SportsPulse: USA TODAY Sports' Steve Gardner breaks down which teams are on fire and which teams are underperforming. USA TODAY Sports
Much as baseball likes to tout its parity, a substantial number of teams entered the season with what seemed like virtually no shot at reaching the playoffs.
Now we have confirmation.
As the season approaches its fourth week, nine clubs have less than a 2% chance to play in October, according to Fangraphs' playoff projections.
The nine: Baltimore Orioles (0.2%), Tampa Bay Rays (1.1%), Chicago White Sox (0.0%), Kansas City Royals (0.1%), Detroit Tigers (0.1%), Texas Rangers (1.3%), Miami Marlins (0.0%), Cincinnati Reds (0.0%) and San Diego Padres (0.5%).
Even in the era of tanking – or, building for the future, if you prefer – that is a staggering number, nearly a third of all major league teams. By comparison, at a similar stage last season, there were five clubs in that statistically hopeless predicament.
Now, projections certainly have plenty of margin for error, as the Minnesota Twins will be quick to point out. FanGraphs gave them a 5.2% chance of getting to the postseason after their 11-11 start last year, and the upstart Twins earned a wild-card berth after losing 103 games the previous season.
And yes, the Milwaukee Brewers were essentially dismissed after splitting their first 24 games in 2017, given no better than a 3.7% probability of playing in the postseason. They came within a win of forcing a tiebreaker for a wild-card spot.
But what truly stands out this year is not just the number of non-competitors, but their wretchedness. Or, did you not notice the Reds waited till Monday to notch their fourth win of the year? Five starting pitchers on other clubs have that many all by themselves.
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The Reds (4-18), losers of at least 94 games each of the last three years and well on their way to topping that figure this season, are one of four teams already 10 or more games below .500. They’re joined in that dubious company by the Marlins (5-17), Orioles (6-17) and Royals (5-15).
The Padres were given a puncher's chance in the preseason by Fangraphs - a 2.6% postseason shot for a club that splurged on first baseman Eric Hosmer, but skimped on starting pitching, as rebuilding teams tend to do.
Yet, they have played surprisingly bad baseball in sinking to the bottom of the NL West, staring up at at least three bona fide contenders.
Go ahead and make your offseason plans, folks.
And it’s not as if these teams are mostly losing tight games and might be about to turn things around. Five of them have run differentials of minus-44 or worse. They’ve been on the wrong end of plenty of routs.
Even the Texas Rangers, previously reliable contenders and not among the group of clubs strip-mining their for potential future gains, have been caught in the malaise. Not only have they dropped to fifth place in the American League West, they've scored 40 fewer runs than their opponents and are just 3-11 at home.
What all this imbalance means, other than a plethora of mostly empty ballparks in the final two months of the season, is only about 20 teams will be truly vying for the 10 playoff spots over the next several weeks, and that number will shrink significantly by the All-Star Game.
Sellers will abound at the trade deadline, likely much sooner than that, and fortuitous scheduling may play a bigger role in who qualifies for the postseason than in the past.
Take a look at the standings and try not to wince over the disparity between the haves and the have-nots. It’s not a pretty picture.
