After a wild Sunday afternoon that held plenty of drama for the final day of the regular season, the postseason field is set. Team Entropy ultimately found no joy, with the remaining playoff spots finally decided without the need for tiebreaker games. With the Wild Card round set to begin on Tuesday, here’s a look at the 10 teams in the playoffs and how they stack up against each other.

A quick refresher: my approach takes the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), and their starting rotation and bullpen (50%/50% FIP- and RA9-) — and combines them to create an overall team quality metric. Since regular season records don’t matter in the playoffs, I’ve ranked the teams simply by their overall team quality, removing the factors for win percentage and expected win percentage.

The Dodgers and Giants spent the entire season battling each other for the NL West crown. Los Angeles won 50 games after the All-Star break to post the best record in the second half and only gained a single game on San Francisco. The closest the Dodgers were to overtaking the Giants was entering their series in San Francisco on September 3. Even though the division wasn’t actually decided until the final weekend, that series gave the Giants the edge they needed to secure their first division title since 2012. It’s a shame they’re lined up to face each other in a Division Series instead of the NLCS — should the Dodgers advance out of the Wild Card game, that is. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mariners are entering the final weekend of the regular season with their best shot since 2016 at breaking their infamous postseason drought, having gone 18–8 in September and won 11 of their last 13 games after losing a crucial series to the Red Sox mid-month. Earlier this morning, Jay Jaffe took a look at the bigger picture for the Mariners, their negative run differential, and the historic positive turn of their playoff odds. But this climb up the standings wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for some unheralded performances by a number of players on their roster.

From a season-long perspective, the Mariners’ offense has been lackluster, with a wRC+ of 94, ranking tenth in the American League. That went up to 103 in September, but the driving force behind the improved offense has been excellent performance in tight situations. Seattle has the most clutch offense in recorded MLB history (WPA records only go back to 1974), which goes a long way toward explaining the team’s 33–18 record in one-run games this year.

Clutch hitting can take a team far, but it’s not something that can be counted on every night. Luckily, the core of the Mariners’ lineup started hitting extremely well during the final month:

After shuffling through a number of early-season contributors, the lineup stabilized after the All-Star break — something that coincided with Kelenic’s second call-up from Triple-A after his rough debut in May. The hits didn’t start falling immediately after his return to the majors; from July 16 through the end of August, he posted a .181/.263/.315 line (a 65 wRC+) with a 30.5% strikeout rate. But something clicked once the calendar turned over to September, with Kelenic hitting .242/.321/.537, good for a 135 wRC+. His strikeout rate dropped to 25.5%, he launched seven home runs, and more than half of his hits went for extra bases.

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During last year’s shortened season, Ian Happ led all Chicago Cubs batters with a 130 wRC+ and 1.9 WAR. It was a strong followup to his 2019 breakout season and it looked like Happ had established himself as an integral part of the core of Chicago’s roster. Unfortunately, he got off to an extremely slow start this year. He blasted a home run in the third game of the season, but collected just nine other hits the rest of April. Heading into the All-Star break, he was hitting a paltry .183/.296/.330, good for a 74 wRC+. His early-season struggles weren’t the main reason behind the Cubs collapse this year, but they certainly didn’t help the team’s cause.

Happ continued to struggle after the break, collecting just six hits in 16 games during the rest of July. His issues at the plate had forced him into a part-time role, but then the Cubs traded away a bunch of their roster prior to the trade deadline. Suddenly, Happ was thrust into an everyday role in the heart of the Cubs lineup and he responded with one of the best two months stretches of his career:

Since the calendar turned to August, Happ has hit 14 home runs and posted a .301/.361/.607 slash line, good for a 153 wRC+. His 186 wRC+ in September is the 11th highest mark among all qualified batters in the majors. This two month stretch of success comes a bit too late for the beleaguered Cubs, but it’s a great sign for Happ’s development. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s shaping up to be a dramatic finish to the season, with surprise contenders and potential tie breaking scenarios still very much alive. With just two weeks left in the season, three teams in the National League have already punched their postseason tickets, and though nothing is official yet, the three division races in the American League have largely been decided as well. That leaves the NL East and West (the Central is all but sewn up) and the two Wild Card races still to be determined.

A quick refresher: my approach takes the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), and their starting rotation and bullpen (50%/50% FIP- and RA9-) — and combines them to create an overall team quality metric. I add in a factor for “luck” — adjusting based on a team’s expected win-loss record — to produce a power ranking.

