Team Entropy 2021: Still on the Table(s)
This is the fourth installment of this year’s Team Entropy series, my recurring look not only at the races for the remaining playoff spots but the potential for end-of-season chaos in the form of down-to-the-wire suspense and even tiebreakers. Ideally, we want more ties than the men’s department at Macy’s. If you’re new to this, please read the introduction here.
We’re down to the final six days of the 2021 regular season, and while the National League picture has cleared up somewhat thanks in part to the Cardinals’ 16-game winning streak — the Padres and Mets have finally been put out of their misery — the America League Wild Card picture is still rather dizzying, as Dan Szymborski can attest. The good news is that we’ve still got a substantial chance at bonus baseball, which is what this series is all about. Let’s dive in.
NL West and NL East
While the Brewers have officially clinched the NL Central, the Senior Circuit’s other two divisions remain in play. In the NL West, the Dodgers (100-56) suffered a stunning loss to the Diamondbacks on Saturday while the Giants (102-54) beat the Rockies, restoring San Francisco’s division lead to two games. In this unbelievable race, San Francisco has gone 37-15 since the start of August, allowing Los Angeles (37-13) to gain just one game in the standings.
Even with Brandon Belt now out due to a broken thumb, the Playoff Odds give the Giants an 83.4% chance of bringing this one home, because they not only have the lead but the easier schedule the rest of the way, as they finish by playing host to the Diamondbacks and Padres while the Dodgers host the Padres and Brewers. If the Dodgers do make up the ground and tie but don’t overtake the Giants, the tiebreaker game — which has a 13.9% chance of being necessary according to our Playoff Odds Tiebreaker page — would be played in San Francisco on the basis of their 10-9 season series edge. The winner of that game would be crowned division champion and get the NL’s top seed, while the loser would host the Wild Card Game, with whoever wins that turning around to play the NL West champion in the Division Series.
As for the NL East, the Braves (83-72) lead the Phillies (81-75) by 2 1/2 games, that after Philadelphia’s five-game winning streak came to an end with a 6-0 loss to Pittsburgh at home on Sunday. This one could be settled in short order, as the Phillies visit the Braves for a three-game set from Tuesday to Thursday. The Phillies lead the season series, 9-7, so one more win would clinch home-field advantage in a tiebreaker, but realistically they need to take at least two out of three to have even a shred of a chance; taking all three, of course, moves them into the lead.
There’s one additional headache to throw into the mix, however. The Braves’ September 16 game hosting the Rockies was postponed and never replayed; if the two East teams are within half a game of each other after Sunday — that is, after the Braves host the Mets for three while the Phillies visit the Marlins for three — they’ll need to play that makeup game on October 4 in Atlanta to determine whether an NL East tiebreaker game will be necessary. Unless the Cardinals lose all six of their remaining games and the Phillies win all six of theirs, thus creating an 87-win tie, that hypothetical NL East tiebreaker would be be a win-or-go-home situation.
NL Wild Card
Related to that, at this writing, there is still the slightest chance the second NL Wild Card spot requires a tiebreaker to settle, so let’s pull up the table:
| Team | Record | GB | Cardinals | Reds | Phillies |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cardinals | 87-69 | — | — | 9-10 | 3-4 |
| Reds | 82-75 | 5.5 | 10-9 | — | 4-2 |
| Phillies | 81-75 | 6 | 4-3 | 2-4 | — |
This scenario would only take effect if the Cardinals lose out the rest of the way while hosting the Brewers and Cubs for three apiece this week‚ while either the Phillies or the Reds run the table on the road to get to 87 wins; that would require six wins for the former against the Braves and Marlins, and five wins for the latter against the Pirates and White Sox. Both the Reds and Phillies beat the Cardinals in their respective season series and thus hold tiebreaker advantages, so either of those two teams would host the red-hot Redbirds if push comes to shove.
If somehow all three of those teams winds up tied at 87 wins — the chances of which show up as 0.0% on the Tiebreaker page (meaning that they must be less than 0.049%) — the Reds would have first dibs in the pecking order because they hold the tiebreaker on both teams, with the Phillies next and then the Cardinals. The teams would draft into the following scenario: Club A would host Club B, with the winner of the game hosting Club C to determine the Wild Card team.
