The Mariners are hot. Winners of eight straight and 16 of their last 19, Seattle has moved even with the offensively prolific Blue Jays for the American League’s final playoff spot, turning from a firm trade deadline seller to an expected buyer in the matter of three weeks.
The Orioles are hot. Winners of eight straight themselves, Baltimore has climbed to just a game below .500, and at just two games back of the Blue Jays and Mariners, close enough to the playoff chase that a good week here in Wrigleyville and Tampa Bay could leave them weighing the benefits of chasing a playoff berth as they enter their well-earned All-Star Break.
The Tigers were hot. Before losing on Saturday and Sunday to the White Sox, Detroit had won six straight and ten of their last 14, pulling at one point within ten games of the heartily-doubted first-place Twins. Eight games separate the Tigers from their own All-Star Break, and between those and the two immediately after, each comes against a team which currently sports a losing record. After those? A two-game set in Detroit against the division leaders. The Tigers are down, but they’re not dead yet.
Surprising July stretches like these are complicated. Thrilling but dangerous, they can invigorate fanbases, sometimes incentivizing front offices to wantonly ditch the long game in favor of a tiny slice of a short-term chance. In 2015, the White Sox won seven in a row in the week before the trade deadline, convinced themselves not to sell, then limped to a 4th-place finish in the AL Central, ten games below .500. In 2021, the Mariners got hot and stayed hot, going from four games below .500 on June 12th to the brink of a playoff appearance, a run decorated with Ted Lasso “Believe” posters and scintillating enough to make the Mariners trendy entering this year, something they’ve recaptured in this recent run of victory.
It’s dangerous, with these, to examine how realistic the chances are. Become too familiar with probability, and sports can lose some of their joy. Sometimes it’s better to not know the odds, to simply—as the 2021 Mariners would put it—believe. But there’s an angle, too, where knowing the odds can make triumph even sweeter.
So, for whatever it’s worth, here’s how these three stack up:
The Mariners are a legitimate playoff contender. Entering play today, Seattle is, as mentioned, tied for the final Wild Card spot, with FanGraphs giving the franchise a 45.4% chance of earning its fifth playoff appearance in franchise history, its first since that 116-win season back in 2001. On paper, the M’s are right in the middle of the American League in quality, but they’re close enough to the Rays, and should benefit enough from not having to play the grueling AL East schedule that the Rays and Red Sox will play (the Blue Jays have gotten much of the worst of their schedule out of the way) that with Jerry Dipoto’s expected trade deadline activity they really should be expected to compete for a playoff appearance. They’re in that tenuous territory around 50% playoff likelihood in which a bad week can torpedo their chances and a great week can lift them to presumptive October plans.
The Orioles are not in this territory, and they’re not expected to get there. Of the five AL East teams, their remaining schedule is the most daunting. This comes through the unfortunate reality of who they are: When you’re the Orioles, you don’t get to play the Orioles. When you’re the Yankees, you don’t have to play the Yankees. The probability of an Orioles’ playoff berth is still, per FanGraphs, just 1.6%, and on paper, only two American League rosters are worse than the one in Baltimore. At this point, the discussion regarding the Orioles’ trade deadline activity revolves more around whether they’d trade Cedric Mullins II, who’s under club control through 2025, than whether they’d consider buying. The Orioles aren’t driving that discussion—they’re reportedly telling teams no when asked—but the question isn’t even about contending in 2023 for the O’s right now. It’s about 2025. Such is life in the AL East.
In most ways, matters are worse for the Tigers. Only 0.5% playoff-likely, per FanGraphs, the Tigers are a long, long, longshot, with yesterday’s loss especially pouring water on the flame of hope in Detroit. They were considered by some (I say this sheepishly, I was “some”) to be a year away last year, but Eduardo Rodriguez is M.I.A., Javy Báez has struggled mightily, and the rest of the roster hasn’t blossomed as hoped. The recent stretch was tantalizing, but it didn’t get to the point where many even found that hope to begin with. Alas. The Tigers are likely not a factor in the months ahead aside from how much Michael Fulmer can bolster a contender’s bullpen.
Again, though, this is just what the numbers say. Sometimes, the numbers are wrong, and sometimes, the numbers are right but in the way where if one says 200 separate things are each a 1-in-200 likelihood, one is saying one of the 200 things should, on average, come to pass. Yes, Lloyd Christmas, I’m telling you there’s a chance.
