Welcome back, baseball! Opening Day is here. Most teams have reason to be optimistic this time of year, but there are a handful of clubs facing significant hurdles as the season gets underway. Below, I’ll layout what the best- and worst-case scenario looks like for every team in 2025.

Last year, we revamped our power rankings using a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or the MLB predictions at the now defunct FiveThirtyEight, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. For these Opening Day rankings, I’ve pulled the Depth Charts projections — which are powered by a 50/50 blend of the 2025 Steamer and ZiPS projections, and RosterResource’s playing time estimates — and calculated an implied Elo ranking for each team. The two-game Tokyo Series between the Dodgers and Cubs has been taken into account in these rankings. The delta column in the full rankings below shows the change in ranking from the pre-spring training run of the Power Rankings I did back in February. Read the rest of this entry »

Players have begun to report to Arizona and Florida, and the sights and sounds of spring baseball are beginning to emerge from the cold winter. The last time we ran these power rankings, the offseason had just begun and teams were still making plans for how they were going to improve their rosters during the winter. This run of the rankings provides a good barometer for which teams took big steps forward with their splashy signings and big trades, and which ones have been left in the dust.

Last year, we revamped our power rankings using a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. For these pre-spring training rankings, I’ve pulled the Depth Charts projections — now powered by both the 2025 Steamer and 2025 ZiPS projections — and calculated an implied Elo ranking for each team. The delta column in the full rankings below shows the change in ranking from the last offseason run of the power rankings in November.

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Not content with simply winning two World Series over the last five years, the Dodgers made it clear they intend to solidify their dynasty by becoming the first team to repeat as champions since the 1999-2000 Yankees. Not only did they land Roki Sasaki, but they also re-signed Teoscar Hernández, signed arguably the best starting pitcher and the best relief pitcher on the market in Blake Snell and Tanner Scott, respectively, and filled in their roster depth with a host of smaller moves. Los Angeles has become the premiere franchise in baseball since its current ownership group took over a little more than a decade ago, and implementing a salary cap to curtail that spending wouldn’t do much, if anything, to change that perception. Players want to win, and the Dodgers currently provide the best opportunity for them to do that. Why wouldn’t they want to join that kind of party?

The Braves suffered through what could easily be described as a nightmare season last year and still managed to win 89 games and narrowly slip into the playoffs. They haven’t needed to be very active this offseason because their foundation is so strong. The one move they did make, adding Jurickson Profar to bolster their outfield, addressed the one glaring hole on their roster. There might be a bit more variance to Atlanta’s win projection than you’d expect from a team with playoff odds over 90%; strong post-injury performances from Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider and bounce backs from Austin Riley, Matt Olson, and Sean Murphy drive that high ceiling, but those are lots of conditions the Braves need to meet to reach their lofty projections. The good news is that, like last year, they don’t need to be hit their ceiling to be one of the most competitive teams in the NL.

As you’ll see below, there are a ton of competitive AL teams projected for around 83-85 wins, and a handful more a hair below that group. The Yankees stand above that fray, though not by much. After losing Juan Soto to their crosstown rival, their offseason could have spiraled. Instead, they signed Max Fried and Paul Goldschmidt and traded for Cody Bellinger and Devin Williams. As far as consolation prizes go, those four newcomers should prove to be difference makers, and the projections agree; the Yankees are favored to come out on top of the most difficult division in baseball.

With so much of their core carrying over into 2025, the Phillies didn’t have much work to do this offseason. Instead of resting on their laurels, though, they went out and bolstered an already stacked starting rotation by trading for Jesús Luzardo right before Christmas. They also filled out their bullpen depth by signing Jordan Romano and Joe Ross, though that group still looks a little thin, and added Max Kepler to their outfield mix. Even with those moves, the projections think Philadelphia is a fairly significant step behind Atlanta and pretty even with the Mets.

On the heels of their surprise playoff appearance last year, the Mets made the biggest splash of the offseason by signing Juan Soto to the largest contract in sports history. They also restocked their roster by bringing back Pete Alonso, Sean Manaea, and Jesse Winker, and their free agent signings of Frankie Montas and Clay Holmes provide their rotation with a bit of depth. That said, the Mets lack the high-end ace or two you’d expect from a playoff contender, and the bottom half of their lineup looks pretty punchless right now. The addition of Soto does a lot to cover for those last remaining holes, and the organization seemingly has all the resources at its disposal to continue to improve once the season gets underway.

The Diamondbacks missed out on the playoffs by a single game a year after their shocking run to the World Series in 2023. To ensure that doesn’t happen again, they went out and signed Corbin Burnes to anchor their rotation and traded for Josh Naylor to replace Christian Walker at first base. They didn’t need to make a ton of additions to push their ceiling any higher; the continued development of Corbin Carroll will carry their lineup a long way, and their core remains largely intact.

With the Cardinals retooling and the Brewers and Pirates resistant to invest in their rosters, the Cubs saw an opportunity to separate themselves from their division rivals this offseason. Bringing in Kyle Tucker was the first salvo, and they followed that move by going back to the Astros to pilfer Ryan Pressly. They didn’t do enough to be considered one of the best teams in the NL, but they’re clearly a step ahead in their division, and that’s good enough to be lumped in with the other contenders in this tier.

Here’s that huge group of AL contenders that I mentioned above. There are three teams from the AL West, and two each from the Central and East divisions. If you believe the projections, two of the teams in this tier won’t make the playoffs, but it’s anyone’s guess as to which two will fall short.

In a bit of a surprise, the Rangers enter spring training with the best odds to take home the AL West division crown. Granted, that division race is essentially a toss up between the two Texas teams and Seattle, but the Rangers shouldn’t be overlooked even after their disappointing follow-up season to their 2023 championship. Who knows how many innings Jacob deGrom has left in him, but he’s healthy right now. And the biggest task facing the team this offseason has mostly been accomplished; six new relievers populate the Texas bullpen now, and while none of them is a lights out closer, the ‘pen is in a much better state than it was in November.

Instead of acting aggressively to give their good, but not great roster the edge it needed to be considered one of the best teams in the AL, the Mariners opted to have one of their quietest offseasons since Jerry Dipoto started running the show. They re-signed Jorge Polanco and are moving him to a new position, and they signed Donovan Solano to play the short side of a platoon at first base. Technically, those moves addressed the major holes on their roster, but their passivity and lack of ambition are maddening to a success-starved fan base. Still, Julio Rodríguez, Cal Raleigh, and that vaunted starting rotation form such a strong core that the Mariners are projected to have the third-best record in the AL.

