Yet after accounting for schedule, the Padres’ projection falls to 88.7 wins, while the Reds’ rises to 87.5-cutting the gap to just about one.
The Padres’ lead over Cincinnati has dwindled from 6.5 to 2.5 games since July 23, thanks to a spate of crushing injuries and lackluster losses to the worst teams in the National League, but they would still be in a relatively comfortable position if not for a massive schedule disparity.īy the schedule-agnostic projections, the Padres are expected to land at 90.2 wins, with the Reds at 85.9-a gap of four-plus games. Either the Dodgers or Giants will land one of the two spots the other will almost certainly go to the Padres, who have sat in playoff position nearly the entire season, or the Reds. The most glaring example this season comes in the NL wild card race. Thus, the gaps between the systems supply hints about how the schedule should affect the playoff races. So let’s investigate the contenders’ remaining schedules, taking particular note when all indicators point in the same direction, and forecast what effect they could have on the playoff race.įanGraphs offers two different systems to project teams’ records: one that factors in a club’s remaining schedule, and one that doesn’t, instead intuiting based on team strength alone. Some teams have already exhausted their games against difficult competition others play in brutal divisions that necessitate many more games against challenging foes.
Roster talent, health, and plain old luck are still the most important factors in a team’s playoff positioning-but the schedule matters too, especially with just over 40 games left and such disparate remaining slates among teams battling for the same spots. Only the Mets, perpetual puzzles, occupy any sort of middle ground. The MLB stretch run is here, and three-quarters of the way through the season, the league’s 30 teams have cleaved pretty neatly into two groups: Fourteen clubs boast better than a 30 percent chance to reach the playoffs, per FanGraphs, while 15 more are all well below 10 percent.
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