A month and a half ago, roughly, on Opening Day, we—with a lot of help from FanGraphs’s Playoff Odds—categorized this year’s Major League Baseball teams as follows:
- Playoff Locks: Los Angeles, Toronto, Atlanta, New York (AL), Houston
- Probably Playoffs: Milwaukee, San Diego, Chicago (AL)
- Upside, Downside: New York (NL), Boston, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, San Francisco, Anaheim, Minnesota
- There if Something Happens: St. Louis, Miami, Seattle
- Bad, But Maybe: Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Texas, Chicago (NL)
- Explicitly Rebuilding: Washington, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Arizona, Colorado, Baltimore
We’re now a little more than a fifth of the way into the year, and to use a similar dichotomy, I’d break it down as follows:
- Playoff Locks: New York (AL), Houston, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Toronto
- Good Start, Probably Playoffs: San Diego, New York (NL), Anaheim, San Francisco
- Bad Start, Probably Playoffs: Chicago (AL), Atlanta
- The Rays: Tampa Bay
- In the Mix: Minnesota, St. Louis, Philadelphia
- Reeling, but Alive: Boston
- Believable: Miami, Cleveland, Seattle
- Bad, But Maybe: Texas, Chicago (NL), Detroit, Kansas City, Arizona
- Explicitly Rebuilding: Colorado, Cincinnati, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Washington, Baltimore
First, an acknowledgment that “Playoff Locks” is a misnomer, as evidenced by Atlanta falling out of that category. It’s a stretch. No team is yet an actual playoff lock. Some (the Yankees) are close, but no one is a full-on lock. Humanity, however, can only handle so much uncertainty. So for today, we will put our faith in the Blue Jays.
Second, let’s go through by category:
Playoff Locks
The Yankees have made this clearer than it was before, but while they weren’t expected to start the year on a 120-win pace, they were expected to be good, and they are. The Astros and Dodgers have not disappointed. The Blue Jays have disappointed a little but are fine. The Brewers have established themselves as the biggest division favorite in the game, which is an impressive spot to be, albeit one aided by thorough mediocrity beneath the Cardinals. They’re also one of four teams with a World Series probability at ten percent or higher, which is also impressive, and is less Cubs/Pirates/Reds-enhanced. The Brewers are impressive right now.
Good Start, Probably Playoffs
The Padres aren’t really surprising, but the quality of their start does draw some eyes. Quite the bounceback after last year’s stretch meltdown. The Mets have arguably been the most positively surprising team in baseball this year, especially if your baseline is what we thought of them on Opening Day, when Jacob deGrom had more recently been sidelined and there were raw concerns about Max Scherzer’s health. The Angels and Giants have played great baseball, and while we knew they were capable of that, we didn’t know if they’d actually do it.
Bad Start, Probably Playoffs
The World Series hangover has come hard for Atlanta, while no such excuse exists for the American League club in Chicago. Each should be fine to make the playoff field (the White Sox will probably win their division, in the end), but they would each prefer to have a winning record today.
The Rays
Are the Rays going to make the playoffs? I think so. FanGraphs agrees, but it does have Tampa Bay behind the “Bad Start, Probably Playoffs” pair in playoff probability. Why is this? My guess would be that it’s the Rays’ unconventional approach. It’s hard for models to handle outliers, and with the way the Rays manage games, manage rosters, and skew young, they are an outlier. This doesn’t always mean FanGraphs will underestimate the Rays, but they outdid their estimates last year and they’re at it again. They belong with the Angels and Giants more than with the White Sox and Atlanta, but…we also trust FanGraphs, as a rule.
In the Mix
The Twins? Trending up, though lately more static. The Cardinals? I’d say trending up (their run differential’s better than that of the Brewers, which is intriguing). The Phillies? Trending down, though lately more upwards. It’s an odd collection of teams here, but basically, none are dead and none should be feeling great about where they’re at, though I’ll caveat that 1) the Cardinals are a bit of an outlier in a different way from the Rays—they skew older in where their value’s at, to which FanGraphs seems to look with a skeptical eye, rightly or wrongly; and 2) the White Sox are not as good as markets believe them to be, and that’s been the case for a while now. The hype exceeds the product, and that helps teams like Minnesota and Cleveland.
Reeling, but Alive
The Red Sox are another bad week or two from being dead, with a record worse than that of half our “Explicitly Rebuilding” crew. We’ve seen this with the Red Sox before—the infamous “reset”—and it’s tended to work out, so they may steer into it, but the roster still has the pieces to make a run with the new six-team playoff structure. It helps that the other potential challengers have either started atrociously (Detroit, Kansas City) or with enough mediocrity to pour plenty of water on any latent excitement (Seattle).
Believable
The Marlins stealing a Wild Card? The Guardians winning the Central? The Mariners finding themselves in some three-team tiebreak situation with the Rays and Angels heading into Game 162? Would get a “wow,” but only a small one.
Bad, but Maybe
We aren’t ready to pour dirt on these graves just yet, but with all due credit to the Rangers and Diamondbacks for their pleasant starts, they have not yet arrived.
Explicitly Rebuilding
Yes, the Rockies, two games under .500, are here, whether they know it or not. The Reds, meanwhile, have eliminated all doubt as to who they are.
Sweep Watch: The Cubs??
Two thirds of The Barking Crow will be in attendance tonight at Wrigley Field, where we hope to see the Cubs notch a series sweep and also become the first people we know to witness a win while using our season tickets (friends and family are a staggering 0-12 accounting for all shared seats). We enter on the heels of a fun night last night headlined by what one can hope were visions of the future.