The Astros are in the middle of an awkward transition. They’ve been the best team in the AL for nearly a decade and have managed to thrive despite navigating the departures of Gerrit Cole, Carlos Correa, and George Springer. And now they’re trying to figure out another one of those inflection points. Opting to trade away Tucker was a shock, but Houston did well to acquire Isaac Paredes, a player who is well suited for the ballpark formerly known as Minute Maid Park, and signing Christian Walker should give this lineup a boost after José Abreu flopped. Seeing the Astros with the third-best playoff odds in their own division doesn’t seem right, but their roster just isn’t in as good a place as it was when those other stars departed. They still could re-sign free agent third baseman Alex Bregman, whose return likely would be enough for them to leap to the top of the AL West projections, but it would also require some roster maneuvering and positional shuffling.

The unresolved question of the Twins’ potential sale and what that transition could mean for their organization has put a freeze on any activity in Minnesota this winter. They’ve made just a couple of minor moves, but the good news is that they didn’t really need to overhaul their roster anyway. They have a strong lineup anchored by Carlos Correa and a deep pitching staff backed by a dynamite bullpen. Of course, the uncertainty surrounding the health of their biggest stars is enough to put a damper on their projections, though it seems like they’re a step ahead of their division rivals right now.

The Red Sox entered the offseason with a talented but flawed roster. The additions of Garrett Crochet and Walker Buehler bolster an already strong starting rotation, and even though the two of them come with lingering injury and workload concerns, they were enough to edge Boston ahead of Baltimore in our projections — though the Orioles still rate higher when looking at our raw WAR projections. The Sox also have two top prospects waiting in the wings, Kristian Campbell and Roman Anthony, both of whom should make their big league debuts early in the season. If enough things break their way, it wouldn’t be surprising to see them emerge on top of the AL East this year.

The same thing could probably be said about the Orioles, what with their seemingly limitless supply of talented young position players. But for whatever reason, Baltimore has been hesitant to invest heavily to push its roster over the hump. The departures of Burnes and Anthony Santander were met with the additions of Tyler O’Neill and Charlie Morton — a downgrade on both accounts, if only because O’Neill’s lengthy injury history limits his projected workload — and except for a few other moves for depth pieces, the O’s have been oddly passive this offseason. Their situation is a bit like that of the Mariners, where they have a strong young core as an enviable foundation but have thus far refused to actually do the hard work of building around that cohort to launch themselves into the stratosphere.

Following their surprise playoff run last year, the Tigers spent this offseason opportunistically supplementing their core with a few key additions in Gleyber Torres, Alex Cobb, and the return of Jack Flaherty. That trio doesn’t fix all the flaws of this roster, but these moves do tangibly raise the floor. Could Detroit have risen above the fray in the AL Central with a bit more ambition? Of course, but like so many other teams in the AL, the Tigers are banking on some internal development and a lot of luck as their path to success in 2025. After all, that same strategy worked for them last year.

It’s a testament to the Rays’ excellent development pipeline that they took a pretty significant step back last season and still project to be in the AL playoff mix in 2025. The return of Shane McClanahan from his Tommy John surgery and healthier seasons from Shane Baz and Drew Rasmussen will be key, and the Rays will need Junior Caminero to emerge as an anchor of their lineup. Last month, they made a splash in free agency and signed Ha-Seong Kim to the second-largest deal, by AAV, in franchise history. He’ll miss the start of the season recovering from the shoulder injury that cut his 2024 campaign short, but he should be back sometime in May. Overall, though, Tampa Bay lacks both the depth and upside to project as anything more than a middle-of-the-pack team entering spring training.

Fresh off their first postseason appearance since winning the 2015 World Series, the Royals had an underwhelming offseason. They brought back right-handed starters Michael Wacha and Michael Lorenzen to restock their rotation, traded for Jonathan India to play… somewhere, and signed Carlos Estévez to lock down the ninth inning. These are all smart moves, but at this point, Kansas City has not addressed its most two glaring roster holes from last season — its corner outfield spots — and the club still lacks the necessary depth to weather the attrition of a long season. Bobby Witt Jr.’s ascent to stardom was a huge boon to the future of the franchise, but the Royals have done a woefully inadequate job of building a lineup around him. Their path to success in 2025 looks a lot like it did last year: An MVP caliber season from Witt, a deadly trio fronting their rotation, and just enough luck to squeeze into the Wild Card picture. Put another way, they need a lot to go in their favor.

It’s hard not to feel a little bad for the Blue Jays after they missed out on signing Shohei Ohtani a year ago and then fall short in their pursuits of Juan Soto and Roki Sasaki this offseason. While those “we tried” banners don’t count for anything, the Jays did accomplish something this offseason, signing Anthony Santander, Max Scherzer, and Jeff Hoffman, and trading for Andrés Giménez. Toronto’s roster is in a better spot than it was in November, even if it doesn’t include a marquee free agent. Unfortunately, the Blue Jays probably still aren’t good enough to make much noise in the competitive AL East. They’ve got a puncher’s chance at securing a Wild Card berth, but barring some big collapses from the teams ahead of them or another significant acquisition on their part, they’re stuck in the murky middle of the AL.

The Padres’ ugly ownership battle has cast a long shadow over their offseason, and even though they were a finalist for Sasaki, they’ve largely stayed on the sidelines this winter. Signing Jason Heyward and Connor Joe last week sort of settles their left field situation, but there’s still so little depth here that if just one of their stars misses any significant amount of time, it could have a disastrous effect on their entire season. They’ve been rumored to be shopping Dylan Cease to help them shore up other areas of their roster, but removing him from their rotation would just open up another hole that can’t be filled so easily.

The Brewers have always been asked to do a lot with few resources available to them. It’s not surprising, then, to see them stay pretty inactive this offseason even when faced with the departure of Willy Adames and a host of depth pieces from their major league roster. They leveraged Devin Williams’s final year of control into Nestor Cortes and an intriguing MLB-ready prospect in Caleb Durbin, but that’s pretty much the extent of their activity. Meanwhile, the Cubs surged ahead of Milwaukee in the projections following their flurry of moves this winter. Yet, despite all of this, the Brewers still have a decent shot at making the playoffs. That’s the benefit of playing in the NL Central.

Buster Posey’s reign as Giants president of baseball operations began with a splash, signing Willy Adames to the largest contract in franchise history. Then Posey convinced Justin Verlander to spend what could be his final season in San Francisco. Those two additions pushed their projections to the cusp of .500 and to the fringes of the NL Wild Card picture. Of course, that’s not a new position for the Giants, who’ve finished with no fewer than 79 wins and no more than 81 in each of the past three seasons.