AL Wild Card
If the NL sounds complicated, wait until you get a load of the AL, where five teams remain alive in the quest for the two Wild Card spots:
| Team | Record | GB | Yankees | Red Sox | Blue Jays | Mariners | A’s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yankees | 89-67 | +1 | — | 9-10 | 6-10 (0,3) | 5-2 | 4-3 |
| Red Sox | 88-68 | — | 10-9 | — | 10-9 | 4-3 | 3-3 |
| Blue Jays | 87-69 | 1 | 10-6 (3,0) | 9-10 | — | 2-4 | 5-2 |
| Mariners | 87-70 | 1.5 | 2-5 | 3-4 | 4-2 | — | 13-4 (2,0) |
| A’s | 85-72 | 3.5 | 3-4 | 3-3 | 2-5 | 4-13 (0,2) | — |
With six straight wins over the Rangers and Red Sox — the last three in dramatic, Giancarlo Stanton-powered fashion — the Yankees turned the page on an ugly 5-11 stretch and retook the Wild Card lead. They now hold an 81.5% chance of holding on, but they don’t have an easy road the rest of the way, visiting Toronto for three games and then hosting the Rays for three. Their opponents’ weighted winning percentage of .559 is the highest of any of these five contenders; here I should point out that these are based on the projected winning percentages going forward via our Projected Standings page, not season-to-date winning percentages.
The Red Sox just lost three straight to the Yankees at home, but before that, they had won seven straight. They have the thinnest schedule the rest of the way (.402 oppo win percentage) as they visit the Orioles and Nationals for three apiece, and their chances also get a boost from the mathematical inevitability that the Yankees and Blue Jays will produce three losses between them during the aforementioned series. Their 86.1% odds are the highest of these five contenders.
The Blue Jays stumbled last week, losing two of three to the Rays and managing only a split of their four-game series with the lowly Twins. They’ve got a real shot to get back into playoff position if they can beat the Yankees and then go to town on the Orioles, whom they host for the final three games of the season, but they’re clear underdogs here, with 26.9% odds.
That’s a much better place to be than either of the two West Coast teams. The Mariners have the upper hand thanks in part to their four-game sweep of the A’s in Oakland last week plus another win on Monday night, part of an 8-1 run. They finish at home, first hosting the A’s for two more games and then the Angels for three more; their odds are just 5.4%, though they more than doubled thanks to Monday night’s win. The A’s, who somehow have lost their last 10 games against the Mariners, are afterthoughts here, with odds of 0.1%.; they’ll finish on the road, heading to Houston after Seattle, but in all likelihood they’ll be finished by then.
As for the ties, the three AL East contenders have odd numbers of head-to-head games, so determining the host of a two-team play-in is straightforward. In case of three-way ties involving the beasts from the east, presumably for the two Wild Card spots — the odds of which are currently 3.7%, which ain’t nothing — the order would shake out with the Red Sox getting to pick first because they own the season series advantage over the other two teams. The Blue Jays would pick second and the Yankees third in the following scenario: Club A would host Club B, with the winner of the game becoming the top Wild Card seed. Club C would then host the A/B loser to determine the second Wild Card seed.
Supposing that the Mariners replace the Blue Jays within a three-way tie for the two spots, the Red Sox would be first in the pecking order because of their season series wins over the other two, with the Yankees picking second and the Mariners third. Same deal, with A hosting B and the winner getting the top spot, then C hosting the A/B loser and the winner of that one getting the second spot.
If it comes down to three teams for one spot — sticking with the current order, let’s suppose the Yankees get the top seed, with the Red Sox, Blue Jays, and Mariners tying for the second spot, Boston would be first in the pecking order due to the aforementioned season series wins, and then the Mariners second thanks to their season series win over the Blue Jays. The scenario follows the outline above, except that it’s A hosting B, and the winner hosting C for that one precious spot.
One more? Sure, why not. Let’s humor ourselves by putting the A’s into the mix with the Mariners and Blue Jays, which would mean that either the Yankees or the Red Sox take a nosedive, with the other team taking the top spot. The Mariners own the season series advantage on both teams and get to pick first, followed by the Blue Jays and then the A’s. Again A hosts B, winner hosts C.
As I pointed out last week, the one that gets tricky is if the Red Sox, Blue Jays, and A’s are the three tied teams. Not that it’s much of a possibility anymore given that the A’s are on life support but I think — but am not 100% sure based on the wording of the tiebreaker protocol (“If Club 1 has a better record against Clubs 2 and 3, and Club 2 has a better record against Club 3, then Club 1 chooses its designation, followed by Club 2”) — that the order would be Red Sox, Blue Jays, and A’s because while Boston and Oakland split their six games, the former has the better intradivision record (40-33 versus 36-34). Again the teams draft into the familiar scenario: Club A hosts Club B, with the winner hosting Club C.
If we somehow get a four-way tie, the pecking order is determined by combined head-to-head records against the other teams. The exact order is still up in the air thanks to the Yankees-Blue Jays series, but if we’re doing this today it would go Red Sox (24-21, .533), Blue Jays (21-20, .512, three to play), Yankees (20-22, .476, three to play), Mariners (9-11, .450). If we swap out the Mariners for the A’s, it goes Blue Jays (24-18, .571, three to play), Red Sox (23-21, .523), Yankees (19-23, .452, three to play), A’s (8-12, .400).
