Are MLB’s Expanded Playoffs Rewarding Mediocrity? The 2026 Races Tighten

Rooting for your team when they're out of the race can be a lot more fun than you think. We've learned that this season. We're gonna talk about the teams that are out of the race, but that could spoil some teams race for the playoffs this week in baseball.

Seems like last season. Yeah. Exactly. and you know, then when that period of mourning goes on where you're like, I don't want to watch baseball anymore because they're so bad. Well, I I think, and this is something we can talk about across different teams here, and that there's different levels of your team being bad, where like I think last year the Washington Nationals

might be a w they will probably end up with a worse record than they do this year, but I think that team might have been more fun for the fan base to watch. And had more to look forward to. Right. Whereas this team you're like, all I'm really seeing are all of the flaws and the warts on the roster instead of seeing all of like the great young new guys that we're excited about. Like yeah, I think like I was saying before the podcast, like yeah the Mets are having a very unfun season, but I wouldn't trade their season in a million years for the San Francisco Giants season. And they've kind of been that way all season and the other thing that happens is, you know, you can start your

Season and have a good start to the season and then crash and burn, or you can have a horrible season where you're out of it, which feels kind of bad, really bad at the beginning, but play better at the end, which makes you somewhat optimistic about the future. It's like I always talk about golf like this, going like if I play an 18-hole round and I stink on the first nine holes, but I play better on the second nine, somehow I feel better, even if I have the same exact score than if I leave you leave it feeling good, right? You don't feel like if it's the other way around, it doesn't feel as good. Like the Mets stunk for a bunch of

Years in the early 2010s. I remember that distinctly. There was a period of time where they were a last place team and they were bad. I mean, they're last-place teams somewhat often, unfortunately, but they were pretty bad in that era in particular. However

I don't remember those seasons nearly as much as I remember the 2006 and 2007 collapses where they fell apart. No, the 2007 and 2008 collapse. Where they fell apart after being in first place. Those were infinitely more painful to suffer through than those bad seasons All you remember is the crash. Right. You just remember the crash. You don't remember any of the good. Like it taints all of the good. Whereas right now as a Met fan, I'm thinking, I'm excited to see Carson Bench play next year. I'm excited to see Nolan McLean. I'm excited to see Christian Scott and and you know you have all these young pitchers you're excited.

Excited about now as a Met fan that you definitely weren't thinking about Zack Thornton. You weren't thinking about these guys at the start of the year. And I think that's very different than having the wheels fall off the bus, like if you're an athletics fan, all twelve of them out there, where you actually started off this decent and it had a above five hundred record, like eighty ninety-something games into the season, only to rip off a brutal stretch, and now you're one of the worst teams in baseball. So we'll we'll get to the five teams we picked that have a chance to be spoilers the rest of the way.

Because they they are out of the race, as it is that the teams they play have a lot at stake. So it's and it's funny because your that story of the week, that if that's our story of the week, it overlaps with what my story of the week is because one of those teams has the most insane schedule to finish out this season, and you feel you will feel bad for them when you hear their schedule for the last 30 something games of this season. But let's just walk through some of the news of note from the week. the first note I put in, and and and this is only I put the note in before.

what he did on Friday night against the walk off all running. So Jake Rogers Jake Rogers has had a a nomadic season, I guess. I I don't know how else you would describe it. he played his final game with the Tigers on July 25th and that was the only team that he ever played for. Twenty-one days later, on August 15th, he played his first game for the White Sox in Detroit, of course, against the Tigers. Okay. Well in between, well, actually he played for the Orioles. He played for the Red Sox.

And so he he played for four teams in that. And so if he plays for one more team this year, he'll tie the record. But he probably won't because on Friday night against the Mets, he did the most unlikely thing, and that is hit a walk-off home run. And you could just see him when he ran, I can't believe this has happened. Right. In a million years, this I never thought this was gonna happen to me. And now he's on a team that's trying to make a playoff run. I I was basically hanging by an actual thread. Right. And I had a one one one bad pitch by a met pitch.