For all the talk about taking a step back in 2025 to reset for the future, the Cardinals haven’t done much of anything this offseason. They haven’t found a trading partner suitable enough for Nolan Arenado to waive his no-trade clause, and they haven’t exchanged any other established talent for prospects. Considering this, it seems that getting out from Arenado’s contract is their sole focus until Chaim Bloom takes over for lame duck president of baseball operations John Mozeliak after the season. There is some solid young talent currently on the roster, but it looks like St. Louis is content to spend 2025 spinning its tires with the same mediocre group that’s fallen short of the playoffs each of the past two years.

Remember all those AL teams we discussed above who refuse to build around their young core and are instead fine with coin-flip odds of making the playoffs? Meet the NL version of that, except this team’s odds are significantly worse than a coin flip. The Pirates have an excellent young rotation fronted by Paul Skenes, one of the best pitchers in baseball, but they’ve done shockingly little to build a competent roster around him. Picking up Spencer Horwitz to help their lineup was a nice start to the offseason, but they followed that up by adding Adam Frazier and Tommy Pham, two pretty lackluster free agents. Skenes’ talent is such that he’s dragging Pittsburgh to the edge of the playoff picture, but he can only carry the team so far on his own.

The Guardians own perhaps the most surprising preseason projection, especially after winning 92 games and making the postseason last year for the second time in three seasons. They traded away the elder Naylor brother and Giménez and signed the ageless Carlos Santana to replace the former, but that’s not enough to truly bolster an offensive unit that was already one of the weakest in baseball. Cleveland really leaned on the pitching staff last season, the bullpen in particular, and it looks like that’s going to be the case again this year. The Guards are good enough to sit on the extreme fringe of the AL playoff picture, but their three AL Central rivals — the Twins, Tigers, and Royals — all look a bit stronger on paper.

The Reds brought in a host of depth pieces this offseason, trading for Brady Singer, Gavin Lux, Jose Trevino, and Taylor Rogers, and signing Austin Hays. That should help them raise the floor of their roster quite a bit, but the success of this team hinges on the development of Elly De La Cruz and the health of Hunter Greene and Matt McLain. There are good supplemental pieces up and down Cincinnati’s roster, but the projections see the sum of that talent as less than its parts.

Ahead of their inaugural season in Sacramento, the A’s have been busy spending to improve their roster. Granted, they needed to increase their payroll to avoid a grievance from the player’s union and maintain their status as revenue sharing recipients, but that’s neither here nor there. What matters is they signed Luis Severino to the largest contract in franchise history, extended Brent Rooker on a five-year deal, and traded for Jeffrey Springs. All that in an effort to impress in their new minor league digs, right?

The Angels were one of the most active teams to start this offseason, bringing in Jorge Soler, Yusei Kikuchi, Kyle Hendricks, and Travis d’Arnaud before Thanksgiving. And then they kind of fell silent until waking up in time to sign Yoán Moncada last week to take over as their starting third baseman, with Anthony Rendon relegated to the bench. For a team as far out of the playoff picture as Los Angeles is, these moves are a bit head scratching. Taken together, the additions give the Halos a few more projected wins, but winning 75 games instead of 71 isn’t really much of an accomplishment. It’s worth mentioning that these power rankings were put together before Tuesday morning, when news broke that the Angels had signed Kenley Jansen to a one-year, $10 million deal. Like their other moves, Jansen also represents an improvement, but he isn’t enough to turn the Halos into a winning team.

The debuts of James Wood and Dylan Crews last year marked a turning point for the Nationals. They’re now on the clock to build a contender around those young stars in the making. They took baby steps in that direction this offseason, trading for Nathaniel Lowe and signing Josh Bell to anchor their lineup, and bringing in a ton of new relievers to restock their bullpen. Washington is probably a couple of years away from truly contending, but at least there’s a bit of forward momentum toward that goal.

The Marlins’ surprise playoff appearance in 2023 seems like a lifetime ago. The hesitant optimism that surrounded Miami after that season has all but disappeared after the front office quickly tore down that roster and entered what looks like another long, drawn out rebuilding cycle. This offseason, the Marlins traded away Luzardo and Jake Burger, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Sandy Alcantara on his way out the door by August if he pitches well in his return from Tommy John surgery.

If you really squint, you can sort of make out the shape of a semi-competitive Rockies team led by Ezequiel Tovar and Brenton Doyle, but that future is at least a few years away. That Colorado has two core pieces to build around at all is a step in the right direction. The Rockies picked up two veteran infielders in Thairo Estrada and Kyle Farmer this offseason, and both should be serviceable depth pieces to offer in midseason trades. Let’s see if the Rockies remember how to use the deadline to their advantage this year.

A quick reminder that the projected win-loss records seen in the tables above are the median projections for each team, so it’s pretty outrageous for any team — even the White Sox — to have its median projection sit at 100 losses. Technically, that would be a 21-game improvement over their historically bad 2024 campaign. This offseason, they’ve done what all good rebuilding clubs do: They added low-cost veterans to soak up playing time early in the season and then get traded for prospects ahead of the deadline. Still, as Michael Baumann wrote in his piece from this morning, “It’s a long climb out of the pit, and we’re not even sure where the floor is yet.”

With their trade for Garrett Crochet back in early December, the Red Sox indicated their intention to aggressively compete for the AL East crown in 2025. The Yankees missing out on Juan Soto, along with the relative inaction of the Orioles and Blue Jays this offseason, has opened that window for Boston. And the Sox have continued to add talent to their pitching staff, signing Walker Buehler to a one-year deal two days before Christmas. The contract will guarantee Buehler $21.05 million, which also happens to be the exact value of the qualifying offer the Red Sox extended to Nick Pivetta and that the Dodgers declined to offer to Buehler. There’s also a $25 million mutual option for 2026 and as much as $2.5 million in performance bonuses for hitting games started thresholds.

After undergoing his second Tommy John surgery in 2022, Buehler finally returned to a major league mound last May, but he really struggled to find his footing after being sidelined for nearly two full years. A June hip injury limited him to just 16 starts and 75.1 innings, and his 5.38 ERA and 5.54 FIP were easily the worst marks of his career. Despite his summer scuffles, Buehler managed to turn things around during the playoffs. He pitched to a 3.60 ERA across 15 postseason innings, including a gutsy scoreless start in Game 3 of the World Series and the first save of his career in the decisive Game 5.

