Wire to Wired

Dave Paisley

Love it or hate it, the three division format with the wild card has made for some interesting pennant races. And without the wild card, the team that is likely to end the regular season with the second best record in baseball would be denied a chance at post-season action by a whopping 15 or more games. And let’s face it, it’s not like the wild card is going to result in the Devil Rays sneaking into the playoffs by the back door. This isn’t the NHL, you know.

And let’s face it, as much of a disgrace as some people think the wild card is, it’s in no way as big a disgrace as Carl Everett.

Of course, we’re used to seeing the baseball standings broken down by division, but I think it’s more fun at this stage of the season to see the whole league all in one big chunk. Here’s the National League, for instance (records as of the end of play on 8-13, and * indicates current division leader.)

Team	Div	W	L	W-L	GB	GB Div	GB WC	Min GB
Houston *	C	67	51	16	0	0	-0.5	-0.5
Arizona *	W	67	51	16	0	0	-0.5	-0.5
Chicago Cubs	C	66	51	15	0.5	0.5	0	0
San Francisco	W	66	52	14	1	1	0.5	0.5
Philadelphia *	E	65	52	13	1.5	0	1	0
Los Angeles	W	65	53	12	2	2	1.5	1.5
Atlanta	E	64	53	11	2.5	1	2	1
St. Louis	C	62	55	7	4.5	4.5	4	4
Florida	E	59	58	1	7.5	6	7	6
San Diego	W	57	60	-3	9.5	9.5	9	9
NY Mets	E	54	64	-10	13	11.5	12.5	11.5
Milwaukee	C	49	66	-17	16.5	16.5	16	16
Colorado	W	49	68	-19	17.5	17.5	17	17
Montreal	E	49	69	-20	18	16.5	17.5	16.5
Cincinnati	C	48	69	-21	18.5	18.5	18	18
Pittsburgh	C	45	72	-27	21.5	21.5	21	21

The team name, division, and wins and losses are self explanatory. W-L is simply the team wins minus the losses (I’m assuming here that regular readers are keeping up well enough.)

Now for the other columns. GB is the number of games behind the best team in the league. Simple enough? GB Div is the number of games behind the division leader (still with me?) and GB WC is games behind the wild card leader. Because many division leaders are within only a game of losing the lead and being dumped into the wild card race, the numbers are still meaningful for them. And note that a negative number of games behind the wild card leader means they’re actually ahead (OK, I’m assuming I’m leaving some of you trailing here.) Finally, GB min is the minimum number of games behind any playoff spot, be it division or wild card.

Note that Atlanta is only one game out of the division but two out of the wild card, while the Giants are one game out of the division but only half a game out of the wild card. Actually, all that does is point out just how even the NL is this year. The term parity might well have been invented for it. Only three wins separate the top seven teams.

As it stands, the Astros, D’backs and Phillies would make the playoffs as division winners and the Cubs would take the wild card. But one bad week for those teams, and the playoff contingent could be the Braves, Dodgers, Giants and Cardinals. Who would have thought the playoff picture could be so volatile?

And who would bet on any of these teams? The Astros have been hot (not Oakland or Seattle hot, just regular hot) and finally caught the Cubs. The Cubs, of course, didn’t make it too tough, and Cubs fans have to be fearing the worst. Of course, they’re used to that, living perpetually on the edge of fearing the worst. It looks like just about every NL playoff spot will come down to the last week, of not the last weekend. It sure promises to be fun.

Over in the AL, the picture is a little different, given that you have the ‘Mazin’ Mariners having their way with the entire league much like Jack Nicholson at a Laker Girl convention. The Astros have a half game lead in the NL. The Mariners have 32 times that over in the AL. After that, there’s a reasonable degree of parity. If the season ended today, the mariners, Yankees, Indians and A’s would make the playoffs, but once again, one bad week could replace any two of the last three with Boston and Minnesota.

Team	Div	W	L	W-L	GB	GB Div	GB WC	Min GB
Seattle *	W	85	33	52	0	0	-17	-17
NY Yankees *	E	69	49	20	16	0	-1	-1
Oakland	W	68	50	18	17	17	0	0
Boston	E	65	51	14	19	3	2	2
Cleveland *	C	65	52	13	19.5	0	2.5	0
Minnesota	C	64	54	10	21	1.5	4	1.5
Anaheim	W	62	56	6	23	23	6	6
White Sox	C	57	59	-2	27	7.5	10	7.5
Toronto	E	55	63	-8	30	14	13	13
Texas	W	52	66	-14	33	33	16	16
Baltimore	E	49	69	-20	36	20	19	19
Detroit	C	48	68	-20	36	16.5	19	16.5
Kansas City	C	48	70	-22	37	17.5	20	17.5
Tampa Bay	E	42	77	-35	43.5	27.5	26.5	26.5

The Yankees are managing to hold off the ailing Red Sox, but that could change when Pedro comes back, and providing Carl Everett doesn’t embarrass the team much more. But what are the odds of that? In the Central, Minnesota is in severe danger of slipping quietly out of the race, especially if they can’t hang onto three run leads in the ninth against their closest rival. The Mariners can afford to lose a horrendous game or six, but the Twins are walking a very fragile tightrope the rest of the way.

And there’s been a lot of attention paid to the AL pre-season darling Oakland A’s. Although their 11 game winning streak just ended, the fact that their young pitching has finally hit it’s stride along with enough of the rest of the offense not named Jason Giambi is a strong indication that they will ultimately romp the wild card. So Boston and Minnesota had better buck up or else.

And one final note. The strongest division in baseball right now has to be the AL West. Right now it has the #1 and #3 teams in baseball (Seattle and Oakland, soon to be #1 and #2) another team over .500 (Anaheim) and the best last place team in any division (Texas, the only last place team over 50 wins.)

Wild about the wild card? You bet I am…

about the author

Hate the wild card? Why not bust Dave Paisley's chops about it at drdjp@strikethree.com? Of course, he'll just ignore you anyway...