lineup. The grizzled Cardinals veteran owns a 2.65 ERA through five starts, and has clearly earned the respect of rotation mate Jack Flaherty.

• The Dodgers finished August with a record 57 home runs, surpassing the previous best mark set by the Braves last June. Los Angeles still hasn’t lost a series this season. The rest of baseball has to hope they don't make a big splash before Monday's trade deadline and get even stronger.

• The Mets’ latest bullpen breakdown was perhaps its worst, as the Yankees recovered from being down five runs when down to their last strike. Aaron Hicks launched the game-tying home run and Gio Urshela provided the go-ahead single off Edwin Diaz, who has converted just one save in four opportunities since regaining the closer job following Seth Lugo’s move to the rotation. Maybe shoot a text to your neighborhood Mets fan to check up on them.

• Yankees pitcher Michael King's spike stuck in the dirt during his windup to give us the best blooper of the day.