Hello, Bye: Checking in on the Races for Playoff Seeding
With just 10 days left to go in the regular season, four teams — the Brewers, Dodgers, Guardians, and Yankees — have clinched playoff berths, and while just one division race has been decided, only two others have even a faint pulse. There’s still plenty of drama to be had with regards to the Wild Card races, which essentially boil down to a pair of four-to-make-three scenarios; Seattle might have been a stronger fifth in the AL if certain Mariners who reached third base didn’t insist upon taking very strange walkabouts. Beyond that, it’s also worth checking in on the jockeying for position to claim the first-round byes that go to the top two teams in each league.
Once upon a time, this space would be filled with my reintroducing readers to 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 games in exchange for a larger inventory of playoff games. The 12-team, two-bye format was designed to reward the top two teams by allowing them to bypass the possibility of being eliminated in best-of-three series. So far, 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.
In fact, the National League teams who have received byes under the newish system have lost all four Division Series since, two apiece by the Dodgers and Braves. The 111-win Dodgers were ousted by an 89-win Padres team in 2022, and then last year’s 100-win team was knocked off by the 84-win Diamondbacks. In 2022, the 101-win Braves fell to an 87-win Phillies team, and last year, after winning 104 games in the regular season, Atlanta once again was eliminated by a Philadelphia club that had finished 14 games behind the Braves in the standings. American League bye teams have had more success, going 3-1, with last year’s 90-win Rangers beating the 101-win Orioles for the lone upset. The Astros have taken care of business in both years, with their 106-win club sweeping the 90-win Mariners in 2022 and their 90-win team beating the 87-win Twins last year.
That 3-5 series record of the bye teams isn’t a large enough sample size from which we can draw conclusions, but it has stirred annual discussions 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 last year 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.
Bearing that in mind, let’s check in on the races for the two byes in each league.
National League
The Brewers clinched their second consecutive NL Central title on Wednesday, an impressive feat given that they traded ace Corbin Burnes last winter, let perennial Manager of the Year candidate Craig Counsell slip away to the rival Cubs, and lost the resurgent Christian Yelich to season-ending back surgery in August. At 88-65 with nine games to play, however, they’re at a decided disadvantage when it comes to claiming a bye, as they’re three games behind the Phillies and Dodgers (both 91-62). They have the toughest remaining schedule of that trio, with an opponents’ weighted winning percentage of .513 according to our playoff odds; they host the Diamondbacks (85-68), to whom they lost on Thursday night, for three more games in Milwaukee, then play three in Pittsburgh (71-81) before closing out the season at home against the Mets (85-68), who entered Friday tied with the Diamondbacks for the second NL Wild Card position. (The Mets hold the tiebreaker there.) Factoring in their losses in the season series to both Philadelphia (2-4) and Los Angeles (3-4), at this writing our odds give the Brewers just a 3.6% chance of claiming a bye.
The Phillies are the team in the drivers’ seat here. Because they won their season series against the Brewers (4-2), Dodgers (5-1), and Padres (5-1) — the latter of whom is still alive in this context, as I’ll explain below — they would win a tiebreaker against each of those teams if they wind up with the same record. They play three more against the Mets at Citi Field, then head home to face the Cubs (78-75), and close the season by visiting the Nationals (68-85). Our playoff odds give Philadelphia a 97.6% chance of clinching a bye, the highest of any team in either league.
The Dodgers clinched their 12th straight playoff appearance on Thursday, courtesy of Shohei Ohtani’s 50/50 fireworks show in Miami. They’re in good but not great shape in this context, and not just because their rotation has been decimated to the point that both Tyler Glasnow and Gavin Stone, their only pitchers who have thrown more than 90 innings this season, have been ruled out for the postseason due to arm injuries. While they have by far the easiest schedule of any team the rest of the way (.452 strength of schedule), in between their two three-game series with the Rockies (at home this weekend, at Coors Field for the final one), they face the Padres (87-66) for three in Los Angeles from September 24-26. San Diego has already clinched the season series between the two teams by dint of its 7-3 head-to-head record thus far, so if the two teams were to finish with the same record, the Dodgers would be a Wild Card team. If they do win the division and somehow finish with the same record as the Brewers, the Dodgers hold the tiebreaker, having gone 4-3 against Milwaukee. Thus our playoff odds still give them a 92.7% chance of claiming a bye and a 93.7% chance of winning the division, but the door remains ajar.
