Going Bye, Untying Ties: A Look at This Year’s Remaining Races

With just 12 days left to go in the regular season, two teams — the Brewers and Phillies — have clinched playoff berths, and on Monday the latter became the first to win its division. From among the four other division races, only in the AL West and NL West are the second-place teams closer than five games out, putting the chances of a lead change in the range of low-fat milk. With the exception of those two races, the lion’s share of the remaining drama centers around the Wild Card races.

Once upon a time, this space would be filled with my reintroduction of the concept of Team Entropy, but through the 2022 Collective Bargaining Agreement, Major League Baseball and the players’ union traded the potential excitement and scheduling mayhem created by on-field tiebreakers and sudden-death Wild Card games in exchange for a larger inventory of playoff games. The 12-team, two-bye format was designed to reward the top two teams in each league by allowing them to bypass the possibility of being eliminated in best-of-three series. Often, however, things haven’t worked out that way, because outcomes in a best-of-five series are only slightly more predictable than those of a best-of-three.

Aside from the Dodgers beating the Padres in last year’s Division Series, every National League team that has earned a first-round bye under the newish system had been bounced at the first opportunity, with the Dodgers themselves falling in rather shocking fashion in both 2022 and ’23. The AL has had only one such upset in that span: the 2023 Rangers, who beat the Orioles and went on to win the World Series.

The 6-6 series record of the bye teams in the Division Series isn’t a large enough sample size from which we can draw conclusions, but it is sure to reignite the annual discussion about whether the rust induced by not playing a Wild Card series offsets the advantages — the extra rest that allows banged-up players to heal and managers to optimize their rotations. Intuitively, that explanation may make some sense, but it is not supported by the data. As research by Dan Szymborski in a piece written by Ben Clemens a couple years ago showed, in postseason matchups since 1981 where there existed a notable discrepancy in rest, with one team having a layoff of four or more days facing an opponent that had two or fewer days off, the teams with more rest went 24-11 in their next game. It’s an advantage.

With that in mind, what follows here is a look at what’s at stake over the season’s final 12 days.

Byes

At this juncture, it would probably take extreme performances — very hot or very cold streaks — to shake up the bye picture in the NL, where the Central-leading Brewers (92-59) and East-winning Phillies (91-61) have big cushions relative to the Dodgers (84-67), with the defending champions having just a 0.7% chance of claiming a bye after losing back-to-back game to the Phillies this week. In the AL, the East-leading Blue Jays (89-62) have some breathing room relative to the Central-leading Tigers (85-66), who have lost 13 of 20 and can now see the West-leading Mariners (83-68) and the second-place Astros (83-69) in their rearview mirrors. I’ll get to the two AL West teams below, but schedule-wise, the Tigers host the Guardians (79-71) for two more and then the Braves this weekend (Sept. 19–21) before traveling for three in Cleveland (Sept. 23–25) and three in Boston (Sept. 26–28).

Our Playoff Odds give Seattle a 30.3% chance of snatching a top-two seeding away, which is an order of magnitude greater than the odds of the Yankees (84-67) overcoming their five-game deficit behind the Blue Jays and claiming one of those byes (1.8%).

AL West Race

As of Friday, September 5, the Astros led the AL West by 3 1/2 games, but they’ve gone “only” 6-4 since, while the Mariners have won 10 straight to take sole possession of first place for the first time since June 1. The two teams, which have split the first 10 games of their season series, have three remaining games, with the Mariners visiting Houston this coming weekend (Sept. 19–21). It isn’t out of the question that holding the advantage in the tiebreaker could be the difference between making the playoffs and missing them, but that mainly depends upon the Guardians overtaking the Astros to slip into the third Wild Card spot. Right now the odds substantially favor the Mariners over the Astros, 67.3% to 32.6%.

