One month left in the MLB season

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

How do you think everything will shake out? Here are the races (the leaders, and all teams within 10 games of them):

AL East

New York
Boston 7.5 GB
Toronto 9.5 GB

AL Central

Detroit
Chicago 5 GB
Minnesota 5.5 GB

AL West

Oakland
Anaheim 7.5 GB
Texas 8.5 GB

NL East

New York
Philadelphia 15.5 GB
Florida 16.5 GB

NL Central

St. Louis
Cincinnati 3.5 GB
Houston 6 GB
Milwaukee 8 GB

NL West

Los Angeles
San Diego 3 GB
San Francisco 5 GB
Arizona 6 GB
Colorado 8.5 GB

AL Wild Card

Chicago
Minnesota .5 GB
Boston 6.5 GB
Toronto 8.5 GB
Anaheim 9 GB
Texas 10 GB

NL Wild Card

San Diego
Philadelphia .5 GB
Cincinnati .5 GB
Florida 1.5 GB
San Francisco 2 GB
Houston 3 GB
Arizona 3 GB
Atlanta 4 GB
Milwaukee 5 GB
Colorado 5.5 GB

Obviously, the most interesting race is the AL Central. The Tigers have had a comfortable lead all season, but the White Sox and Twins have slowly been creeping up. I still think the White Sox are the best all-around team in the AL, and I think they will end up winning that division. Now, it remains to be seen if the Twins can topple them too. That would be crazy. Personally, I think it will the Tigers and the White Sox who make it, with the Twins falling just short

Then, there's the crazy NL wild card. Basically, 10 mediocre teams are in the running to see who will get swept by the Mets in the first round (unless it's one of the NL East teams). I'm going to eliminate some of the pretenders right away: The Reds have given up more runs than they've scored. Their run has been kind of a fluke. They'll fall off.

San Francisco is old, Barry is not the Barry of old (I just read today that his SLG% is .200 lower than any year since 2000), Jason Schmidt is the only pitcher I trust on that team. They wont make it.

Colorado and Milwaukee have nicce little teams, and have bright futures ahead of them, but they have to leapfrog too many other teams. And I dont think they have the talent to do so

Florida has played way beyond expectations. But, they simply have too many rookies, especially in their starting rotation. Those pitchers have never thrown this many pitches in a season, and are in danger of wearing down.

I dont know how Arizona has gotten this far. Besides Brandon Webb, they dont have a single player that I think is any good. I guess thats what happens when you play in the worst division in the game, in the weaker League. The same goes for the Padres. They have very few players that I would consider "good". But soemhow, they're the wild card leaders.

Which leaves us with 2 contenders: The Phillies have the hitting (Utley, Howard, Rollins, Burrell, etc.), the Astros have the pitching (Clemens, Oswalt, Pettite)

Personally, I think the Phillies will take it. The Astros offense is TERRIBLE, and the Phillies have some decent pitchers.

Blitzkrieg

Administrator

Ah! but you forgot about my Braves.. They are somehow still in this race after a pathetic season thus far and aren't actually playing that bad right now. Andruw Jones is starting to heat up again after a little slump and the rest of team is starting to hit again as well. Then there's Smoltz who has been pitching decent, I dunno.. I'm probably just giving them a chance because it's my team but really, who is good in that pile anyway?

I think the Cards will hold on and the Mets and Dodgers will win their divisions, so that completes the NL.

Then on the AL side, I think 3 slots are already locked down. Oakland and the Yanks have leads that shouldn't be thrown away and I just think the Tigers have played too well this season to completely lose the lead. They are still 5 games up and aren't playing that bad, so I'm looking for them to hold on even though I believe the White Sox and Twins are both better now and would beat the Tigers head-to-head if they played in a series.

I'll take the White Sox to take the wild card because I think they are just a little more of a complete team then the Twins, with more talent even though the Twinkies have the big pitching at the top. Shame the Twins won't make it because if they did I might even pick them to win a round or two in the playoffs.

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

oh yeah, I did forget the Braves. Actually, I'd consider them a contender too. Smoltz has been lights out lately, and they have a pretty good line-up. I still think they're running third to the Phils and 'Stros, however.

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

On baseballprospectus.com, they do this thing where they run a simulation of the rest of the season, and figure out each team's odds of making the playoffs, based on their "expected winning percentage" (which is based on runs scored and runs allowed), strength of schedule, adjusting for home games, etc. They run the simulation 1 million times, and they note what percentage of the time the Yankees make the playoffs, the Red Sox make the playoffs, etc.

The 62-68 Atlanta Braves currently have a better chance of making the playoffs than the 71-61 Boston Red Sox.

Oh, one more crazy thing I just read: Philadelphia has 32 games remaining. All 32 are against teams that are currently below .500

Dr. Giganto

Sports Moderator

Here's the link to the BP playoff odds page:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/st...ps_oddspec.php