The Padres, who lead the NL Wild Card race, might get whiplash given the jarring contrast between the team they close out their regular season home schedule with this weekend, the decrepit White Sox (36-117), and their road trips to Los Angeles and Arizona. In addition to owning a tiebreaker over the Dodgers, they also own one over the Brewers, against whom they went 5-2 this season. Those two aces in the hole help to improve their odds to a 6.3% chance of winning the division and a 5.8% chance of claiming a bye — not huge, but they have the best chance of crashing this party.
American League
As with the NL, the race for the two AL byes boils down to four teams, with two of them extremely heavily favored at this point. One of those two spots is virtually certain to go to whichever club wins the AL East. With six wins in their last eight games, the Yankees (89-64) have widened their division lead over the Orioles (85-68) from half a game to four games. That’s boosted their odds of winning the AL East to 95.9%, with their odds of claiming a bye essentially the same (95.8%). With a .495 strength of schedule the rest of the way, they don’t entirely have a cakewalk. In addition to three games in Oakland, they have three very important ones at home against the Orioles (September 24-26) before closing the season with three hosting the Pirates.
The Orioles haven’t had a winning month since June, going 32-37 since the start of July, 27-30 since the All-Star break, and 7-9 this month. Not only do they have to overcome their four-game deficit in the AL East race, they have to do it against the toughest slate for a remaining AL contender (.532 strength of schedule), hosting the surging Tigers — who at 80-73 are tied with the Twins for the third AL Wild Card spot — for three, then going on the road to face the Yankees and Twins. Note that the O’s currently lead the Yankees 6-4 in their head-to-head series; at the very least, capturing the season series and thus the tiebreaker is of vital importance. Baltimore’s odds of claiming the bye are down to 4.0%. It’s not great.
The Guardians (89-65) just took three out of four from the reeling Twins, cutting their magic number to clinch the AL Central to three. They finish up their season with three games against the Cardinals (77-76) in St. Louis, followed by five at home — two against the Reds (74-80) and three against the Astros (83-70). If the Guardians do finish with the same record as the Yankees, they’d be they second seed because they lost the season series, 4-2. Cleveland is also down 2-1 in the season series with the Astros, on the off chance that one comes down to a tiebreaker.
It’s tough to believe that tiebreaker would be necessary given that Houston needs to make up a six-game advantage with nine to play. The Astros host a dreadful Angels squad (62-91), whom they beat Thursday night, for three more games this weekend, then the Mariners (78-75) for three before traveling to Cleveland for the final weekend. Tiebreaker-wise, Houston won the season series against the Orioles (5-2) but lost the one with the Yankees (1-6).
I wish I could tell you this is all going to be as exciting as the final couple of weeks were in the before times, but this ain’t Team Entropy. Still, there’s something at stake for each of the aforementioned teams, and as noted, there’s still some meat on those Wild Card bones. We’ll catch up on those races soon.
Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
As a Guardians fan, I just want to thank the Tigers and Pirates for keeping KC off our backs.
The question of the value of the bye raises its head again and the rest versus rust debate is one that has been beaten to shreds over the course of sports history. My two cents comes from a history of playing professional golf for many years. I was good, but not quite good enough, and made a few starts on the PGA Tour while being a force in local and regional events. There is absolutely no question that when I was playing well the last thing I wanted was a break in my routine. When things were going well the body and, perhaps even more importantly, the mind find a way produce the desired results even as a long season drags on. I want to emphasize that it is the routine that makes it so. Do I want to feel stronger or fresher, NO!, I want to feel the same! It strikes me that a rest of several days to a player accustomed to a schedule that only has an occasional single day off creates a real chance to lose that precise balance that is required to perform at their best.