And his career has changed, at least for this season. So good on Jake Roger Rogers. we had we had been talking about Pete Alonso a lot this year. And, you know, I I noticed this week that he's kind of having a season that he's never had before. He's on pace to have his best season by war ever. He's having one of his best seasons by average ever. His OPS is great. Like he's putting together and his defense has been as good as it's ever been, I think, in his career. And the Baltimore Orioles are in last place. Right. So

You know, you can sign the right guy and still stink, and the Mets can tell you all about that. Right, exactly. Or you can sign the wrong guy and the Mets can still stink, and they did that too. but Pete Alonso is only six home runs away from 300 for his career, which is no longer like some sort of grandiose milestone, but he's pretty young. It's certainly it's it's interesting. Begs that he's gonna get you how many more will he get? The thing is he's not actually that young, shockingly, because he's already in his thirties. So, like when you think about it, it's not like he's gonna have that many more. Yeah, but power less, even if production.

So does he have a chance? I guess the question is do you think he's got a chance at 400? yeah, I definitely think he's got a chance at 400. that doesn't mean that though that time isn't gonna be with an average that's declining and production's that's declining. My question would be does he what how close to 500 could he get? Can he play well enough to last that long? Right. If you think about it, it's like, okay, you know, if he's play, he's still gonna have four more years on this deal going the rest of the way, and the likely he will get to 300 this season, though it's not a guarantee. Six home runs at this point, I would think that's a pretty chance.

Chance.

Pretty good chance. And so he'll be needing 200. Now, obviously, he's going to finish out that career. I think he would have to have a hundred and fifty of those two hundred seasons. In that four-season span for him to have a chance at 500. Right, because at that point he's going to be 36 or 37. Maybe he can limp out the last 50 over the last couple of years. Like he comes back to the Mets and plays some like final like seasons as like a bench kind of guy, and he's able to get a and we've already seen, you know, well, it's not fair to

compare Giancarlo Stanton to to Alonso in that his pr perennial being injured is what's impacted his production is one of the most available players and and he is I mean I think he's played every game this year again. And so you know Giancarlo Stanton isn't back on the IL for he's been on there forever and I guess the Yankee fans are hoping that somehow he plays in the playoffs because it doesn't look like he's gonna play in the regular season and his four hundred and I think fifty six career home runs, I thought for sure he'd get to five hundred. And he may not

To get the vibe, and that's guy that you would look at his career and go, Well, if he just hadn't been injured, he'd be at 500. Because he's lost entire seasons to being injured. He's lost so much time. I mean, when the Yankees got him, I think he was off the 59 home run season. So you really thought, Wow, you know, even if even if he does, you know, two-thirds of that, that's good. And then and I think if the year of the Yankees, you would just he was never as much as you wanted, but he was good enough that you don't feel like it was a terrible side. And he's been great in the playoffs. I mean, really good in the playoffs. So I I think that's what the Yankees are hoping.

Holding on to right now, going, okay, just be there. Let's hope Judge is healthy and and let Stanton play in the playoffs, and we'll take our chances because that offense of the Yankees is having a historically bad August for them. I think they're averaging just over three runs a game. and and the pressure on the pitching staff as a result, you know, they they've kind of hung in there, but they can only do this for so long be before the bow is gonna break. Right, right. And I I think that I think you're seeing that with this Yankee team. Ben Rice finally snapped out of what was a terrible straight here, having a good game.

The other day, but even his average is way down, and you're seeing the strain of having a full season of an Aaron Judgeless Yankees team, and especially when you don't have guys like Stanton in the lineup to help kind of buoy the loss of him with no Bellinger, no judge, and no standing for a good majority of the season. It's impressive they've even been able to kind of I I agree. And you you're starting to see the cracks for well, and you've gotten less from Jazz Chisholm than you really kind of hope for. The 50-50 thing he talked about, that I yeah, that ain't that's not happening.