Perhaps I’m too much a sentimentalist, but I get emotional still watching video clips from that night last fall, on the eve of October, when Jarred Kelenic held the Believe sign aloft as his team, dead to rights even four days prior, continued to do the near-unbelievable. This Mariners run doesn’t have quite the same degree of unexpectedness—the surprise of this run is in part a result of the Mariners’ early-season underperformance—but it does have the joy, and unlikely as it seems, there’s a sense as well that something special is happening in Maryland. Tigers fans, I’m sorry. You do probably have to wait. But those who love the Orioles? Go ahead and hope. At least for a few more weeks. And Mariners fans: Get those yellow signs ready. The sequel’s tough to pull off, but it’s where the money gets made.
Baseball Gets Busy
Lots happening in the baseball world, even beyond emotional July winning streaks. We’ll start with the news, then cover the on-field stuff from this weekend:
- All-Star rosters were announced over the weekend, and I don’t have much to say at the moment about the selections or the selection process—I’ll probably have a little more next week, when the All-Star Game itself rolls around—but it’s been neat hearing about the emotional side of players being told they’re going for the first time. We aren’t on the level of those scholarship videos a few years ago, but it’s cool. It’s special to see someone’s emotions, or at least hear about them, at the moment of one of their greatest personal triumphs. It’s moving to see someone’s lifetime of work pay off. And there’s some connection that happens when celebrating that triumph with them. Something human I can’t quite articulate.
- Talks are heating back up about the international draft, something MLB says it wants because international prospect signings are too unregulated and therefore messy but players say MLB wants because it lets them cap prospects’ earnings and keep them from signing with their preferred teams. Should the international draft come to exist—something that would require both MLB and the MLBPA to agree on a format—the qualifying offer system would cease to exist, not through some direct consequence but as part of the deal reached this offseason to end the lockout. What should happen? Well, drafts are certainly bad for players—imagine not being able to choose your employer within a given industry—and as the Players Association has pointed out, if teams really cared about the wild-west nature of prospect development in some of these countries, they’d enforce the rules which already exist to regulate it. In the end, it’s an ugly discussion, just as all baseball labor relations are. Certain bad franchises are trying to get their mediocrity further subsidized. Other franchises are willing to trade competitive advantages for cash. Current Major League players are choosing just how much they value those following in their footsteps relative to how they value their own paychecks. There are humanitarian questions with unknown answers and a media ill-equipped and ill-incentivized to ask them, let alone get answers. It’s one of those situations that leaves everyone looking bad.
- It’s rare to see draft picks traded in baseball, because most can’t be traded and there are complicated rules regarding those which can be dealt. Still, the Royals and Atlanta agreed on a trade yesterday sending Kansas City’s Competitive Balance pick (a subsidy for small-market teams, and the 35th overall selection) to Georgia in exchange for three prospects, all of which have value but none of which are highly-touted. It’s value for value, with the benefit for the Royals being that they can lower their bonus slot pool, getting to spend less money in the draft, which is nearly as ridiculous as it sounds.
- In more conventional trades: The Rays picked up Christian Bethancourt from the A’s on Saturday in exchange for two fringy minor leaguers. Bethancourt, who’s been a league-average hitter in his return to the majors after a five-year absence, should help Tampa Bay solidify its catching situation both before and after the eventual hoped-for activation of Mike Zunino from the injured list. Elsewhere, Atlanta picked up Robinson Cano from the Padres for cash. If this goes like Atlanta reclamation projects last year…look out.
- Yordan Álvarez, the best hitter in baseball so far this year, is going on the IL with a hand injury that’s evidently been nagging him. You may remember that Álvarez dodged the IL after an on-field collision a couple weeks ago. No such luck here.
- The Rays lost Wander Franco to the IL again. He’s going to have hand surgery and will miss five to eight weeks. They’ve also lost Kevin Kiermaier and Jeffrey Springs to injury, with the former’s hip still not right and the latter experiencing a leg issue.
- James McCann hit the IL with an oblique injury, further opening the market for catchers at the trade deadline. Unclear how long he’ll be out. Starling Marte, meanwhile, is day-to-day with a groin injury.
- Bryan Reynolds also hit the IL with an oblique injury, and while the Pirates are out of contention and would be foolish to trade Reynolds for anything shy of roughly two tons of solid gold (they would do this, to be clear, this is who the Pirates are, and it’s admirable commitment to the nickname), it’s still a blow to the organization. You want health. You always want health.
- Kevin Gausman missed another start, but the Blue Jays continue to hope he can return this week.