These six teams have either already clinched a playoff berth or should clinch sometime this week. They’re also the favorites to make deep postseason runs; the Dodgers lead the pack with 20.8% odds to win the World Series. It’s a little weird to see Max Scherzer hit a major career milestone in a Dodger uniform, but he finally reached 3,000 career strikeouts last week. Since joining Los Angeles on July 30, he’s posted an absurd 0.78 ERA across nine starts with a 79-to-7 strikeout-to-walk ratio. His performance, and Walker Buehler’s season-long excellence, give the Dodgers an embarrassment of riches when it comes to who should start the NL Wild Card game should the Dodgers fail to catch up to the Giants in the West. Read the rest of this entry »

The Wild Card races in both leagues continue to be the source of all the drama down the stretch. There are a handful of teams vying for those last few playoff spots and the competition should go come to the wire. And as we witnessed last weekend, the Giants and Dodgers battling over the top of the NL West should provide a ton of excitement, too.

A quick refresher: my approach takes the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), and their starting rotation and bullpen (50%/50% FIP- and RA9-) — and combines them to create an overall team quality metric. I add in a factor for “luck” — adjusting based on a team’s expected win-loss record — to produce a power ranking.

(All stats through 9/5)

Entering their final head-to-head matchup of the season, the Dodgers and Giants were tied atop the NL West standings and had played to an extraordinary balance in their previous 16 games: they had each won eight games and scored exactly 68 runs against each other. A dramatic 11-inning Giants win on Friday night was a fantastic start to this battle of titans. Alas, the remaining two games in the series were far less climactic, with each team winning a game comfortably. That final series win gives San Francisco home field advantage in case of a potential tiebreaker to decide the NL West at the end of the season. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the biggest reasons the Mariners have stuck around the fringes of the AL wild card race despite a -60 run differential has been the collective performance of their bullpen. Kendall Graveman had established himself as a bonafide relief ace before being traded to the Astros in late-July, and Drew Steckenrider has revived his career after falling apart in Miami two years ago. But equally unexpected, and perhaps the biggest reason Seattle felt comfortable dealing Graveman at all, has been the fantastic season put together by its other breakout relief ace: Paul Sewald.

Drafted as a reliever by the Mets in the 10th round of the 2012 draft, Sewald came with two years of college experience under his belt at the University of San Diego and quickly moved through the farm system. He reached the majors in 2017 and made 125 appearances out of the bullpen through 2020, but outside of a 23.5% strikeout rate that was just a hair above league average, he was mostly forgettable as a Met; across 147.1 innings in New York, he posted a 5.50 ERA. He was non-tendered this past offseason and signed a minor-league contract with the Mariners in January.

Even though Sewald wasn’t able to make the major league roster out of spring training, he has thrived in Seattle. He was called up on May 13, the same day Jarred Kelenic and Logan Gilbert made their debuts, and while his return to the majors was much less heralded than those two top prospects, he’s arguably been more important to the Mariners this season than either. He’s upped his strikeout rate to 40.3% in 2021, the fifth highest rate among all qualified relievers, and all those strikeouts have helped him drop his FIP to just 1.95. In just 45.1 innings, he’s more than doubled his total career WAR.

Michael Ajeto of Lookout Landing was one of the first to write about Sewald’s breakout, but the reasons for his improvement are tough to spot on the surface. He’s simplified his pitch mix a bit, cutting out his rarely thrown changeup and increasing the usage of his slider to make him a two-pitch pitcher:

Both the fastball and slider are returning better-than-ever results, with the latter generating a 38.6% whiff rate and a .270 wOBA against. But as good as his breaking ball has been, the four-seam fastball has been even better. Its whiff rate is up to 35.3%, the 12th-highest mark among all four-seam fastballs thrown at least 100 times this year, and it boasts the 12th-highest CSW% (35.7) in that group.

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As the schedule hurtles towards the final month of the season, most of the division races have sorted themselves out. The real drama is in the Wild Card races in both leagues, with a handful of teams in each fighting over those last two playoff spots.

A quick refresher: my Power Rankings approach takes the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), and their starting rotation and bullpen (50%/50% FIP- and RA9-) — and combines them to create an overall team quality metric. I add in a factor for “luck” — adjusting based on a team’s expected win-loss record — to produce a power ranking.

The Giants and Dodgers continue to elevate themselves over everyone else in baseball. Over the last two weeks, Los Angeles has gone 11–2 and closed the gap with first-place San Francisco to 2.5 games. The only shame is that they’re on course for a first-round matchup in the playoffs; whoever wins the wild card will end up playing whoever doesn’t win the NL West in the win-or-go-home matchup. For the Dodgers, Trea Turner has been a catalyst atop their lineup, but Max Muncy has been driving their offense recently, launching six home runs in August and putting himself into the NL MVP conversation alongside Turner. Those two are just a decimal point behind Fernando Tatis Jr. for the WAR lead in the NL.

