Opening Day has come and gone, and all of MLB's teams are on to their second series, bringing the order of preseason expectations and projections into contact with the chaos of reality. In an era when the Houston Astros, Los Angeles Dodgers or Atlanta Braves have featured in every World Series since 2017, it can be difficult to get past the icy certainty of who was good last year and who has been good the past several years.
It’s worth noting the gulf between the Angels and the Rangers in the projections. Whereas the Angels sit above a 50% chance of reaching the postseason, the Rangers, despite two straight headline-making offseasons, are down at 34.5%. There’s simply not enough depth of proven hitters — or enough confidence in healthy pitchers — for the math to favor this team.
That said, the potential obviously exists for a huge step forward. Even if the Rangers ran back their 2022 team, a horrendous record in one-run games probably would've corrected itself via better luck and produced something closer to a .500 team. If they can get that regression and squeeze 20-25 starts apiece out of Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney? Sure, that’s a blueprint for knocking out a team that has a less charmed summer.
Teams with a 10 to 25% playoff chance: Chicago White Sox, Boston Red Sox, Miami Marlins, Arizona DiamondbacksThe same projections can help us assess the foundations of the teams that won our confidence — or perhaps just our favor via recency bias — by reaching the playoffs last year. As it turns out, two of 2022’s feel-good stories are already struggling.
Still, don’t panic just yet. In an even tougher division, the Phillies still have better average playoff odds than the Rangers, though the systems are split fairly dramatically.These are simple. The Central divisions are up for grabs as of right now. They could easily change hands with one breakthrough player or one key injury.Your browser does not support HTML5 audio.
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