Of course, Buehler was one of the most successful young starters in baseball from 2018–21. Among all qualified pitchers during that stretch, he ranked seventh in WAR, sixth in ERA-, and eighth in FIP-. But postseason heroics aside, 2024 was a pretty miserable year for Buehler. He couldn’t find consistency with his mechanics, and that hip injury seemed to disrupt any progress he was making on that front. He was marginally better after returning from the IL in August and he was able to make a few key adjustments to his mechanics down the stretch — no doubt helping him find some limited success in October — but he entered this offseason as an enigmatic free agent. His early career success was undeniable, but his injury history and disappointing return raised a lot of questions about his ability to contribute quality innings moving forward. Read the rest of this entry »

After their surprise run to the playoffs this year, the Mets have a lot of work to do this offseason to follow up on their unexpected success. From their rotation alone, they lost Sean Manaea, Luis Severino, and Jose Quintana to free agency — that trio combined to make 94 starts in 2024 — leaving Kodai Senga and David Peterson as the lone holdovers. Earlier this week, New York signed Frankie Montas to a two-year deal to begin restocking its pitching staff. On Friday, the next domino fell: Clay Holmes, erstwhile Yankees closer, agreed to a three-year contract worth $38 million with an opt out after the second year.

With an extensive résumé covering high-leverage innings a borough over, you might expect the Mets to plug Holmes into the bullpen behind Edwin Díaz and call it good. Instead, they’re planning on transitioning him to the starting rotation. Holmes has all of four major league starts under his belt and all of them came during his rookie campaign back in 2018. He worked extensively as a starter in the minor leagues but the year he made his major league debut was the last time he threw more than 100 innings in a season.

In their never-ending search for effective starting pitching, teams have turned their gaze to the bullpen over the past few years. Just this season, Garrett Crochet, Reynaldo López, and Jordan Hicks made the jump from the bullpen to the rotation. Last year, Seth Lugo, Michael King, and Zack Littell made a similar shift. It doesn’t always work; for every success story like Lugo’s or López’s, there’s a cautionary tale like that of Hicks or A.J. Puk. Even Crochet, for all his early success, seemed to wear down towards the end of the season, despite some extremely careful handling by the White Sox given the left-hander’s injury history. Read the rest of this entry »

The hot stove is currently set to simmer, as teams have completed their annual roster housekeeping, but any big moves are still on the horizon. That means it’s the perfect time to see how all 30 teams stack up. The rankings below present each team as they are currently constructed, based on our playing time estimates. This should give us a pretty good idea of which teams would be ready to compete if the season started today, and which ones still have work to do to get their 2025 roster in order.

This year, we revamped our power rankings using a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. For these offseason rankings, I’ve pulled the Depth Charts projections and calculated an implied Elo ranking for each team. Our projections are entirely powered by the 2025 Steamer projections right now; the 2025 ZiPS projections will be added later on in the offseason. The delta column in the full rankings below shows the change in ranking from the final regular season run of the power rankings. Read the rest of this entry »

In an postseason era marked by aggressive bullpen usage and pitching staff chaos, Gerrit Cole delivered a fantastic seven-inning performance on Thursday night to lead the Yankees past the Royals and into the ALCS. The final score of 3-1 makes the game appear closer than it actually felt; the Royals really only threatened once or twice all night thanks to an efficient Cole and a pair of scoreless relief appearances.

For the second time in the series, Cole racked up only four strikeouts in his outing, but this one was undeniably better than his shaky start in Game 1. On Thursday night, he gave up one run on six hits and didn’t walk anyone. The Royals’ approach was pretty clear from the get-go: They aggressively attacked his four-seam fastball and cutter early in the count, hoping to ambush him as they did in Game 1 — when their first five balls in play were all hit over 100 mph — before he could turn to his curveball or slider. This kept his pitch count down; he needed just 87 pitches to complete his seven innings. The BABIP gods must have turned away from the Royals because they didn’t earn their first hit until the third inning, and only once did they collect multiple hits in the same inning. As in the series opener, Kansas City made a lot of loud contact against Cole — 12 of the 22 balls in play off him registered an exit velocity of at least 95 mph — but this time half of those hard-hit balls were either on the ground (5) or popped up (1); in Game 1, all but one of his 11 hard-hit balls (out of 17 BIP) were line drives (5) or fly balls (5).

The Yankees batters were just as aggressive while facing Michael Wacha for the second time in this series. Gleyber Torres laced a double into left-center field on the game’s first pitch, and Juan Soto brought him home with an RBI single two pitches later.

Wacha settled down after inducing a double play from Aaron Judge and cruised through the next three innings. The Yankees struck again in the fifth when Torres chipped in with a two-out, run-scoring single that chased Wacha from the game. Right then, with runners on the corners, Soto due up, and his team down two runs, Royals manager Matt Quatraro turned to closer Lucas Erceg to get out of the fifth-inning jam. Soto got under a second-pitch changeup and skied it to center field for the final out of the frame.

Erceg came back out for the sixth to face Judge, who entered the plate appearance 1-for-12 in the series with four walks and five strikeouts; that lone hit was an 86.6-mph infield single in New York’s Game 2 loss. This time, though, Judge finally barreled one up, ripping a double into the left-center field gap. Catcher Austin Wells moved Judge over to third with a groundout to second, bringing up Giancarlo Stanton, whose career 160 wRC+ in the postseason ranks 12th among players with at least 100 playoff plate appearances. He scorched a 116.9-mph single up the middle to drive in the Yankees’ third and final run of the game.

Tensions rose a bit in the bottom of the sixth after the Yankees turned a 3-6 double play and Maikel Garcia took issue with the tag from Anthony Volpe at second.

After the play, Garcia started jawing with Jazz Chisholm Jr., causing both benches to clear and their bullpens to empty. No punches were thrown; they mostly just milled around second base for a few minutes. After the game, Chisholm said that he felt like Garica slid into second too hard and was sticking up for Volpe.

“I just felt like he tried to go and injure Volpe because he was being a sore loser. He was talking a lot on Instagram and Twitter and stuff. I do the same thing, but I’m not gonna go and try and injure somebody if they’re winning a game, and I didn’t like that. So I told him we don’t do that on this side, and I’m always gonna stick up for my guys.”

Chisholm became a lightning rod during this series. First, he scored the go-ahead run in Game 1 after a controversial safe call on his successful steal of second base. Then, following the Yankees’ Game 2 loss, he said the Royals “just got lucky.” That earned him a cold reception in Kansas City on Wednesday for Game 3, and the boos continued in Game 4. I’m sure this incident won’t help his reputation with the Kansas City faithful.

After all the hubbub died down, the Royals finally got on the board with a couple of two-out hits. Bobby Witt Jr. drove a single to right, and then scored from first on a long double off the bat of Vinnie Pasquantino.