The Giants continue to get phenomenal contributions from their pitching staff. Even though Anthony DeSclafani just landed on the Injured List with an ankle injury, Logan Webb is primed to pick up a lot of the slack. He hasn’t allowed more than two runs in a single start since a six-run blowup in Colorado on May 5. San Francisco’s lineup has also gotten a lot healthier recently, too, with Brandon Belt, Evan Longoria, and Tommy La Stella back from their respective injuries.

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There have been very few reasons for joy in Minnesota this year. The Twins entered the season as slight favorites to win their third-straight AL Central division crown, but an early slump in April buried them in the standings and they haven’t sniffed the postseason race since. For a team with no hope of playing October baseball, the dog days of August can feel a bit monotonous — unless a little artificial excitement can be created by winning a bunch of close games. Indeed, the Twins last three wins have all been walk-offs, and to make things even more interesting, Jorge Polanco has driven in the winning run in each of them.

Each of the last 3 @Twins victories has ended with a Jorge Polanco walkoff.

He's the first player with a walkoff RBI in 3 straight team wins since David Ortiz in the 2004 playoffs, and the first in the regular season since Tony Pena in June 1982.

— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) August 18, 2021

On Sunday afternoon, the Twins were wrapping up a three-game series against the Rays. They had split the previous two games and had taken two of three from the White Sox before that. After climbing to a 4-0 lead through four innings, Minnesota’s pitching staff allowed four runs to score in the next three frames. The game went into the bottom of the ninth inning tied. Max Kepler led off with a double down the left field line and advanced to third after Austin Meadows misplayed the ball in the corner. Read the rest of this entry »

The Giants have been one of the year’s biggest surprises, leading the National League West for a large portion of the season and holding the best record in baseball since the beginning of June. Their success is due in large part to some unexpectedly resurgent seasons from their veteran core. On Friday, San Francisco rewarded one of those veterans, signing Brandon Crawford to a two-year, $32 million contract extension.

The Tigers haven’t been nearly as good as the Giants in 2021, but they’ve played some really competitive baseball after an ugly 8-19 April. A big reason for their change in fortunes has been some excellent production from Jonathan Schoop. After signing back-to-back one-year deals with Detroit the last two seasons, the team inked him to a two-year, $15 million contract extension on August 7.

Crawford, a Bay Area native, has spent his entire career with the Giants. He was selected in the fourth round of the 2008 draft and has been a fixture at shortstop since his major league debut in 2011. He’s the franchise leader in games played at at the position and was a key contributor to two World Series championships in 2012 and ’14. After the 2015 season, he signed a six-year, $75 million contract extension that would have expired at the end of this season. This new extension guarantees that Crawford remains a single-franchise player at least through his age-36 season, a feat that’s become increasingly rare in today’s game. Read the rest of this entry »

When Eloy Jiménez and Luis Robert both went down with serious injuries earlier this season, the White Sox had to scramble to cover for two of their best outfielders. Andrew Vaughn, a corner infielder by trade, was thrown into the fire as their Opening Day left fielder, and when Robert went down a month later, the options were even thinner. To make matters even more complicated, the other member of their projected preseason outfield trio, Adam Eaton, was released by the club right before the All-Star break. Despite all this turnover and turmoil, White Sox outfielders have been worth a cumulative 7.1 WAR this year, the fifth highest mark in the majors. With both Jiménez and Robert back from the injured list much earlier than expected, Chicago suddenly has outfield options to spare.

Amazingly enough, Jiménez has already accounted for 0.8 WAR in just 13 games since being activated a few weeks ago. He’s been used as the designated hitter seven times, with three of his appearances in left field coming during an interleague series against the Cubs. With Robert taking his place as the everyday center fielder, the White Sox have four or five different options to deploy in their outfield corners. When Jiménez lines up in the field, Vaughn has been used as the designated hitter or shifted over to right field. Considering the difficult circumstances Vaughn was thrown into at the start of the season, his 2021 has to be seen as a huge success. The other day, Luke Hooper broke down the swing adjustment he made in late June that has led to a surge in production over the last month and a half. Even though he hasn’t contributed very much in the field, his bat is clearly good enough to stick in the lineup as the everyday starter in left. Read the rest of this entry »