![]() Rays (87 W | 62.5 P% | 4.2 WS% | $70M)Ĭurrent cream of the small-market crop. Terry Francona is one of the best in the business.ġ0. One of the best organizations out there at developing pitching, consistently running switch-hitter-heavy lineups with low strikeout rates. Guardians (86 W | 61.4 P% | 4.2 WS% | $87M)Įssentially a lower-budget Brewers, but in a division with the Twins as their main competition instead of the Cardinals. A playoff team from last year likely won't make it again this year, and the Brewers are the team best positioned to take that vacated spot.ġ1. The good news: Last time a league's playoff field repeated was the 1998-99 AL, when only four teams got in. Brewers (87 W | 60.6 P% | 3.8 WS% | $115M)ĭid somebody say the Brewers? The bad news is: There are six NL teams on the list ahead of Milwaukee they all made the playoffs last year and they all have projected payrolls between $60 and $230 million higher than the Brewers'. If the Twins win a playoff game (or gasp, series) this year, I might just make the Twin Cities trip to flip over a Prius or two myself.ġ2. They've righted the ship considerably since, with their 451-419 record from 2017-22 coming in 10th, but if you think the Brewers' 1-7 record in their last eight playoff games is some kind of epic failure, the Twins have lost 18 straight postseason games stretching back to 2004. Minnesota's 407-565 record from 2011-16 was the second-worst mark in MLB. That's THIRTY WAR from three guys, Angels win 83 and miss playoffs.ġ3. Heck, Rendon even had 7.1 WAR in 2019, I don't see why the stars can't align (these things always happen in threes) again in 2023. Let's put him down for an even 12.0 WAR in 2023 on the eve of free agency. Ohtani had 4.9 WAR as a hitter in 2021, and 6.2 WAR as a pitcher in 2022. Mike Trout has a pair of 10.5-WAR seasons already. Trader Jerry's squad has been the best of the bunch the last couple years, but they lag behind in payroll by $55-70 million, so the deck is stacked against them somewhat for the second place threepeat.ġ4. The battle between Seattle, Texas and Los Angeles behind Houston in the AL West should be one of the tighter and more interesting races to follow this summer. From 2017-22, they've been kind of stuck in neutral, with their 431-439 record ranking 15th, and that's with a franchise-record 107 wins in 2021 propping things up.ġ5. Giants (82 W | 29.3 P% | 1.1 WS% | $183M)įrom 2009-16, San Francisco was about as close to a modern dynasty as it gets, racking up three World Series titles and the fifth-most regular-season wins during that stretch. Jumping to $190M (ninth) this year is looking good for 13 projected wins or so on the computers. After a 2021 payroll of $95M (21st) resulting in 60 wins, their 2022 number was up to $142M (15th) and 68 wins. Throwing around large amounts of cash has gotten them this far on the board. Texas is in year seven of the current rebuild, with their 373-497 record coming in sixth-worst from 2017-22. Definitely something to watch for if you're a fan of meaningless inanity.ġ7. Last time they finished fourth in the division was 1997. This year, they are projected fourth by a margin of six or seven wins in either direction. ![]() Going back to 2012, Boston has finished fifth in the AL East five times, first four times and second and third once each. This projection doesn't reflect the improved vibes the team will surely enjoy, just by having gotten shot of Tony La Russa.ġ8. Pretty close in terms of Opening Day payroll with their crosstown rivals, but those three extra wins and being in a slightly weaker AL Central is enough to give them almost triple the playoff odds. As many question marks as they have throughout the roster, their starting pitching (anchored by the reigning Cy Young winner, Sandy Alcántara) carries them an extra step farther than similar teams figure to go.ġ9. That's despite Miami being in the more difficult division. ![]() Miami is kinda like Pittsburgh, where they feel like they should be at the top of the tier below instead of the bottom of this tier, but the projections see a clear break between them and the Cubs in both wins and playoff odds. Today, we get into the meatier parts of the beast.Ģ0. If you haven't already done so, go back and check out Part One in this exercise, where we ran through the least relevant teams to this season's prospective pennant races. The payroll figures are drawn from Cot's Contracts, a service now powered by Prospectus. As a reminder, the win totals and Playoff Odds listed below represent an average of the projections at FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus.
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