- Mitch Garver had surgery today to repair the flexor tendon in his throwing forearm, finishing a season which ended with him playing this weekend despite surgery having already been scheduled. In three games against his former Twins, the catcher (DH, given the injury) reached base five times while making thousands wonder how painful, exactly, a torn flexor tendon is.
- The Mariners have been busy with roster moves, placing Ken Giles on the IL with shoulder inflammation, George Kirby on their minor league roster to grab a little rest ahead of the pennant chase, and top-100 prospect Matt Brash in the major league bullpen (the summary on Brash is that they brought him up aggressively as a starter, it didn’t go well, and they sent him down to AAA to see if he could be a serviceable reliever this year, a question that seems to have been affirmatively answered), among other moves.
- The Reds got catcher-of-the-future Tyler Stephenson back after the 25-year-old spent a month sidelined with a broken thumb. In bad Reds news, Vladimir Gutierrez will have Tommy John surgery.
- On the other side of the division, the Cardinals got journeyman outfielder Corey Dickerson back after a month sidelined with a calf strain. Dickerson’s return comes at a good time for the Cardinals, for whom Tyler O’Neill suffered a setback last week when he was hit in the wrist with a pitch while rehabbing his strained hamstring and Harrison Bader continues to ail with plantar fasciitis. The other news of the day in St. Louis? Jack Flaherty’s been transferred onto the 60-day IL. Not a huge surprise, but a frustrating situation for the Cards.
- Padres bullpenner Craig Stammen was placed on the IL this weekend with shoulder inflammation. One-time something-of-an-ace Dinelson Lamet was recalled to take his place.
- The Red Sox placed utility man Christian Arroyo on the IL with a groin strain. Jeter Downs came up to take his place. Not a slam-dunk prospect, but one worth watching.
- The Austin Meadows injury situation drags on for the Tigers. His rehab assignment is being stopped due to the twin Achilles problems. God bless Detroit.
On the field:
- Keying the Mariners’ four-game sweep of the Blue Jays, one that featured late-inning comebacks in the two weekend games that didn’t go to extra innings, was Carlos Santana, who homered once on Saturday and twice yesterday. Trouble in Toronto.
- Carlos Rodón went the distance for the Giants on Saturday, and Wilmer Flores’ home run was only a precursor to a monster four-hit, two-dinger day yesterday as San Francisco rallied from losses Thursday and Friday to salvage a split against the Padres. The Giants are now two games back of Philadelphia for the final wild card spot, with St. Louis directly in between them.
- The Phillies and Cardinals wrap up a four-game set tonight in an unusual Monday finale. The Phillies took the first two. The Cardinals won yesterday. Albert Pujols hit his fifth home run of the year. Kyle Schwarber hit his 28th.
- Atlanta swept the Nationals, and with the Mets splitting four against the Marlins the East is down to a 1.5-game split. All that lead, evaporated, and the Mets haven’t really been playing badly. Big series between those two starts in Georgia tonight.
- The White Sox took those last two games of the weekend series against the Tigers while the Guardians limped through a series loss to the Royals and the Twins narrowly avoided a sweep at the hands of Corey Seager and the Rangers. Just when we’re ready to put the tombstone up over the White Sox, they win a couple ballgames. They’re half a game back of Cleveland and five back of Minnesota.
- The Dodgers made life miserable for the Cubs, who led by three on Friday, one (twice) on Saturday, and five (twice) yesterday but managed to lose all three, making it a four-game sweep in California. At least Ian Happ’s an All-Star, and at least Willson Contreras is playing again (and an All-Star starter!), and at least Marcus Stroman looked good in his return, and at least Drew Smyly’s back even if it went badly. Los Angeles is now more than 90% likely to win the West, per FanGraphs, having really run away with things these last couple weeks.
- The Orioles’ sweep came against the Angels, for whom the question is rapidly becoming: Who to sell? The problem, of course, is that outside of Noah Syndergaard the Angels hardly have anybody who’s both valuable and not under a long contract. So the answer is, uh, Noah Syndergaard, who will probably not fetch a top prospect.
- The Brewers lost two of three against the Pirates, keeping their lead over the Cardinals at two and a half games. The Central Divisions’ leaders have the seventh and ninth-best records in baseball, respectively, despite each getting to play a lot of games against their own respective divisions.
- And finally, the Red Sox rallied in the eighth on Saturday to tie a ballgame they’d eventually win, then rallied in the fifth through seventh last night to take the lead in a game that had started brutally against the Yankees. Series split, Yankees middle reliever Aroldis Chapman took the loss last night.