The Royals gave the Yankees one final scare in the seventh; with two outs and a runner on first, Kyle Isbel launched a 370-foot fly ball to deep right field that fell just shy of leaving the yard. The batted ball had an expected batting average of .510 and would have been a game-tying home run in 24 ballparks, including Yankee Stadium, but Kauffman Stadium wasn’t one of them. Soto made the catch up against the wall. Inning over.

Turns out, so was Cole’s night. He finished with just six total swings and misses, five off his four-seamer and one with his curveball. More than half of the pitches he threw were four-seamers, but he didn’t really have great command of the pitch; just 52% of his four-seamers were in the strike zone, and most of his misses with it were high. It didn’t really matter much because the Royals weren’t willing to be patient and the rest of Cole’s repertoire was more than effective.

An interesting note about Cole’s pitch mix in Game 4: It was the first time in his major league career, spanning 336 starts in both the regular season and the playoffs, that he did not throw a slider. His usage of that breaking ball dipped a bit this year, falling from a little over 20% last year to just 14.6% this season, but it’s still pretty surprising to see him completely turn away from one of his best swing-and-miss offerings in a huge playoff game.

After Cole exited the game, Clay Holmes and Luke Weaver shut down the Royals in the eighth and ninth innings. Weaver earned his third save of the series, and the Yankees relief corps finished the ALDS without allowing an earned run across 15 2/3 innings.

For the Royals, this series ends their incredible turnaround season. It’s a bummer for them, though they head into the offseason with some hope that their winning ways might continue. They improved by 30 wins this year, they have an MVP candidate signed long term to build around, and their youngsters now have some postseason experience under their belts.

But this series also exposed some of the cracks they’ll need to address in the offseason. Witt Jr. collected just two hits in the series, preventing him from making much of an impact on the proceedings, while Pasquantino’s RBI double on Thursday was his first and only hit of the series. That’s not to put the blame on them; during a short series, sometimes your best players go cold. Sure, the Royals did get a bit of production from other members of their lineup earlier in the series, and Tommy Pham collected three hits in Game 4, but this is an offense that had the 40-year-old Yuli Gurriel — who has an 82 wRC+ over the last three seasons — batting fifth. The Royals simply didn’t have enough offensive firepower to compete with New York.

With the win, the Yankees advance to the ALCS for the second time in the last three years and the fourth time in the last eight. But despite their run of excellence for the better part of a decade, they have not reached the World Series since they won it all in 2009. To get there, they’ll have to beat the winner of the Guardians-Tigers series, which is set for a win-or-go-home Game 5 on Saturday night. The Yankees are the best remaining American League team; we’ll see whether that’s enough for them to win the pennant.

After dispatching the Houston Astros in a two-game Wild Card sweep, the Detroit Tigers’ magical season — their playoff odds sat at just 0.2% on August 11 — continues with a matchup against the Cleveland Guardians in the ALDS. For its part, Cleveland emerged as the winner of the surprisingly tough AL Central, the team’s second division title in the last three years. The Guardians flirted with the best record in the American League for most of the season, but a slow July and August meant that they finished a game and half behind the Yankees for the top seed; they ultimately outperformed their BaseRuns record by 11 games, by far the widest differential in baseball this year, on the back of clutch hitting and a shutdown bullpen.

These two division rivals are well acquainted with each other — Cleveland eked out the regular season series 7-6 — but this will be the first time these storied franchises have met in the postseason. Both teams are extremely young and neither had especially lofty expectations entering the season, but here they are, battling for a spot in the ALCS.

As was true in the Wild Card round, one of the primary questions for the Tigers is how they will deploy their pitching. They got a brilliant start from Tarik Skubal in Game 1 in Houston, then bullpenned their way through Game 2 with the help of seven different pitchers. Now the challenge is figuring out how to take the unorthodox approach that got them through the end of the regular season and past the Astros, and adapt it for the Division Series. Fortunately, the postseason schedule means that Skubal should get two opportunities to pitch this series if it goes all the way to five games, but what they do for the other three games is anyone’s guess.

Both Reese Olson and Casey Mize were on the Wild Card roster, and Detroit will probably bring Keider Montero back for the Division Series. Still, Olson hasn’t pitched past the fourth inning in any of his three regular season starts since returning from a shoulder injury a few weeks ago. Mize, meanwhile, was an effective starter for the Tigers for most of the first half of the season, but missed two months with a hamstring injury and was used as a piggyback option in two of Olson’s starts in late September. The ZiPS game-by-game odds assume that Olson will “start” Game 1, with Montero going in Game 3 and a bullpen game for Game 4:

As you can see, if the Tigers are able to force a Game 5, the series is essentially a coin flip, with the odds slightly favoring Detroit thanks to Skubal. The trick will be to win Skubal’s starts and at least one of Games 1, 3, or 4. Of course, no matter who is listed as the official starter in the non-Skubal games, the Tigers will almost certainly use every available reliever to work through those games. In the Wild Card series, they used eight pitchers out of their bullpen between the two games, with Jason Foley and Jackson Jobe the only ones to allow any runs. Will Vest and Beau Brieske were the standouts, pitching in both games and each earning a save.

The Guardians won’t have to scramble quite as hard to find starters, but the rotation certainly isn’t the main strength of Cleveland’s roster. After Shane Bieber was sidelined by Tommy John surgery in April, Tanner Bibee became the de facto ace of the staff, turning in a solid effort (3.47 ERA, 3.56 FIP, 3.3 WAR) in his second big league season. He improved his strikeout rate by more than two percentage points, lowered his walk rate by 1.5 points, and was a reliable workhorse the entire season. His slider and changeup are both legitimate bat-missing weapons, and his fastball is just good enough to support those secondary pitches.

After Bibee in Game 1, things become a little less clear. Matthew Boyd will certainly make at least one start during the series, and potentially two if Cleveland opts to use him in Game 2 (which would line him up to start a potential Game 5). Boyd returned from Tommy John surgery in August and made eight very impressive starts down the stretch. His fastball velocity is sitting right around where it was at his peak with the Tigers, and his secondary offerings are generating plenty of swings and misses.

For Game 3, the Guardians have a number of options to turn to. The game-by-game odds above assume Alex Cobb will be activated off the IL for this series and make the start, but he’s only made three starts all year and just one in September after dealing with blisters on his throwing hand. Gavin Williams has electric stuff to go along with his prospect pedigree, but he’s struggled with inconsistency, particularly with runners on base, leading to a 4.86 ERA that’s more than a run higher than his 3.67 FIP. There’s also the veteran Ben Lively, whose 3.81 ERA and 4.66 FIP across 29 starts gave Cleveland’s rotation some stability after Bieber’s injury, but he’s not exactly the kind of starter you’d want pitching in a big postseason game. However they lineup their rotation, it’ll be a lot more predictable than the chaos Detroit is trying to harness.

