The AL Wild Card Mess Is Competitive Balance, and It’s Not Pretty
In 1981, when a seven-week players’ strike split the season into two “halves,” and in 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic shortened the season to 60 games, teams with sub-.500 records snuck into the postseason via expanded playoff formats created to accommodate the unique and extraordinary circumstances. No team finishing below .500 over the course of a full schedule has received a playoff berth, but the possibility looms large this year. With five and a half weeks and about 35 games per team still to play, the American League has just five teams above .500, including one — the AL West-leading Astros — that entered Wednesday right at that mark before beating the Angels. It’s not out of the question that two sub-.500 teams could make the playoffs, but for all of the owners’ carping about a lack of competitive balance, messy free-for-alls such as this are just what Major League Baseball wants.
If the postseason were to start today, the Rays (76-50) would win the AL East by five games and White Sox (66-60) the AL Central by four games, with both earning first-round byes. The Yankees (71-55) and Red Sox (68-59) would qualify as the top two Wild Card winners; as the fourth and fifth seeds, they would square off in a best-of-three Wild Card Series as they did last season. But from there, things get ugly. The Astros (64-63) are currently clinging to a two-game lead over the Rangers (62-65) atop the AL West, but with a projected win total of 82 wins according to our Playoff Odds, they don’t have much margin for error when it comes to clearing the .500 bar, and could join or surpass the 2005 Padres (82-80) and 1973 Mets (82-79) in terms of mediocre division winners. The 1994 Rangers were a whopping 10 games below .500 at 52-62 but one game ahead of the A’s (51-63) when the players’ strike put them both out of their misery, though MLB does not consider any first-place teams from the shortened season to be official division winners. That’s how the Braves, who trailed the NL East-leading Expos by six games when the strike hit, are still considered to have won 14 consecutive division titles from 1991–2005 (an assertion I take issue with, but that’s an argument for another day).
Here’s how the AL Wild Card picture looks, with playoff odds as of 9 AM on Thursday morning:
| Team | W | L | W% | WCGB | Proj W | Proj L | Win Div | Bye | Wild Card | Playoffs | Win WS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yankees | 71 | 55 | .563 | 9 | 90.6 | 71.4 | 16.3% | 16.3% | 83.5% | 99.8% | 8.6% |
| Red Sox | 68 | 59 | .535 | 5.5 | 86.7 | 75.3 | 2.5% | 2.5% | 92.2% | 94.7% | 6.6% |
| Twins | 63 | 65 | .492 | 0 | 80.5 | 81.5 | 23.9% | 13.5% | 15.4% | 39.3% | 1.9% |
| Rangers | 62 | 65 | .488 | 0.5 | 79.8 | 82.2 | 20.2% | 7.1% | 10.4% | 30.6% | 1.8% |
| Blue Jays | 62 | 66 | .484 | 1 | 79.1 | 82.9 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 16.9% | 16.9% | 0.6% |
| Guardians | 61 | 66 | .480 | 1.5 | 79.5 | 82.5 | 11.9% | 6.0% | 11.9% | 23.8% | 1.2% |
| Tigers | 61 | 66 | .480 | 1.5 | 78.7 | 83.3 | 7.4% | 3.6% | 7.3% | 14.8% | 0.7% |
| Orioles | 61 | 66 | .480 | 1.5 | 78.5 | 83.5 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 12.4% | 12.4% | 0.4% |
| Mariners | 60 | 67 | .472 | 2.5 | 80.1 | 81.9 | 27.4% | 8.9% | 9.5% | 36.9% | 4.2% |
Minnesota currently “leads” the race for the third spot, with two other teams within a single game and four more within two and a half games. The Twins are currently on track to square off against the third-seeded Astros in a Wild Card series that isn’t far from pitting two sub-.500 teams against each other. One would advance, but I’d hardly call that a win for baseball.
You may recall that just over two weeks ago, as the trade deadline approached, the Tigers traded away both Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize, the Blue Jays dealt Kevin Gausman, Jeff Hoffman, and Daulton Varsho, and the Orioles parted with Adley Rutschman, Taylor Ward, and Tyler Wells. Moves such as those suggested “wait ’til next year,” even if those teams generally acquired major league talent to replace them. The Tigers won five of their first seven games after the deadline, but they’ve since cooled off and are now 7-8 since the bell rung, as are the Orioles. Those two teams have at least fared better than the Mariners (5-9) and Guardians (4-10), both of whom actively tried to shore up their rosters for the stretch run. Their playoff odds have dropped by 18.4% and 27.4%, respectively, though their overall odds remain higher than those of the Blue Jays, Tigers, and Orioles since the door to a division title remains ajar. Meanwhile, Toronto has gone 9-6 to climb back into the picture despite additionally losing both Trey Yesavage and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to the injured list; their odds have increased by an AL-high 12.1% since the deadline.