In other Cubs news (sorry, couldn’t fit it all in the bullet above), Michael Rucker was optioned to AAA to make room for Smyly, Justin Steele went on the Paternity List but should return this week (best of luck to their family!), and Nick Madrigal’s rehab has been paused due to groin tightness. Day off today, Orioles in town tomorrow.
This Shit’s WAC
No conference realignment news today of note, because it’s a Monday and I think we’re still waiting for ESPN or McKinsey or whoever’s doing the analysis to tell the Pac-12 and ACC nobody wants to watch their partnership, but the WAC’s falling apart, so let’s talk about that.
The WAC is attempting reincarnation, having fallen victim to one of the last rounds of realignment but surviving long enough in other sports to attempt a comeback at the FCS level. Last year, in an alignment with the Atlantic Sun (yes, the Atlantic Sun), the league had half of an FCS automatic playoff bid. Today, Lamar announced that their return to the Southland would be effective immediately, rather than something that took place in a year, as was the case a few weeks ago. This comes on the heels of Incarnate Word backing out on a similar move, opting to stay in the Southland themselves, and: When you’re losing teams to the Southland, you’re not in a great spot. The Southland’s a fine FCS league, but they aren’t the WAC’s desired rival.
Where’s the WAC left? It’s a six-team league in football sharing the automatic bid with the Atlantic Sun again, with Abilene Christian, Southern Utah, Stephen F. Austin, Tarleton State, and Utah Tech joining banner-carrier Sam Houston State in the Bearkats’ final year before joining Conference USA. In other sports, excluding some with affiliate members, Cal Baptist, Grand Canyon, Seattle, UT-Arlington, UT-Rio Grande Valley, Utah Tech (formerly Dixie State), and Utah Valley join outgoing New Mexico State (also joining Conference USA next year) to make it a 14-school league that will soon be a 12-school league. That’s a stable number, but if teams are backing out of joining your conference or—and this is probably even worse—leaving your conference with no notice, you are not a stable organization. The WAC is not back.
Undeterred by Lamar’s decision, or perhaps unaware of Lamar’s decision (I do not know the legal situation but if Lamar’s confident it can walk, I’d imagine any buyout isn’t too expensive), the WAC announced today that in men’s basketball, rather than seeding its conference tournament by conference record, it will seed its conference tournament using a Ken Pomeroy-developed formula which measures résumé using a system centered around NET. The formula is effectively just NET-based SOR, and it sounds like it’s going to include nonconference games.
You may be wondering what in the world is possessing the WAC to do this, and if your guess is “money,” you’re correct. Conferences get more money if their teams win games in the NCAA Tournament, so it’s in conferences’ interests to get their best team to the tournament, making it advantageous to give the best team the best seed. Conference tournaments, meanwhile, also presumably make money, so the WAC doesn’t want to just give the regular season champion the bid (also, last year there was a messy tie atop the conference standings even though New Mexico State was the best team, which may be part of why the league decided to go this route). Last year, they tried the ladder bracket, used in the WCC and OVC, where only two games are played a day, so that the two best teams receive byes to the semifinals, the third and fourth receive byes to the quarterfinals, etc. But they’ll be switching to a more open bracket system this year as well, presumably because—money—they want their best teams to play more than two games.
It’s an attempt to have their cake and eat it too, but it doesn’t seem worth it. Forcing the best team to enter in the quarterfinals rather than the semifinals is a meaningful disadvantage, and relying on NET-based SOR designed by Ken Pomeroy is about the best way possible to design this formula, but it’s not going to seismically change the picture. It’s a marketing gimmick, mainly, and not a good one. There’s an elegance to leagues with double round-robins and small conference tournaments, and there was really an elegance to the Ivy League back when it didn’t have a conference tournament at all. Ad revenue wins out, and I get that, but I struggle to see how gimmickry is good for the long-term prospects of a league. No wonder Lamar threw its hands up. The WAC isn’t trying to survive. It’s just trying to collect as much short-term cash as it can. Which is its prerogative, and could turn out well for the schools, but feels short-sighted and risky to me. It’s the University of Phoenix of athletic conferences, and I don’t see how that gets any of the schools anywhere satisfying.
150-to-1
We were so close.
Yesterday, in our best bets, we took Corey LaJoie at 150-to-1 odds to win NASCAR’s Cup Series race at Atlanta based on 1) Atlanta’s change this offseason to a superspeedway-like configuration and 2) LaJoie’s historic ability to survive superspeedway races. He did not win. He didn’t even finish the race, in the end. But dammit, was it close.