Of course, the Guardians’ true strength lies in their bullpen. Led by Emmanuel Clase, who just had one of the best reliever seasons ever, Cleveland also has a deep stable of setup men who form a bridge from the middle innings to the ninth:

Cade Smith, Hunter Gaddis, and Tim Herrin are as good a setup trio as there is in baseball, and Cleveland’s relief corps as a whole had the sixth-best league- and park-adjusted ERA among the 750 team seasons since 2000. The same expanded schedule that benefits the Tigers’ heavy bullpen usage will also allow manager Stephen Vogt to deploy his ‘pen aggressively should the Guardians take an early lead.

The x-factor on the Guards’ pitching staff is Joey Cantillo, their 13th-ranked prospect. He made his major league debut in late July and has shown some real promise with his changeup and slider, especially across four September starts that saw him pitch to an impressive 2.25 ERA and 1.17 FIP with 29 strikeouts in 20 innings. It’s possible they’ll use him as their Game 3 starter, but it’s more likely that they’ll deploy him as another multi-inning weapon out of the bullpen.

Not only do the Guardians have the more impressive bullpen, they also employ the series’ biggest superstar in José Ramírez. He was a double and a home run away from posting a 40 double, 40 home run, 40 stolen base season, and will certainly receive down-ballot MVP consideration behind Aaron Judge and Bobby Witt Jr. Despite his fantastic track record in the regular season since his breakout 2016, Ramírez has had a rough go of things in the postseason. In 134 plate appearances across 32 playoff games, he’s slashed just .242/.291/.347 (a 70 wRC+) with a pair of home runs. If Cleveland wants to make a deep run in the playoffs, Ramírez will need to be firing on all cylinders.

Steven Kwan and Josh Naylor are the other key members of the Guardians lineup, with the former posting an excellent 131 wRC+ from the leadoff spot while the latter blasted 31 home runs and collected 108 RBIs from the cleanup spot. Both Kwan and Naylor hit left-handed, which puts them at a disadvantage against Skubal. That’s one reason why Cleveland acquired Lane Thomas from the Nationals at the trade deadline — to balance out the lineup with a strong right-handed batter. Thomas got off to a slow start with his new team in August, but produced a 137 wRC+ during the final month of the season.

Cleveland will also hope to see more consistent production out of Jhonkensy Noel. He slumped pretty badly in September, but he was a key member of the lineup during his hot August. His huge raw power gives Cleveland something it has largely lacked the last few years, and one swing from “Big Christmas” could change an entire game.

Because the Tigers will be looking to exploit as many matchups as they can with their relievers, Cleveland’s bench will bear a lot of weight this series:

David Fry, Cleveland’s surprise All-Star, should get starts against the left-handed Skubal, with Noel in the outfield. Beyond those two straight platoons, Vogt will need to pick and choose the right moments to deploy his pinch-hitters to counter A.J. Hinch’s bullpen machinations. The switch-hitting Angel Martínez, in particular, could be the most valuable piece off Cleveland’s bench.

In my preview of the Tigers-Astros Wild Card series, I wrote that Detroit’s offense would need to rely on four key contributors: Kerry Carpenter, Parker Meadows, Riley Greene, and Spencer Torkelson. That quartet collected just four combined hits against Houston, though Meadows’ home run in Game 2 broke the scoreless tie and Carpenter’s single in the eighth started the game-winning rally. Behind those four, the rest of the Tigers lineup collected 13 hits against the Astros, with Torkelson and Colt Keith the only batters to go hitless in the series. Timely hitting was the differentiator; all three runs in Game 1, as well as Andy Ibáñez’s go-ahead, three-run double in Game 2, came with two outs in their respective innings. The Tigers also left a combined 19 runners on base during the series, squandering a number of opportunities to tack a few more crooked numbers on the scoreboard.

The blueprint for both the Tigers and Guardians should look pretty similar: scratch across a few runs early in the game and hand things off to a shut-down bullpen to close things out. With both teams working from the same plan, the series will likely come down to which club can find a timely hit to put themselves ahead. The moves both managers make will have a huge influence on the course of the series. Hinch’s bullpen management has been pretty flawless so far; Vogt will have his own bullpen to manage, along with a bench that should see heavy usage. For fans of nuanced baseball strategy, this series should prove to be a fascinating matchup.

After a thrilling conclusion to the regular season on Monday, the postseason is finally upon us. There are a couple of favorites in the National League in the Dodgers and Phillies, but the American League field looks pretty wide open, and both of the teams that played in last year’s World Series are home on the couch. Anything can happen in the playoffs, and underdogs can topple giants in this wild, month-long tournament. Here’s a look at the 12-team field and how they stack up against each other.

This season, we revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined since March. That’s why we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that Detroit’s magical run through the end of the regular season is complete, snapping a decade-long postseason drought, the Tigers have been rewarded with a first-round matchup against the formidable Astros. Not only will this be the first postseason meeting between these two franchises, it’ll be an October reunion of sorts between Detroit manager A.J. Hinch and the ballclub he led to two World Series appearances and one championship, before he was fired in the aftermath of the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal. Houston has been an October staple since 2015 and will be attempting to reach its eighth straight ALCS.

This isn’t a classic David and Goliath story, however. These two teams have been the best in the American League since the beginning of July, though the Tigers aren’t exactly structured like a traditional juggernaut, and the Astros aren’t as strong as they have been in recent seasons. Houston has plenty of postseason experience up and down its roster, but Detroit is young and essentially playing with house money after its surprising playoff berth.

The Tigers’ surge to the playoffs was almost entirely driven by their pitching staff. Since July 1, they’ve had the second-best run prevention unit in the majors, allowing just 3.58 runs per game. This is despite the fact that they traded away Jack Flaherty, their second-best starter over the first four months of the season, at the deadline, when they were 6.5 games out of the final Wild Card spot with 2.8% playoff odds. Over the two months since then, Detroit essentially has turned to a two-man rotation, with the other three slots being covered by a rotating cast of openers and bulk relievers. It’s been unorthodox to say the least, but you can’t argue with the results.

Of course, it helps that the Tigers have the odds-on favorite to win the AL Cy Young award leading their pitching staff. Tarik Skubal has ascended into the stratosphere this year, winning the pitching Triple Crown and leading all American League pitchers in WAR. The Tigers will hand the ball to Skubal in Game 1, which might be the only traditional start the Astros see in this series.