I’m of two minds of it. As a college pitcher, an extra day or two of rest was always welcome, and it could really help you get into a better groove if you were feeling off. But my position player teammates hated rest days when they were playing well, and felt like they needed to get in the cages or run drills just to keep some edge. I think with pitchers, we’re more used to gaps in playing time because we don’t pitch every day, but for position players it’s the opposite and can throw them off.
That’d be interesting to see if teams who were more pitching-heavy for their results did better than hitting-heavies after a break.
There’s probably not enough playoff data to get past the noise, but you might be able to do the same investigation looking at teams coming out of the all-star break.
I can relate to position players wanting to maintain their routine but not having pitched I have questioned usage patterns from the outside looking in. I have lived through the years of 4 man rotations and the 5 man rotations that have been the basis of starting since the late 60’s and early 70’s. In a quick check I found the 1967 Cardinals to be the first team to have 5 pitchers start 20+ games. The question of pitcher usage is probably the most discussed facet of the game. Pitchers arms fell off in the 50’s and the 60’s and there was no Tommy John surgery to reattach them but, at the same time, many pitched for years carrying innings loads that look ridiculous to us today. I am breaking no new ground when I say that there seems to still be no answers to why some arms fall off and some don’t. I look back at the great Braves staff during the time that Leo Mazzone was the pitching coach and his philosophy was to have Maddox, Smoltz, Glavine and Millwood throw a lot between starts. Only Smoltz broke down and he came back to pitch 21 seasons. Today there is talk of 6 man rotations but there is no evidence that this is going to slow down the rate of injuries. In the meantime teams can’t even find enough healthy arms to send out a major league quality pitcher every 5 games. As of today not a single pitcher has thrown 200 innings, from 1962-1967 between 42 and 47 pitchers reached that level and many of these men were the same ones year after year. I have no answer but I miss the days when Bob Gibson said to his manager “What are you doing out here?”
There’s something everyone is forgetting. No matter how much of an advantage or disadvantage rest versus rust may be, it is easily more than made up for by having a 100% chance of advancing past the Wild Card round! Only needing to win 3 series instead of 4 to become champions, especially when skipping past the shortest series, is a huge advantage in of itself!
There can be no debate that percentage wise the team that only has to win 3 series has better odds to win it all but once that first series is over I tend to think that the winner of the 3 game series has a slight advantage over the team that has the forced layoff.
Both can be true: Before the WC series, I’d rather my team have the bye. After the WC series, I’d rather be the winning WC team.
It also depends on how many games the first series went. If that original series goes 5, their pitching might not be lined up well for the division series
That isn’t the case because the wild card series are only best of 3.
You’re right. I could’ve sworn it was 5.
I’d still rather be the team that can go SP1/SP2/SP3/SP4/SP1 or 1/2/3/1/2 in the LDS than a team forced to go 4/1/2/3/4 or 3/4/1/2/3. In a generic sense of course. Not every team has a huge gap between SP but if you have a certified Ace, you’ll want that bye every single time.
There will never be another Bobby Thomson. Or I guess Bucky Dent.
never say never- would anyone be surprised if MLB changed playoff formats again and decided to add back in sudden death play in games?
I’m not sure if the subject has been raised, but with teams playing each other an equal amount, what the point in having 3 divisions anymore? You can just have 2 leagues AL and NL and seed from there. Or you can have it like college football where say there’s 2 divisions for the AL and then have the champion from one play the other for a trip to the series. You can even move teams from AL to NL or vice versa
Teams don’t play each other an equal amount. You play each team in your division 13 times in a season, then either 6 or 7 games against the other teams in your league. Then interleague is a 3 games series for each team except your “rival” which is 4 games.