He's been so bad or he's it. And and they know they they thrust Spencer Jones into the lineup and he had a really good game over the weekend on Sunday when they won eight to three. and he's you know he's a big tall guy and with a lot of power, and I give him credit for you know, there's not a lot of help out there, and he's doing the best he can, and he seems to be getting better. that would be a big shot in the arm for them, too, if he actually could contribute in that lineup before them. So yeah, I I I think getting to five hundred home runs is gonna be tough for Stanton, and I think it

might be tougher for Alonso even though he's healthier than Stanton is. Right, right. So the we want to talk a little bit about a team and and you know we talked about the teams that are gonna we're gonna talk about the teams that are spoiler teams and w how about the teams that have gone the other way that were in the race that seem to be sliding out of it and and the Mariners come to mind to me as a

Team that going. I still can't figure out as as as you know we talk about all the time. That division is terrible. And how the Mariners, you know, can't somehow find a way to take this division. and and it's not just Cal Raleigh not playing as well as he as he should have been playing or what they did last year. They lost 22 to nothing, did the Mariners on Tuesday. 22 to nothing. That's the that's the biggest blowout win and a shutout since 1888. It was a blizzard that year. and and and also the mariners lost on Sunday just.

For a good measure, nineteen to two to the Cubs. So I'm not good at math, but forty one to two in two games, that's quite the run differential. There's actually a great there's a YouTuber that did a video, Pesky talk he did on the eight more disappointing teams this year in the major leagues. And he actually was trying to stay away from teams like the Mets and stuff that just were disappointing from the outset. And teams he had on there the Seattle Mariners who were above five hundred, they were looking great, like they were in control of that division, and now they've just like and that was even with Cal Rao like giving them nothing in that entire time period.

It just feels like since the trading deadline, the wheels have sort of fallen off the cart and they've just they've just been floundering. And I don't think it's that they're missing Luis Castillo. No, because we just saw him get roughed up by the Mets. Exactly. It was interesting because he named some other teams in teams like the Cincinnati Reds, who at one point were 19-10 this season. They were in first place in the NL Central, and the Milwaukee Brewers were in last place in the NL Central. Yeah, how's that how's that looking? Well, and we talked about that, I think, in the last podcast, how, you know, at this point, you know, I had belief in Terry Francona.

But the results speak for themselves when it comes to the Reds. And I don't know how you couldn't look at this team and think we just can't do this again next year. Right, right. You you when when when people have been saying, you're the dark horse to come out of the NL Central for like eight seasons in a row, I feel like that's a sign something's wrong. Because it's like, okay, we can't just keep overestimating you every year. We keep being like, yeah, you're gonna be good this year, and then they're just not. Meanwhile, the Dodgers have fallen out of the number one spot in the power rankings, which I think now is occupied by the Brewers, rightly so as

As as it should. and their closer, Edwin Diaz, who the Mets were unable to sign, because looking like genius is there right now. Well, I think it's not like they didn't try. he rebuffed them. They weren't the one that gave him the biggest closer contract ever. That was all the Dodgers, and look how that's working. The Mets had enough problems this year that they didn't need to have Edwin Diaz do what he did this year for the Dodgers. Which is nothing. And and it's interesting because you saw kind of for a while the Dodgers didn't seem particularly concerned about Diaz's lack.

You're starting to see them be a little concerned about it, where they're just like, y you you might not find this. Yeah, he's on the fifteen day injured list now again with neck problems this time. So I th I think the problems were more I can't get anybody out and something hurts. Right, right. The same way i I thought was interesting because there was I forget

Which broadcaster was saying this, but they were watching a t they were watching he was watching some guy at at bat and it was a guy that was in the midst of an absolutely terrible, terrible streak. And he he had a terrible at bat and he's like, listen, I think it was Eric Kairos. And he's like, listen, at a certain point, as a player

Just just go on the injury list for a couple days. Go on get your head go give us a break. Because you're clearly pressing so hard, trying to fix this issue every day. You are not helping the team. You're not helping yourself and your team by just subjecting yourself to this every day. And like he's like, guys will do that. Sometimes guys just go on the IL for a little bit, not because they're actually hurt, but they just need that time away from the team to try and get their head back on straight. it hurts. and and behind the Dodgers, the Padres, who

I happened to see last week at City Field. I I went to the game on Monday against the Padres. It seems like a hundred years ago, and we're recording it a week later, and it was a really good baseball game that to see in person. That was the game in which Carson Benge threw out two Padres at the plate on consecutive plays to end the first inning. I know I have never seen that happen before at any game I've ever had. I think he does he lead the majors in outfield assists. I think he's second. Near the time, I think Joe Adell is up there too. and then later on A.J. Ewing threw out a

runner on the bases. So but the Padres despite that and and and Francisco Tetis Jr. look great in that game. And he's looked great. He's looked he's like awesome. Player of the week in the NL. Well, and you know, remember we were complaining about how he didn't have a lot of home.