Despite losing Nathan Eovaldi, Corey Seager, and Marcus Semien to injuries, the Rangers have won 16 of 24 and are now 79-73, but losing the first two games of their three-game set in Houston this week has more or less knocked them out of the division race; their odds are at 0.1%. Given their 6-6 record against the Astros, Wednesday’s game will decide that season series, but they went just 3-10 against the Mariners, which is why their road to a division title is so much harder.

In terms of the other remaining games besides the aforementioned series, the Mariners have two more in Kansas City (Sept. 17–18), then close at home with three against the Rockies (Sept. 23–25) and three against the Dodgers (Sept. 26–28). After the Astros host the Rangers and Mariners, they travel to California, first to face the A’s (Sept. 23–25) and then the Angels (Sept. 26–28). The Rangers follow their series against the Astros with three-game home series against the Marlins (Sept. 19–21) and Twins (Sept. 23–25) before traveling to face the Guardians (Sept. 26–28).

NL West Race

The Dodgers (84-67) have a two-game lead on the Padres (82-69), and they own the head-to-head tiebreaker based on their 9-4 advantage in the season series. They have the toughest schedule of any contender the rest of the way, with their series finale against the Phillies followed by their hosting the Giants for four games (Sept. 18–21), then traveling for three-game sets in Arizona (Sept. 23–25) and Seattle. San Diego’s schedule includes the remainder of a three-game series against the Mets in New York, then three against the White Sox in Chicago (Sept. 19–21) before returning home to host the Brewers (Sept. 23–25) and Diamondbacks (Sept. 26–28). The Pads’ odds of winning the division are down to 9.5%, but they’re still at 99.5% for making the playoffs.

AL East Race

It ain’t over, as a great man once (maybe) said… but I’m calling it. The Blue Jays (89-62) are in the catbird seat, as they own a five-game lead over the Yankees (84-67) and took the season series, 8-5. After their current four-game set in Tampa Bay, the Blue Jays visit Kansas City for three (Sept. 19–21) and then head back to Toronto to face the Red Sox (Sept. 23–25) and Rays (Sept. 26–28). As for the Yankees, they entered Monday with the softest remaining schedule of any contender (.467 winning percentage), but getting stomped by the Twins on Monday and then nearly blowing a 10-1 lead on Tuesday illustrates that they can’t take any matchup for granted. After one more in Minnesota, New York plays the Orioles seven times, first four in Baltimore (Sept. 18–21) and then at home (Sept. 26–28), with a three-game set hosting the White Sox (Sept. 23–25) in between.

NL Wild Card

The Cubs (87-64) have a five-game advantage over the Padres for the top Wild Card spot, and the Padres in turn have a four-game advantage over the Mets (78-73) for the second one, with the aforementioned three-game series between San Diego and New York still in progress. The real suspense concerns the third spot, as the Mets’ recent eight-game losing streak has left them just 1 1/2 games ahead of the Diamondbacks (77-75), and three ahead of the Giants and Reds (both 75-76).

The Mets don’t play any of those pursuers after they finish with the Padres; instead they host the Nationals (Sept. 19–21) before paying visits to the Cubs (Sept. 23–25) and Marlins (Sept. 26–28). New York really doesn’t want to get into a tiebreaker situation, because it doesn’t hold the advantage over any Wild Card contender except the Giants. It’s time to unlock the Team Entropy storage shed and retrieve the big board:

Mind the color-coding. The Mets earned the upper hand in their season series against the Giants but not against the Reds. Since they split their series with the Diamondbacks, the next tiebreaker between those two teams would be based upon intradivision records. The Mets have gone just 23-23 within the NL East, with six games against the division’s two worst teams still to be played; meanwhile, the Diamondbacks have gone 25-20 within the NL West, though they still have one more game against the Giants as well as the aforementioned series against the Dodgers and Padres (they also host the Phillies from Sept. 19–21). If somehow the Mets and Diamondbacks finish with the same intradivision records as well, the next tiebreaker is based on interdivision records within their own league, in which case the Mets currently hold an advantage, as they’re 18-11 against the NL West and 13-15 against the NL Central, for an aggregate record of 31-26 so far; the Diamondbacks have gone 13-14 against the NL East and 14-18 against the NL Central for an aggregate record of 27-32 — so yes, that favors the Mets, but only if they still finish with the better intradivisional record first.