The pitching plan for Games 2 and 3 is a complete mystery, one that Hinch seems to be relishing. “I’m going to try to keep everybody guessing just as much as I have with you guys for the last two months,” Hinch told reporters over the weekend. Keider Montero was the other traditional starter the Tigers leaned on during the past two months, but he doesn’t fit the profile of a big-game starter. It’s possible they’ll turn to Reese Olson in one of these games, but he hasn’t pitched past the fourth inning in any of his three starts since returning from a shoulder injury a few weeks ago. That means it could come down to the same opener-bulk strategy that’s been so successful over the last few months, with unsung heroes Brant Hurter or Ty Madden getting an opportunity to make an impact on the biggest stage.

There’s also the question of how the Tigers are going to deploy Jackson Jobe, their top pitching prospect. They called him up during the final week of the regular season, and he made two appearances out of the bullpen, including a three-inning outing on Saturday. It’s unclear if they trust him enough to hand him an actual start during this series, but he should see some action at some point, even if it’s as a bulk reliever.

And then there’s the rest of the Detroit bullpen. Beyond the team’s gaggle of long relievers, there’s a ton of depth to cover the later innings. That’s a huge reason why the Tigers were so successful down the stretch. And it’s not like their bullpen is stacked with big names; instead, it’s guys like Jason Foley (3.15 ERA), Tyler Holton (2.19), Beau Brieske (3.59), and Will Vest (2.82) getting deployed interchangeably in high-leverage situations.

Offensively, the Tigers rely heavily on just a handful of key contributors and have had a couple of guys get hot over the last two months to help fuel their postseason run.

Since returning from the injured list in early August, Parker Meadows has been one of the best outfielders in baseball. He’s slashed .291/.333/.500 over the last two months and played great defense in center, helping him accumulate 2.1 WAR during that timeframe, the 18th best mark in all of baseball. Both Kerry Carpenter and Riley Greene have been solid contributors throughout the season when they’ve been healthy, and both were activated off the IL in August to help Detroit’s playoff push. And Spencer Torkelson has finished the season strong after getting sent down to the minors in June. Since he was recalled in mid-August, Torkelson is batting .248/.338/.444 with six home runs and a 125 wRC+.

For the Astros, the biggest lingering question is the availability of Yordan Alvarez. He injured his knee sliding into second base on September 22 and has been sidelined since then. He’s expected to take some batting practice on Monday, which could be a good sign for his recovery, but his knees have given him trouble for much of his career, and I’d expect the Astros to be cautious with him.

Even without the big man anchoring their lineup, Houston has plenty of firepower to deploy, all coming from the usual suspects. Kyle Tucker missed a couple of months of the season due to a fractured shin, but he was in the middle of a career year before that injury and picked up right where he left off when he returned at the beginning of September. Jose Altuve is on the downswing of his career, but he’s still a potent table-setter atop the lineup, and Alex Bregman has rebounded nicely from a slow start to the season. Yainer Diaz has been fantastic in his first full season as Houston’s starting catcher, so much so that even on some of the days that he didn’t catch, the Astros used him at first base to keep his bat in the lineup regularly.

Unlike the Tigers, the Astros boast a traditional, playoff-tested rotation that they’ll need to lean into during this short series. Don’t mind their full-season stats listed in the table up top; since June 1, Houston starters have had the second-best ERA in the majors (3.31) and the fifth-best FIP (3.73). Framber Valdez will take the ball in Game 1; he had a 1.96 ERA across his 12 starts (78 innings) during the second half of the season. Next up will be Yusei Kikuchi Houston’s big trade deadline acquisition. He’s been absolutely phenomenal since switching teams thanks to some pitch mix adjustments and a honed attack plan for his slider. He’s struck out nearly a third of the batters he’s faced since joining the Astros while keeping his walk rate under control.

If the series goes to Game 3, Hunter Brown should get the call, something no one could have expected after he started off the year with a 9.78 ERA through his first six starts of the season. After adding a sinker to his repertoire in May, he lowered his ERA to 3.49 by the end of the year. Perhaps surprisingly, Justin Verlander isn’t an option to make a start during this series, though he could be called on in the Division Series should the Astros advance.

Houston’s bullpen has nearly as many high-quality options as Detroit’s does, but the top Astros relievers are far more battle tested. Josh Hader was the big offseason signing, and he’s been solid, if a little shaky, as the primary closer; a bout of homeritis drove his FIP higher than it’s ever been in a full season (excluding 2020). The former closer Ryan Pressly and flame-throwing Bryan Abreu make a formidable setup duo, and Héctor Neris, claimed off the garbage heap in August, gives Houston four high-leverage arms with plenty of playoff experience.

The final week of the regular season is upon us and most of the division races are pretty much decided, if not officially wrapped up. Thankfully, the two Wild Card races should provide plenty of drama over the next seven days.

This season, we’ve revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined since March. That’s why we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance.

To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds. (Specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%.) As the best and worst teams sort themselves out throughout the season, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise will remain reactive to hot streaks or cold snaps.

First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers with comments on a handful of clubs. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — I’ve taken some editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula.

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The Padres won five games last week to push three games ahead of the Diamondbacks and Mets for the first NL Wild Card spot and just three games back of the Dodgers in the NL West. San Diego and Los Angeles are set to face off three times at Dodger Stadium this week, beginning Tuesday. The Padres are the only second-place team with a greater than 1% chance to win the division. It won’t be easy, because even if the Friars take care of business against the Dodgers, they close out the regular season with a three-game set in Arizona over the weekend.

Shohei Ohtani just completed what could very well be the best week ever produced by a big leaguer; not only did he found the 50/50 club with an epic performance on Thursday, he added two more home runs and four more stolen bases over the weekend to bring his season totals to 53 homers and 55 steals. In total, he collected 16 hits, six home runs, 15 RBI, and seven stolen bases last week. After hosting San Diego for three games with their 11th division title in 12 years on the line, the Dodgers head to Coors Field this weekend for three games against the last-place Rockies.

The Diamondbacks blew an 8-0 lead on Sunday afternoon to lose to the Brewers, denying them a chance to mop the four-game series in Milwaukee. That loss meant they ended the week tied with the Mets in the Wild Card standings, which ratchets up the stakes for this final week of the season. Eugenio Suárez continues to rake and Ketel Marte launched home runs in three consecutive games over the weekend, but the Snakes will need all hands on deck to maintain their playoff position.

While it wasn’t the smoothest ascent to the top of the AL West, all the Astros need to do to clinch the division is win one of their three home games against the Mariners this week. Fortunately, Houston may have “dodged a bullet” after Yordan Alvarez injured his knee on Sunday, though his status is unclear as of this writing.