Runs, and he was not doing anything like that. Wow. He's hitting 328 in the second half now with a 1.097 ops, 12 homers, 30 runs in 34 games. So that's the guy that we thought we had. Right. That's the guy that fixes your season. And that's why the Padres have been like the hottest team in baseball in the second half. So they have leapt into the third wildcard position in the National League and and with a good record and ahead of the Diamondbacks, who are pesky but fading a little. They're they're plucky, but unfortunately, when you're described as plucky, that's never a good.

side. So I I think the Padres you know, me may not be able to catch the Dodgers who even though they fell out of the top spot and are having problems with Edwin Diaz and Kyle Tucker for that matter, if you want to go there.

They're they're still probably safe to to sort of limp home and win the division. R right. I I I think the Dodgers are the sort of team where you have to kind of treat them like you know, you in until the h they're like they're like the Highlander, the Undertaker. Until I see that guy dead, I do not believe he is killed in the least. Michael Michael's Michael Byers is gonna keep coming back. Like you have to see them out of a series before I'm gonna believe the Dodgers are eliminated. And I'd like I'd like to see them play in the postseason because I think they're a good team and they have all the elements of a team that could be dangerous in the playoffs.

Now two teams that won't get in the playoffs, and we're gonna talk about one of them in a little bit. that would be the Pirates and the Cardinals, both of whom got swept over the weekend in their respective series, and they and the and I think that sort of signaled and and it's over. Right. You're starting to see teams' playoff chances dropped precipitously low to where, yeah, probably not gonna happen at this point. You have a two point nine percent chance for the If you're the pirates, right. I think the Reds are on a point one percent right now. The Mets, I think, are at like a point.

Point zero one. Like there are certain teams where you basically are so far outside of the race, and especially with the NL being good. And this is a really interesting quirk, is that because the top of the division race is not like the top of the league race is not defined by any measure, the Dodgers and the Brewers can't take their foot off the gas and coast because only the one gets the bye. No, the two, no, two teams get by. Two times. Right. So but you still want to get that bye. And so you're in this weird situation where, okay, well, we don't really want to get caught by the Braves.

So we can't relax. And the Dodgers are already in that position because right now I think that they might be they're either second or third because the Braves have been on a losing streak as well. but at one point the Dodgers were third in in the National League record wise. So that only because of the the Braves' you know lousy play lately might that be about the same or the Braves are now only three games up on the Phillies for the National League. Well that's the East, but what about against the Dodgers? How was their record compared to the Dodgers? They're four games back of the Dodgers. Okay, so the Dodgers are still the number two seed. Right.

And then they're five games back of the Brewers. So you're close enough if you're all of those teams where you can't really take it. It's not like you're you're gonna be up enough in that one-two race to forget about the Braves right now, unless they really stumble. But then the Phillies are charging up right behind them, so you might have to deal with the Phillies instead. Well, the Phillies are on a nine-game winning streak and they won a game on Sunday, the Little League Classic. they won. And they were down what was it, four to n four to nothing in the ninth inning. Okay, so nothing going on, getting.

Sort of stymied and all that. And to their own shock and awe, they ended up winning the game, was it six to four? a Kyle Schwarber walking home run. so the Phillies are probably feeling the magic is there right now because a nine game winning streak after the earlier 10 game losing streak, they're 73 and 58 right now, the Phillies. And you know, that's that's a record that you would have thought when they lost ten in a row that was impossible for them to ever get. But they've they've played themselves back into it, and they're probably feeling like, okay, you

You what, we're playing our best baseball at the right time right now. And they have seven games with the Braves in ten days to come in September.