The Diamondbacks clinched their season series against the Giants on Tuesday night, but they lost their season series to the Reds. As for the Reds — who have lost 16 of their past 24 games since August 19 — they hold tiebreakers over the Mets and Diamondbacks, but split their season series with the Giants. The race between those two for the better intradivision record is up in the air, albeit not exactly soaring sky high given that the Reds are 18-23 within the NL Central while the Giants are 19-25 against the NL West. All of Cincinnati’s remaining games are within the division: After two in St. Louis, the Reds host the Cubs for four (Sept. 18–21) and Pirates for three (Sept. 23–25), then close in Milwaukee (Sept. 26–28). The Giants have yet to cement a single tiebreaker in their favor, and losing to the Diamondbacks knocked their playoff probability down to 1.6%, slightly more than half the odds of the Reds’ (3.1%). After finishing its series in Arizona, San Francisco visits the Dodgers as noted, then closes with three-game sets against the Cardinals (Sept. 22–24) and Rockies (Sept. 26–28).

As for three-way ties, if the teams don’t have identical records against one another (which would be the case here), but one club had a better record against both of the others (as would be the case for the Reds in a scenario involving the Mets and Diamondbacks), that team would claim the spot. Failing that, the teams are ranked by overall winning percentage against the other tied teams, with the top one getting in; if the top two teams’ winning percentages within the scrum are tied, that tie is broken as the ones above, first by head-to-head records, then intradivision records, then interdivision records. As for four-way ties, since one team won’t have won all three season series against the others, it’s again decided first by the intra-scrum winning percentage, then intradivision winning percentage, then intraleague winning percentage, and then “Highest winning percentage in the last half of intraleague games,” with an additional game added at the front end until the tie is broken. Don’t worry your pretty heads about this one just yet; if there’s a shot of it happening, I’ll be on it next week.

AL Wild Card

Not including the AL West-leading Mariners, this one has five teams separated by 5 1/2 games from top to bottom, and all three spots up for grabs. Taking it to the big board:

If a picture is worth a thousand words, I’m hoping a table will at least cover several hundred, because space and sanity prevent me from gaming out every permutation, and I’ve already explained the AL West situation above as well as the remaining schedules of the Yankees and Red Sox.

Focusing on the information beyond the color-coding, a tiebreaker between the Yankees and Astros will depend upon intradivision records; the Yankees have seven games against the Orioles to fatten up theirs, while all of Houston’s remaining games are within its division. The Guardians have the best intradivision record of any of these teams right now, and it’s no longer mathematically possible for them to tie the Yankees in overall record while also winding up with a worse intradivsional record. Even if they were to lose all 10 remaining games against the Tigers (in Detroit for two more this week, then in Cleveland Sept. 23–25) and Twins (in Minnesota from Sept. 19–21) while the Yankees sweep the Orioles, the Guards would still have a better intradivisional record, but they wouldn’t have any hope of tying the Yankees.

If somehow the Mariners were to slip into the Wild Card pool, at this writing they have the intradivisional record advantage over the Red Sox, but the two teams are close enough that their records against the other two divisions could come into play. Boston’s record is 28-29 so far (15-13 against the AL Central, 13-16 against the AL West), while Seattle’s is 30-30 (10-20 against the AL East, 20-10 against the AL Central).

As for the last-half of intraleague games concerning the Mariners and Red Sox, or the permutations involving three or four teams, we’ll cross those bridges next week if they’re needed. The payoff won’t be nearly as high as actual tiebreaker games, sadly. This is one area where we really could use more chaos instead of less.