Projections

At the 3/4 pole of the season, it's time to discuss the likelihood of teams making the playoffs.

In the AL, a grand total of 6 teams are playing for 5 Spots.  Boston and Cleveland have double digit leads for the division title.  In the AL West it's now a three team race with Houston, Oakland and Seattle are within 4.5 games of each other.  The two teams who don't win the AL West, will compete with the Yankees for the two wild card spots.  Tampa Bay and the Angels are the only other teams at or above .500 in the AL, but are double digits out of the Visitor Wild Card position.

The NL is much different.  All three division races are 2 games or less between 1st and 2nd.  The NL West is 1 game among the top 3.  11 Teams are at or above .500.  Only the Padres, Mets, Marlins, and Reds are out of the playoffs.  8 Teams are within 7 games of either Wild Card Spot.

Many of the projection websites use run differential as a key element of their projections.  This clearly hurts the Rockies, as they have been negative for the whole season.  My system of Home/Away differential may not be better, especially in the NL West where none of the top 3 are doing well at home, but win on the road.  So maybe it will work.

If it does, here are my current projections for the NL Playoffs.

1. NL East: Atlanta 91-71
2. NL Central: Chicago 90-72
3. NL West: Colorado 86-76
4. Home Wild Card:  Philadelphia 90-72
5. Visitor Wild Card:  Play-in
            St. Louis 89-73 (H)
            Milwaukee 89-73 (A)
           Currently Milwaukee has a 7-6 Season Series lead with 6 games to play all in St. Louis.
7T Arizona 85-77
7T Los Angeles 85-77
9. Washington 83-79
10. San Francisco 81-81
11. Pittsburgh 80-82

We'll follow this over the final 7 weeks to see how it plays out.