With only three or four laps to go, LaJoie was out in front of a hard-charging, recently restarted field. A wreck somewhere in the field felt inevitable, with the bigger questions than whether it would happen being whether it would come with him still in the lead and whether it would come before the white flag, something that would have resulted in an overtime restart and potentially set the clock ticking on the underdog’s fuel mileage. In the end, LaJoie couldn’t hold off Chase Elliott long enough to get that white flag, and when the wreck did happen, it was LaJoie himself in the thick of it, as his last-ditch, low-probability attempt to swing past the sport’s golden boy went awry.
LaJoie was thoughtful, wistful, and understandably pleased after the race, but enough about LaJoie. This was a big deal for us. Our bets are firmly in the red, and while our futures portfolios in baseball and politics should be enough to wipe out the deficit, we’re still nearly four months away from both of those fully paying out, and there’s no guarantee we’ll make enough to fully erase our losses, let alone set us up for wins. 150 units would have been nice. 150 units would have been really, really nice. Quantified, 150 units would have taken us from an average return, per unit, of -5% to an average return of -1.6%, a deficit almost guaranteed to be wiped out by baseball alone, with the midterms bets just frosting.
Alas. We’ll wait for Daytona for the next great day for longshots.
On the F1 side, we lost as well, though that was pretty meaningless to the ledger. Max Verstappen, the assumed winner, was simply outrun by Charles Leclerc, at least briefly inserting some semblance of competition into the “championship race.” With Sergio Pérez wrecking out, Leclerc moved at least briefly well clear of the Mexican for second in the standings. Verstappen remains 38 points ahead, and Red Bull leads Ferrari by 56 on the constructor side.
Max Contract, Min Contract
Friday afternoon, word got out (through Shams Charania, I believe) that Damian Lillard is signing a contract extension with the Blazers which should keep him in Portland through the 2026-27 season. The Blazers have long been two or three steps away from true contention, but the plan remains to continue to attempt to construct a contender around Lillard rather than start a full rebuild. Lillard’s only 31, so there’s time, but skepticism is understandably high on the potential for true title relevance there, even if there isn’t a clear alternative approach at the moment.
Meanwhile, former Knick Taj Gibson is signing with the Wizards. One year, league minimum. Gibson turned 37 a few weeks ago.
From Summer League:
- James Wiseman played. I’m pretty sure it was his first NBA action in fifteen months, though the Warriors did get their hopes up in March only to shut Wiseman down when his knee swelled after three G-League games. The injury that started this absence was a meniscus tear.
- Jaden Ivey rolled his ankle during the Pistons’ game Saturday against the Wizards. His status for the remainder of Summer League, which I believe runs through this coming Sunday, is unclear, as is the extent of the injury.
- Bringing things back to the Blazers, Shaedon Sharpe will not be playing again in Summer League. Small labral tear in his shoulder.
Forsberg, DeAngelo, Georgiev
My understanding of the significance of the current headlines on Pro Hockey Rumors is that:
- Duncan Keith retiring is noteworthy because he was good.
- Filip Forsberg being extended for eight years in Nashville is noteworthy because he is good.
- The Flyers grabbing Tony DeAngelo last week and then extending him is noteworthy because Brad Marchand will get to tell refs how racist DeAngelo is slightly less often, as the Flyers are in the Metropolitan Division and the Bruins (and Hurricanes) are in the Atlantic.
- The Avalanche extending Alexandar Georgiev was expected, so it isn’t exactly noteworthy, but hey we didn’t mention that Darcy Kuemper, whose name we know from this year’s playoffs, is going to be a free agent.
How’d we do?
**
Viewing schedule, second screen rotation in italics:
- 2:10 PM EDT: Detroit @ Kansas City – Game 1, Pineda vs. Keller (MLB TV/ESPN+)
- 7:10 PM EDT: Boston @ Tampa Bay, Bello vs. Wisler (MLB TV)
- 7:10 PM EDT: Chicago (AL) @ Cleveland, Lynn vs. Quantrill (MLB TV)
- 7:15 PM EDT: Philadelphia @ St. Louis, Nola vs. Mikolas (MLB TV)
- 7:20 PM EDT: New York (NL) @ Atlanta, Scherzer vs. Fried (FS1)
- 9:45 PM EDT: Arizona @ San Francisco, Kelly vs. Cobb (MLB TV)