The likelihood of scrums such as this increased significantly with the 2022 expansion of the playoff field from 10 teams to 12. MLB and its 30 teams money their money very money, and not only are networks willing to pay significantly more to televise postseason games than regular season ones, but the possibility of a .500ish David upsetting a Goliath in a short series — à la the 2023 Diamondbacks (21st in payroll) over the Dodgers (fifth) and Phillies (fourth) — allows the owners to have their cake and eat it too, even if it doesn’t always work out for the networks. Fans love a Cinderella story now and again, and such runs help front offices justify aiming for the slightly-upper middle-of-the-pack (see Jerry Dipoto and his infamous 54% comment) instead of spending even more heavily to improve their odds of winning. After all, over the course of a three-, five-, or seven-game series, anything can happen.
Once upon a time, this close late-season clustering at least offered the tantalizing possibility of end-of-season chaos in the form of tiebreaker games. In 2018, the NL West’s Dodgers and Rockies and the NL Central’s Brewers and Cubs played Game 163 tiebreakers, with the winners claiming division titles and the losers pushed into the one-and-done Wild Card game. That format is now as bygone as pitchers hitting, and so Team Entropy — the concept of rooting for results that create chaos rather than pledging allegiance to a given team — is no more. Instead we’re left with the excitement of playoff spots and seeding being decided by mathematics. Since most baseball fans are at least somewhat numbers-oriented, this isn’t quite as perverse as hitting yourself in the thumb with a hammer just to feel something, but it ain’t great.
Appropriately as we bemoan the Death of Fun, MLB has five steps for breaking the ties, one for each stage of grief:
- Head-to-head records: This is self-explanatory when it comes to two-team tiebreakers, and if they played an odd number of games against each other, which is currently the case if they’re in the same division, then no other steps will be necessary. If more than two teams are involved and they have identical records against each other, then the team with the best combined winning percentage against the other teams within the tie wins the tiebreaker. If it’s still relevant, the remaining two teams are un-tied via head-to-head records and on down the line.
If more than two teams are involved and they do not have identical records against one another, but one team won its season series against each of the other teams, then that team wins the tiebreaker. Otherwise, it goes in order of combined winning percentage against the other teams they’re tied with, as above.
- Intradivision records: This one is relevant only for two situations: multi-team scenarios where the teams all have the same head-to-head records within the group, or for two Wild Card teams in different divisions. In the latter case, there’s still a good chance they played seven games against each other instead of six.
- Intraleague records: A team’s record against all three divisions in the same league.
- Last half of intraleague games: If a team has played 48 interleague games, then this would be decided based on their winning percentage over the last 57 (half of 114) games against teams in their own league. And if that doesn’t work…
- Last half of intraleague games plus one… or more, as needed: Under the above scenario, this would be decided based on their winning percentage over the last 58 intraleague games, then 59, 60, 61… as many as it takes.
In practice, this rarely gets past intradivision records even when gaming out hypothetical scenarios, and under the new format, the teams that have missed the postseason because of tiebreakers did so on the basis of head-to-head records. Last year featured one such case in each league. The Tigers beat out the Astros (both 87-75) for the third AL Wild Card spot, and the Reds beat out the Mets (both 83-79) for the third NL one, both on the basis of 4-2 season series wins. In 2024, a three-way tie for the second and third NL Wild Card spots involving the Braves, Mets, and Diamondbacks (all 89-73) left Arizona outside. The Braves won their season series against both teams, and the Mets went 4-3 against the Diamondbacks.