If the four-way tie is for the first Wild Card spot — hey, there’s a 0.3% chance! — Club A hosts B and the winner is the top Wild Card seed, while Club C hosts Club D and the winner becomes the second Wild Card seed. If the four-way tie is for the second spot (odds too small to see with the naked eye), Club A hosts Club B and Club C hosts Club D, with the A/B winner hosting the C/D winner to determine who gets that spot.
Our tiebreaker page tells us that the two-way AL tie for the second spot has the best odds of any such tie scenario, at 17.8%, with a three-way tie for the second spot at 3.1%, a three-way tie for the top spot (as noted previously) at 3.7%, and a four-way tie for the top spot at 0.2%. Via Szymborski’s separate number-crunching process, ZiPS gives 25.6% odds on some kind of three-way tie in for AL Wild Card spots, 3.4% odds on a four-way tie, and a 0.01% chance of a five-way tie, yielding a 29% chance at bonus baseball.
If we’ve still got a reasonable shot for any kind of wildness as the schedule plays out, I’ll be back sometime later in the week with another installment. In the meantime, root for chaos!
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.
The only way the Phillies get to 87 wins is by sweeping the Braves which means the most wins the Braves would be able to get in that scenario would be 87 also. So if there is an 87 win NLE tie. And if STL loses all 6 and the Reds win all 5 then we have 4 teams at 87 wins. Would the loser of the NLE 1 game then play the winner of the Reds/ Cards game to determine the WC?
Yes. MLB has a very extensive page that explains the scenarios for all combinations up to 4 teams:
https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-playoff-tiebreaker-rules
Look under the header “Two-Club Tie for Division Championship & Tie with Two Clubs Outside Division For One Wild Card Spot”
There are no scenarios for 5 team ties. It’s not clear if MLB actually has decided, or just prefers not to think about it.
I’ve noted in previous articles within this series that MLB’s competition committee has worked behind the scenes to come up with a five-way tiebreaker, but they haven’t published what they’d do because they haven’t needed it. IMO the easiest way is to identify the top two using the previously established tiebreaker procedures (combined head-to-head records, intradivision records, intraleague records), have them play for one spot (which they’ll host), and have the other three teams play two games (in the previously explained format) for the other spot as the road team. The bottom line is that it’s gonna leave a dent in the previously published schedule!
The Brewers are locked into the 2 seed in the NL, so they may be resting a lot of guys and concentrating on staying healthy and getting pitchers work against the Dodgers.
Still, A brewers team that isn’t trying to hard is probably still a tougher opponent than a Diamondbacks team that is.
Corbin Burnes is slated to pitch on Oct 2 against the Dodgers, and it wouldn’t be surprising if they save him then so he’s fully rested for the playoffs. Maybe Peralta too. Probably there will be more Hunter Strickland and Miguel Sanchez too, and more Jackie Bradley Jr and Jace Peterson than you might expect too. I doubt they’re going to be resting too many guys though.
They might rest Burnes, but maybe more likely is having him still go but just not go deep in the game. The Brewers first playoff game is October 8, so if Burnes pitches on the 2nd he would still get an extra day of rest before that game.
I’m just guessing here, but I would think a shorter start and then an extra day would be preferable unless Burnes is dealing with a real issue, which I guess would never be surprising for a pitcher going on six months of the season.
One thing the odds do not consider is that the Rays will have the no.1 seed locked up by the time they play the Yankees. They will be much more concerned with getting everyone some rest than they will putting 100% effort into those games. So, the Yankees odds are probably a little bit higher than stated based on the SOS numbers.
Hard to do much resting nowadays with rosters limited to 28 players. Right now the Rays have 13 position players and 15 pitchers on their active roster. So they can’t do much resting of position players. Maybe they’ll do a bit with their pitchers to set up their playoff rotation. But given how they tend to use their pitchers, I doubt we’ll see much of a change.
Even if they only rest 3-4 position players each game, that could take something like 10-15 WAR out of the lineup, enough to turn the Rays into a slightly-better-than-.500 team. And the ones who do play have an incentive not to risk injury.
No mention of the Astros? The Mariners could still catch them for the division!
The really fun thing about that hypothetical 3 way Cards/Reds/Phillies tie is this: it will ALSO require the Braves finishing 87-75 too, by virtue of being swept by PHI, sweeping NYM, then beating COL in that makeup game on 10/4. So, you’d have the makeup game for the Braves, THEN an NLE championship game vs PHI, with the loser entering that 3 way scrum with CIN and STL. Any additional loss by ATL clinches Philly the division, which would yield just a simple CIN-STL tiebreaker.