The Yankees survived their six-week slump this summer and now need to win just one of their final six games to clinch the AL East. After a bit of a slowdown earlier this month, the bats of Aaron Judge and Juan Soto woke up a bit last week. This team will go as deep in October as those two will carry it.

After sweeping the Nationals and winning three of four from the Phillies, the Mets are completely in control of their playoff destiny. They travel to Atlanta this week looking to completely bury the Braves in the standings and secure their surprise spot in the postseason.

It doesn’t bode well that the Phillies faced two playoff teams last week — the Brewers and Mets — and came away with just two wins in seven games. With the division all but locked up, perhaps they were just taking it easy before the postseason begins. After their hot start to the season, their up-and-down second half hasn’t bred a ton of confidence in their ability to cruise through the early rounds. Still, Philadelphia is filled with veterans who have engineered deep playoff runs two years in a row; the Phillies should be fine.

The Brewers became the first team in the majors to clinch their division last week, so I suppose you could excuse the series loss to the Diamondbacks over the weekend. The dramatic come-from-behind victory on Sunday was a nice way to show that they still have a lot of fire within them. They’ll need it as they seek their first postseason series victory since 2018.

The Guardians are in a weird spot: They’re not consistently good enough to fit in the second tier but they’re clearly above the fray of teams in the Wild Card race. Still, after their disappointing season last year with largely the same cast, they clinched the AL Central on Saturday, their fifth title in the last nine seasons.

If the AL Wild Card race hadn’t been so dramatic over the past few weeks, we’d probably be paying more attention to the Orioles’ fall down the standings. As recently as September 10, they were just a half game back in the AL East; now, they are one loss or one Yankees win away from having to settle for a Wild Card berth. Baltimore’s pitching staff has had plenty of issues during the second half of the season — things got so bad in the bullpen, they opted to release Craig Kimbrel instead of hoping to fix him before the playoffs. In more positive news, the O’s just activated Jordan Westburg off the IL on Sunday, they’ll hope he can provide a spark as they crawl their way into the playoffs.

If you’re looking for drama this final week of the season, look no further than the AL Wild Card race. Against all odds, the Tigers have surged into a playoff berth and are currently tied in the standings with the Royals and a game ahead of the Twins. They did it by sweeping the Royals last week and then taking two of three from the Orioles in Baltimore. That’s a pretty stiff challenge and shows just how good Detroit has been during this late-season hot streak. With three-game series at home against the Rays and White Sox, the Tigers have the weakest schedule of the four teams fighting over the last two Wild Card spots.

The Royals have now had two separate seven-game losing streaks over the past month. Sure, there was a 7-2 stretch sandwiched between those skids, but Kansas City is on the verge of tripping right as it reaches the finish line. The Royals have three games against the Nationals in Washington, followed by three weekend games in Atlanta that should be crucial for both teams. Buckle up.

After losing both games of their Sunday doubleheader against the Red Sox, the Twins are out of a playoff position for the first time since April. They’re barely hanging on, and their only saving grace has been the simultaneous collapse of the Royals. Luckily for Minnesota, it holds the tiebreaker over Kansas City, Detroit, and Seattle; this could definitely come into play in such a tight Wild Card race. The Twins host the Marlins and Orioles this week.

Don’t count out the Mariners just yet either, though some agonizing mistakes last week really hindered any progress they could have made in the standings. Sunday’s loss was perhaps the most glaring; leading the Rangers 5-0 after 5 1/2 innings, Seattle gave up four runs in the sixth and another in the seventh before ultimately losing on Marcus Semien’s walk-off single in the ninth. It was just the fifth time all season that the Mariners lost a game in which they scored five or more runs. For as bad as things have been since mid-July, when they squandered a 10-game divisional lead in record time, the Mariners enter this week just two games out of the final Wild Card berth and five games back in the AL West standings. Seattle faces long odds to reach the playoffs, let alone to retake the division, but it’s not impossible. The Mariners head to Houston for three games against the Astros before ending the season at home against the A’s.

Over in the National League, the banged-up Braves are still alive in the Wild Card race. They are two games out of the final spot with six to play, including three at home against the Mets, one of the two teams ahead of them in the Wild Card standings. Atlanta needs to take two of three from New York to hold the season-series advantage that would settle a potential tie, and it already holds the tiebreaker over Arizona. Things aren’t great for the Braves, but if they start winning again this week, they should find their way in.

The Reds surprisingly fired manager David Bell on Sunday night, less than a year after signing him to a contract extension that runs through 2026. They “felt a change was needed to move the Major League team forward,” said GM Nick Krall. “We have not achieved the success we expected.” Maybe a new voice in the clubhouse is needed, but the reality is that injuries and Noelvi Marte’s suspension played major parts in the team’s underperformance. Even so, things aren’t too bleak in Cincinnati, where Elly De La Cruz has continued his ascent and should receive down ballot MVP votes this season. Of course, the real sticking point is the amount of investment the Reds will receive to improve the rest of their roster. That’s not something a new manager will be able to solve.

The Giants succeeded in playing spoilers last week, winning two of three against the Orioles and then sweeping the Royals over the weekend. San Francisco has one last shot to reprise its role this week with a three-game series in Arizona, beginning Monday night.

Of all the teams in this huge tier, Toronto seems like the club that’s most likely to bounce back with a good season next year. The Blue Jays opted to hang onto all of their big stars at the deadline, and they did manage to play a little better during the second half of the season. Still, the roster isn’t without holes, and they’ll need a healthy season from Bo Bichette to reach their full potential.

The Rockies were so close to winning a pair of series against the Diamondbacks and Dodgers last week. Back-to-back home runs from Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts secured the walk-off victory on Sunday and forced Colorado to settle for a single win in that weekend series. The Rockies have another crack at Los Angeles next weekend.

While James Wood has adapted to major league pitching pretty quickly, Dylan Crews has taken a little longer to make the adjustment to the big leagues. The Nationals aren’t on the verge of breaking out of their rebuilding cycle just yet, which means Crews has some time to acclimate. Unfortunately, All-Star shortstop CJ Abrams, the other young member of their core, was optioned to the minors over the weekend reportedly after breaking curfew for an all-nighter at a casino before a day game in Chicago. Not a great look for someone who is supposed to be leading the team into its next contention window.

With their 120th loss of the year on Sunday, the White Sox tied the 1962 Mets for the most losses in a season since the founding of the American League in 1901. Barring a miraculous turn of events, they will go down as the worst team in modern MLB history. But hey, look on the bright side: Even if they lose their final six games, they still won’t lose as many games as the 1899 Cleveland Spiders!