It’s too early to game out every scenario given the number of teams involved. Hell, it’s too early to be talking about any of this stuff, but welcome to seasonal creep, please buy a 12-foot skeleton before you check out. So long as we’re on the subject, here I present to you the big board showing the seven “aspiring” Wild Card teams plus the AL West-leading Astros, since it won’t take much for them to find themselves viewing the playoff picture through that lens:
| Team | W-L | HOU | MIN | TEX | TOR | CLE | DET | BAL | SEA | Intra |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HOU | 64-63 | — | 2-4 (0,0) | 9-4 (0,0) | 3-3 (0,0) | 4-2 (0,0) | 5-2 (0,0) | 1-5 (0,0) | 2-9 (0,2) | 20-21 |
| MIN | 63-65 | 4-2 (0,0) | — | 3-0 (3,0) | 4-3 (0,0) | 6-4 (3,0) | 5-2 (3,3) | 3-3 (0,0) | 2-4 (0,0) | 19-18 |
| TEX | 62-65 | 4-9 (0,0) | 0-3 (0,3) | — | 4-0 (3,0) | 4-2 (0,0) | 2-4 (0,0) | 4-2 (0,0) | 7-3 (0,3) | 18-25 |
| TOR | 62-66 | 3-3 (0,0) | 3-4 (0,0) | 0-4 (0,3) | — | 2-1 (0,3) | 2-1 (3,0) | 4-3 (3-3) | 1-2 (3,0) | 21-21 |
| CLE | 61-66 | 2-4 (0,0) | 4-6 (0,3) | 2-4 (0,0) | 1-2 (3,0) | — | 7-2 (4,0) | 3-1 (0,3) | 4-3 (0,0) | 19-17 |
| DET | 61-66 | 2-5 (0,0) | 2-5 (3,3) | 4-2 (0,0) | 1-2 (0,3) | 2-7 (0,4) | — | 2-4 (0,0) | 4-2 (0,0) | 13-22 |
| BAL | 61-66 | 5-1 (0,0) | 3-3 (0,0) | 2-4 (0,0) | 3-4 (3,3) | 1-3 (3,0) | 4-2 (0,0) | — | 4-3 (0,0) | 15-20 |
| SEA | 60-67 | 9-2 (2,0) | 4-2 (0,0) | 3-7 (3,0) | 2-1 (0,3) | 3-4 (0,0) | 2-4 (0,0) | 3-4 (0,0) | — | 20-13 |
The tables show each team’s head-to-head record against the others, the number of games remaining between those two teams at home and on the road, and their overall intradivisional records — enough information to cover the first two steps of the tiebreaker process. I didn’t have room for teams’ intraleague records, but I’ll present them here within a lightning-round summary of where they stand.
Astros (48-43 intraleague): The AL West leaders have just two games remaining against any of these seven other teams, a pair against the Mariners, to whom they’ve already lost their season series. They’ve won their season series against the Rangers, but in the event of a three-way tie with Texas and Seattle atop the division, they currently have the lowest winning percentage (.458, 11-13) of the trio, behind the Rangers (.478, 11-12) and Mariners (.571, 12-9).
Rangers (42-47): The good news is that the Rangers have already clinched four season series against these other teams. The bad news is that their .472 intraleague winning percentage is the lowest here. Note the overlapping tiebreakers in the AL West: the Astros won the season series over the Rangers, who won the season series over the Mariners, who won the season series over the Astros.
Twins (47-39): The Twins are the only team here above .500 in terms of both intradivision play (.514) and intraleague play (.547), with the latter mark the highest of any team here.
Blue Jays (40-43): The Blue Jays have the greatest control of their destiny within this cluster, with a total of 18 games remaining against the other seven teams, and a tie for the most such games at home (nine, as many as the Twins).
Guardians (40-43): Cleveland’s .528 intradivision winning percentage is the second-highest here, but an 18-11 May is the team’s only month above .500.
Tigers (44-47): The Tigers have the lowest intradivision winning percentage of any team here (.371), they’ve already lost their season series to the Guardians, and they trail their season series against the Twins. From among the teams here, they do have the highest run differential of (+82), Pythagorean winning percentage (.570) and BaseRuns winning percentage (.564). In other words, they’re a major league-high 11 wins off their projected pace. With two pitchers who were key parts of the run prevention end of things now relocated to the NL West, they’re less likely to close that gap.
Orioles (46-45): The division is a problem, as the Orioles not only have a .429 winning percentage within the AL East but trail the season series with the Blue Jays, though they do have six games remaining against them. Like the Guardians, they have just one month above .500, having gone 15-8 in July. It’s tough to take them seriously here; note that their playoff odds are the lowest within this group.
Mariners (43-46): Things look bleak for the Mariners right now, and with just eight games remaining agains the other teams here, they have relatively little control over their destiny. However, they do hold a few cards that could help in certain scenarios: They’ve secured the tiebreaker advantage over the Astros; they have the lead in the three-way head-to-head with Houston and Texas; and they have the highest intradivision winning percentage (.606) of any team here. None of that will matter if they don’t play better, however.
This jumble of teams isn’t particularly appealing from an aesthetic standpoint, but as The Bandwagon’s Zach Crizer pointed out earlier this week, Manfred and friends are plenty happy to have found this particular sweet spot. Shifting the focus from the battle for the fourth- or fifth-best record to the sixth-best tends to guarantee the most competitiveness down the stretch, which is something to remember as MLB wages its propaganda war against the players union with regards to the upcoming Collective Bargaining Agreement. You want competitive balance? You’re soaking in it.