Wow, that's gonna be fun to watch. And I think if you're a team that's out of the race like a bunch of teams are, there's a lot of teams that have a chance to play big time spoilers and just ruin some team seasons coming up here because all of these top teams have to play somebody the rest of the way. So it's kinda interesting to think about like who's got a chance to really do the most damage down the stretch here. And I think it's gotta be an American league team, right? Well, there are there are a bunch of teams and and and in both leagues that are, you know, like do you really consider the Miami Marlins to be

a playoff team or they're just having a nice run and and and being annoying at this point. So if you don't think that they are the a Tina's gonna get catch in the pla and I don't think they will. They won't catch the Padres, I don't think. so that means that they're a spoiler, right? But they're a good spoiler. Right, right. There's teams out there, and this is my story of the week, that are now sacrificial lambs going forward the rest of the season. And I don't think there's a team out there with a more diabolical stretch to end the season than the Cincinnati Reds.

Because starting this Friday, they play in order the Chicago Cubs, the San Diego Padres, the Milwaukee Brewers, the LA Dodgers, the Milwaukee Brewers, the LA Dodgers, the Chicago Cubs, the Atlanta Braves.

So if you were the Reds and you were actually in the race, you would be sweating. And now out of it, you and now all of those teams like your teeth kicked in the last bit of the season. You were playing literally the top four teams of baseball. Could they be a spoiler? Do you think you're playing the hottest team in baseball in the Padres and then the four best teams in baseball outside of that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I guess you're right. That is a horrifying stretch to have to deal with the rest of the way. And that might just cause Terry Francona to throw up his hands after it's all over going, I'm done.

What am I supposed to do? I've had enough of this. How am I supposed to pull a team out of this? So on the on the other side though, you've got a team like the Marlins I mentioned, where they have six games with the Cubs. They play the Diamondbacks in a series and the Padres in a series in their la within their last it's about 30 games to go at this point. So that that gives them the chance to really mess up season. Those pirates we talked about, you know, they have the Cubs, the White Sox, the Brewers, and the Padres left on their schedule. So the problem for the for the Pirates is no, they're

There are lot of is their hitting kind of evaporated after they had been so good offensively for surprisingly for most of this season. And then Paul Skins has been far from Paul Skins. Paul Skins looks like a an like a major league pitcher. He doesn't look like Paul Skins, the second maybe the best pitcher in baseball. And the only way they made a playoff run this season is if Paul Skins was gonna be a Cy Young. Right, they needed it and all of a sudden if he like and I'm sure that's why the Padres are like trying not to panic about it because

You have to be panicking a little bit about this because if all of a sudden Paul Skins is not Paul Skins, that that messes everything up. Right, right. And so, you know, that I I don't know, you know, I think the Pirates made some strides this year, but they gotta be a little nervous right now because what they thought they had sort of locked down is not as locked down right now as it as it was. And speaking of locked down, for the longest time this season, we were sitting here talking about how Shohei Otani had the NL MVP locked up, locked down. It was his to win.

I I don't know if it's his to win anymore. No, and and and I think Pi Creep Picrow Armstrong might have a strong case that win the MVP. Well, my friend Neil Payne, who who writes his own Substack and was a 538 guy, wrote today he'd been a good comparison that maybe 2026 is like 2012. And that's the year where Mike Trout had statistically a better season than the Triple Crown winner and MVP winner, Hall of Famer Miguel or Hall of Famer to be Miguel Capri.

and when you look at the numbers going, gee, you know, statistically, you'd have to pick Trout. Was Trout's I think it was his rookie year or his second year in in baseball. And and you know there, there you had a guy. I mean, guy wins the triple crown. The way that baseball has always worked is you're gonna win the MVP, you know, if you win the triple crown. So I think that you know, the the difference today is that Shohei had the lead. He stopped pitching July 3rd, okay, and so that allowed P PCA to come on on both sides, right? He was great defensive the whole year, right?

He's now he's got a weighted runs created plus a 156. So it's it's hard to ignore. Now, if Shohei somehow he's coming back to pitch like now, like this week or something like that. Let's say he goes out and he he's got s five, six starts the rest of the season and he's aces in those starts and he throws another six innings a start and he had he he he got that might be enough to re insert him as to the favorite because now he's gonna have a hundred and thirty innings. But at the same time, you know what Pete Pete Crow Armstrong's basically a lock for?