We say “one can hope” there because, well, one can hope. As we’ve said before, there aren’t many key, core prospects emerging on this 2022 Cubs team. Even Keegan Thompson, the Cubs’ second-most impactful player so far this year (Thompson trails only David Robertson in Win Probability Added), who threw five scoreless innings as a semi-opener (they were ready for him to go just three or four, but he was cruising), is no centerpiece in future plans. Christopher Morel projects as a role player with hot-streak upside. Brandon Hughes projects as a journeyman reliever, if that. These are not the early days of the next Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo. They might, though, be the early days of the next Kyle Hendricks (in terms of impact and contributions to the team), because there is that huge cloud of uncertainty which surrounds minor league-turning-major league baseball players. So, especially with few obvious centerpieces for the future aside from Seiya Suzuki, one can certainly hope, and we’d encourage it. It makes nights like last night a lot more fun.
In other Cubs news, as we said yesterday, Marcus Stroman is cleared to be activated, though it’s unclear whether he’ll make a rehab start, open a game or two, or jump fully back into the rotation. When he is activated, the Cubs will have to take someone off of the 40-man roster in addition to the 26-man, and while Daniel Norris is the immediately obvious 26-man guy, coming up a little lame last night with Achilles soreness, we may also see a DFA or a pivot to the 60-man IL for someone like Alec Mills.
With Mills on the mind: In a big cold-water fest (sorry, everybody), Cubs fans should probably be prepared for a starting pitcher to be traded in these next six to eight weeks (yes, even before the Deadline itself). Drew Smyly and Wade Miley are the obvious targets (Miley finishing the year with the Cubs would signify that something either terrible or extraordinary had happened), but this could also be the year Hendricks is dealt. He’s under contract through either 2023 or 2024 (I don’t know the details of his vesting option), and while he’s struggled since last season began, his run of good starts is probably keeping his value up, as is the affordability of his price tag and the Cubs’ ability to eat salary. It would be really cool if Hendricks spent his whole career with the Cubs, and the Cubs’ embarrassment around their perennially mercenary rotation is public, but there have definitely been talks about trading Kyle Hendricks and there definitely will be talks, and on the chance the bottom is falling out, it might turn out to look really smart to have traded him this summer when all’s said and done. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that. Hopefully he keeps the recent run going and the Cubs see enough and extend him and he’s part of another World Series-winning rotation someday. But he might get dealt, and we should be ready for that possibility, even if Willson Contreras is the more immediate concern.
The Heat Won at Home
NBA and NHL playoff series are good vibe-analysis fodder in the home-court/ice lens, where the nature of the 2-2-1-1-1 format lends itself well to feelings of teams “holding serve” or “breaking serve” by winning at home or winning on the road. It’s not exactly that simple—taking a 2-0 lead at home is better, in these series, than holding serve is in tennis, I’d guess—but it’s a helpful way to view things, and it makes the Heat’s comfortable-but-not-that-comfortable win last night something of a nonstory, especially with the Celtics down Marcus Smart and Al Horford.
Those absences aren’t nonstories themselves, but they did only move the line something like a point and a half, which can partially be attributed to the expectation Smart would be out and is partially an indicator of the actual significance of those two players on this Celtics team. A point and a half is a good amount in a tight spread (it moved from 2.5 points to 4, per ESPN), but it’s still just a point and a half.
So…not a lot to see here, and we remain in a boat in which if the Celtics win Game 2, they hold the edge, and if the Heat win Game 2, they hold the edge, and 1-1 isn’t quite as big a thing as having broken serve while 2-0 isn’t quite as small a thing as having held serve.
Mavericks/Warriors tonight, I have no idea what to expect, the Warriors are at that stage where they’re expected to just turn it on when it matters, but…will they? Can they? Can they actually just do that?
The Panthers Lost at Home
Leaving your home ice “down” 1-1 isn’t great, but being down 1-0 after a home game is straight-up bad. The Panthers got beat by the two-time defending champions, and after they struggled with the Capitals in the first round, the regular season’s most successful team is looking “off” in a sport perceived to be streaky in nature. The Lightning should be licking their lips looking ahead to tomorrow night.
Not losing at home were the Avalanche, who improved to 5-0 on the young postseason with their second overtime victory of May. They outshot the Blues by something like a 2:1 ratio, and in overtime the chances for Colorado were abundant while the chances for St. Louis were mostly hypothetical. There are a couple ways to view this all: One is that the Avalanche have only played five playoff games and that’s a pretty small sample and the Predators stunk and the Blues almost won last night; The other is that the Avalanche have yet to lose and they just pour shots onto the net and it is impossible to beat that. I’m inclined towards the former, but I’m not a big hockey guy. The analogous phenomenon might be a dominant baseball team cruising through the Division Series. If it is, I’m definitely inclined towards the former, even if I will acknowledge that the Avs are the favorites.
Hurricanes/Rangers and Flames/Oilers tonight. One thing about the perception of the Flames that confuses me: If hockey isn’t that random and a team like the Avalanche really should be expected to dominate the playoffs, why are so many writing off the Flames’ struggles with the Stars? Were the Stars secretly good and did no one tell me? That’s an honest question.
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No viewing schedule today, as I am in transit right now and will be at Wrigley Field tonight during most relevant hours. Choose your own adventure, friends.