This is the ultimate dream of Team Entropy. Is MLB even equipped to handle this?
I think in that case they just send the Mets thru
Wow. The Mariners really did a great job sticking around this year. I’m not a Seattle fan myself, can anyone reply and describe how you feel they look for NEXT season? Are they built up for that or are they relying on rentals this year?
Not a Seattle fan, but an AL West fan. They’ve been outwinning their pythagorean record pretty aggressively (-52 run differential).
Not sure how they’ll look next year, as they’ll probably try to rebuild the left side of their infield with Seager leaving. If they sign a premium SS and move Crawford to second and Toro to third, that could be a strength.
Outfield is more of a question outside of Haniger, who may also be trade bait next year. Rotation is also nothing to write home about.
They should continue to be competitive (especially as Oakland seems to be more invested in finding a new stadium), but could regress, particularly if LAA is healthier and invests in pitching.
Depends a bit if you think Kelenic is fixed or not. He’s hit like everyone expected him to (at his peak, no less) in September, but even for a team that was ostensibly not contending he was unplayable earlier in the year. Haniger probably hangs around another year, at least until the deadline. He’s not signed long term but Julio Rodriguez is in AA so it’s not an issue. They almost certainly will need a center fielder, since Kyle Lewis cannot be relied upon to play at all, much less every day.
Infield looks okay. Toro started hot but was bad in September. He’s probably a third baseman and not a second baseman. France is probably an everyday first baseman, Crawford looks like he’s an everyday guy at short. Need a second baseman but they seem easy to find these days. They have some options to sort through at catcher; I saw them experimenting with him at third the other day which would make for an interesting utility guy. Torrens needs a lot of work to be good behind the plate but the offense is good. Raleigh has potential. Need a second baseman (or Toro to become good enough defensively to play there) but they seem to be easy to come by.
Aside from CF and 2B the big question marks are pitching. Logan Gilbert looks great and Chris Flexen looks like a viable starter. Marco Gonzalez isn’t going anywhere but isn’t actually good. Kikuchi probably will be back, they’ll decline his option and he’ll exercise his player option, but he’s also not good. They probably need one more good starter; maybe they think Matt Brash is that guy. They’ll probably be fine there eventually with Brandon Williamson, Brash, Hancock, and Kirby but 2022 should be a concern. Reliever crop was strong this year, but it’s always hard to count on repeat performance there.
I don’t know that they want to spend on the top line of starters like Rodon or Gausman but you can imagine someone like Stroman would be a possibility (or Eduardo Rodriguez if his market doesn’t materialize). There’s a pretty big shortage of CFers right now but you could see them doing something like trading for Kiermaier and/or signing Michael Taylor. I’m sure they’d love to trade for Byron Buxton but I don’t know how you value him right now. I’d at least consider seeing if I could trade for Daulton Varsho, who the D-Backs seem reluctant to put in CF. If the D-Backs really like some guys in the M’s system more than the M’s do (say, Connor Phillips, who I’ve seen some people very very high on) then I think I’m very happy with that deal. If it involves trading away Noelvi Marte I need a lot more coming back.
@sadtrombone
FWIW, Kikuchi has a 3.84 xFIP and 9.34 K/9. His BB/9 are still a bit high, but you can make an argument that he’s due for serious progress next year in his stats.
Marte is one of the top prospects in baseball, and he isn’t going anywhere. I think Kikuchi is a bit better than you said, and Marco Gonzales would help most teams in baseball as a back-end guy who can eat a lot of innings. His advanced stats are not good this year, but the actual product, 4 era is fine and one can reasonably expect him to be better as the last few years he has posted 3.5, 3.6 and 2.0 war which would prorate to 5.4 in 2020…which obviously you cannot prorate it. But to say he is not good when he has been one of the top 30 starters in baseball since 2019 seems harsh. He might not be a 2, or 3, but except maybe the Dodgers he would improve every team. I mean if you look at results over the last 4 seasons he has never had higher than a 4.00 era. So even if you cannot reasonably expect that to continue, he still has a ways to go to being “not actually good”.
With that said some prospects are going to need to pop, because when you look at their offense compared to other playoff teams they stand out…but in a bad way. They seem to have a pretty decent bullpen, and if a few of their younger starters can take a step forward their pitching should be decent as well. They just need a couple better bats. If you look at other teams free agents you could reasonably expect them to be the best team in the division by 2023, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they take another step forward next year.
Crazy to think that they are half a game out of the wc with so few games left, but that is why they play the game!
Don’t look now but Baltimore is ready for entropy.
I’m curious. What’s the worst run differential for a team that made the playoffs in the past? Mariners are attempting to pull a fast one.