40 40 season. Yeah. That that's gonna look that's gonna look real good, especially if Otani doesn't make those starts. P PCA, here here's the wild thing about him, and and and it pains Met fans to talk about it's awful. I just gotta tell you how much this hurts. It's right, because I all I think is Javi Bikes. Half a season of Hobby Bye. It wasn't even half a season of that guy. So PCA is gonna like he's on his way to a 40 war career like in like the first six years of his career. Right. That's a Hall of Fame track. Right, right. That's a Hall of Fame track.

Right, right, exactly. my goodness. So that that's really rough. then and a couple of other teams that have a chance to spoil it out. are our our Mets who are a real pin in that you don't really want to play the Mets right now. And the Astros are on their schedule, although I don't know if they're a team that should be favored or not. If they're I if you're looking, I mean can you believe here we're we're a hundred and twelve, a hundred and eleven games into this? We're 130 games in. Right, sorry, 130.

There's not a team with a winning record in the ALS. Yeah, that's that's that's disastrous. It's a disastrous division. The the Astros obviously parted ways, if you haven't heard, with Dana Brown today. And I think you told me that the manager Joe Espada has agreed not to come back next year. So the Astros are blowing it up, even though they're still within distance of winning the division, which is just the weirdest thing to do when your team is still playing for a playoffs right. Like basically be Yeah, we're throwing in the towel. You got to win the division, obviously, but nobody wants to.

Exactly. So you know, the the Rangers, you know, you take it. No, the Astros say you take it. You take it. Well, they're on the those guys are on the Mets schedules, as are the Yankees and Rays. And wouldn't the Yankees and Rays be so disappointed if the Mets come in there and beat them somehow, going like we can't be losing to the Mets? you can't be losing to the Mets. No, no. It's like it's like the season, it's like sometimes as a Jet fan, you watch we what we saw last year. The Houston Texans managed to lose a game to the New York Jets.

In the regular season. And purely off the basis of that. We're like, yeah, they're not a contender. Any can any team that has super And we were right. We were right. Any team that had Super Bowl aspirations that was capable of losing to the New York Jets was not a Super Bowl contender. And so I think there's in some respects, like, if you lose a series to the New York Mets right now, you're probably not a World Series contender. I think that's fair to say. And and I'd put the Royals in that sort of category too, so they're on a heat a heater. They're they've won eight in a row and and giving their fans some reason to hope for next year when they're completely out of the race and don't have a chance.

So let's remember that no pressure is no pressure. And the Royals, you know, they play the Jays six times. The Jays are still in it. The Guardians six times. Guardians are still in it. The Marlins, the D-Backs, the Astros and the Rice Sox. Every team they play has a chance. So, you know, the Royals have a chance to be a real pain in the neck. But it doesn't really matter. All it does is maybe give their fans that you know, maybe we're not as far away as we think. Right. That's what you're really hoping for. It's like, maybe we got some of these young guys. Like if you're the Mets or the Cardinals, like if you're the Mets, you're like, okay, you know what? Hey, maybe Nolan McLean.

He could he should maybe be rookie of the year. Carson Bench, maybe he should be rookie of the year. You got these young rookies you're excited about. You at least have something to look forward to going into next season. Right. And that's and that's so when it gets back to rooting for teams that are out of the race, you know, and all that I I am like I said, I'm very surprised at how much I've enjoyed it. I guess if the Mets stanked the whole season and played the way they did for the first, you know, half or or more than that, I wouldn't be as interested in watching them play. If they had ripped off an eleven and forty stretch here like the athletics did during this stretch here, you would probably be pretty out on watching them. But they did what we expected them to do. And I guess the Royals to a degree as well is they had that streak, right? So they won twelve, 12 out of 17 or something like that. All of a they well, that's the team I thought they were. They played like the best version of themselves. Right. And and the Royals are kind of doing the same thing now. But you know what? The season was over for them a while ago, and they're playing for 2027, if there is one.