![Taking a Look at Memorial Day MLB Standings: Surprises, Disappointments, and More Taking a Look at Memorial Day MLB Standings: Surprises, Disappointments, and More](https://i0.wp.com/a4.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2024%2F0526%2Fr1338076_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&w=1200&resize=1200,0&ssl=1)
May 27, 2024, 07:20 am ET
It’s Memorial Day, so you know what that means, MLB fans: you’re officially free to watch the MLB standings!
Among baseball fans, the saying goes that you should avoid looking at the standings until Memorial Day, which gives teams time to play enough games over two months to add meaning to what we’re seeing happen each year. division.
While your team’s position in the current standings may not guarantee that it will finish the season there, there is some truth to the concept: according to data from Elias Sports Bureau, 58% of teams (94 of 161) that were in possession exclusive of first place on the morning of June 1 they won their division in the wild card era (since 1995 and excluding 2020).
We asked Keynote USA MLB experts Jorge Castillo, Bradford Doolittle, Buster Olney and David Schoenfield to take a look at the rankings and weigh in on what stands out to them so far.
What is the first thing that catches your attention when you look at the rankings?
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Castle: The Houston Astros are in third place in the American League West with a record below .500. Yes, they are playing much better in May after a terrible April. But these are the Astros, ALCS participants in each of the last seven seasons. Seeing them in third place so late in the schedule produces a double take every time. It’s strange. Luckily for them, the Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers haven’t played well enough to bury them after their poor start. They’re aging and their farm system is short on potential reinforcements, but the Astros are too talented (and given too much life) to stay in third place for long.
Doolittle: There are plenty of teams clustered around the .500 mark that are vying for playoff position. The Mariners lead the American League West with just two games over .500. Right now in the National League, getting one or two games over .500 gets you fifth place. There is a lot of mediocrity in the majors right now, and some of it will be rewarded with spots in the October class. This could very well be the season where we have a sub-.500 playoff team. Given what we saw last year, that losing team could perhaps go far in the postseason. None of this seems particularly exciting to me.
Olney: This Memorial Day, the team with the best record in the American League is not the Baltimore Orioles, who had the best record in the league last year. Not the Rangers, the defending champions. Not the New York Yankees, leaders of the American League East. Not the Astros. Neither the Boston Red Sox nor the Tampa Bay Rays nor the Toronto Blue Jays. They are the Cleveland Guardians. And just behind the Guardians, Yankees and Orioles with the fourth best record: the Kansas City Royals. Before this season, many projections said the Royals would win between 70 and 74 games, or an improvement of about 15 wins from last year. Instead, Kansas City is on pace to flirt with 100 wins and has a top-three MVP in Bobby Witt Jr.
Schoenfield: The American League Central, with the Guardians and Royals off to excellent starts and the Minnesota Twins also above .500. Not including 2020, the AL Central hasn’t had two teams make the playoffs since 2017 (when Cleveland and Minnesota did), hasn’t had two teams finish above .500 since 2019, and hasn’t seen three teams finish above .500. since 2014. It’s not just that he has three winning teams, but how impressive Cleveland and Kansas City have been. The Guardians have scored more runs than expected with a tight bullpen to close leads, and the Royals have put together a hot rotation with Seth Lugo dominating (plus Witt and Salvador Pérez).
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Castle: The Miami Marlins were never expected to compete for a championship this season. A second consecutive postseason berth, following their first full-season playoff appearance since 2003, would have been a victory. But at least they were projected to be in the summer mix. Instead, injuries decimated their pitching staff during the first month of the season, digging a hole so deep that the organization cleared 2024 four days into May by trading Luis Arráez, the team’s best hitter, for four players from minor leagues. The Marlins now reside in the dumpster fire differential company of the Chicago White Sox and Colorado Rockies.
Maybe we should have seen it coming. Sandy Alcantara, the 2022 National League Cy Young Award winner, was shelved for 2024 after undergoing Tommy John surgery in October. Miami’s biggest addition of the offseason was Tim Anderson, who was coming off the worst season of his career. And things turned ugly in the front office when general manager Kim Ng decided to leave after a de facto demotion. But Miami was never supposed to be this ugly again so soon.
Doolittle: I’m not ready to rule out the Rangers or Astros just yet, so I’ll go with a team I don’t see changing things: Toronto. There was a lot of young offensive talent there and instead of last year’s offensive decline regressing to average in a positive sense, things have gotten worse. Only the White Sox have a worse park-adjusted scoring rate than the Blue Jays.
Olney: There are plenty of candidates here: the Marlins, after making the playoffs in 2023, and of course, the Rangers and Astros. But no one has taken control of the American League West yet, and it’s reasonable to expect an increase from both Texas and Houston (the Astros have already been playing better). On the other hand, the New York Mets, a team that won 100 games two years ago, are already 15 games out of first place in the NL East and nine games behind the second-place Atlanta Braves. place. It looked like they would at least hang on and compete for a wild card spot this year, but over the last month or so, they’ve lost 22 of 32 games, playing at a 111-loss pace over that stretch. . That’s crazy, and it will free up president of baseball operations David Stearns so he can make aggressive trades for prospects at the trade deadline.
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Schoenfield: Everyone expected the defending champion Rangers to be better in the second half, when they will hopefully add Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer and Tyler Mahle to the rotation, but rotation hasn’t been their biggest problem. Bullpen depth is a big issue. Kirby Yates and David Robertson have been good in the backfield, but the middle relievers are dropping runs in the middle of games. The offense hasn’t been as potent as we saw last season, as Josh Jung was injured, rookies Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford haven’t hit as projected, and Corey Seager recently found his power stroke. Luckily for the Rangers, the Mariners haven’t hit and the Astros haven’t pitched, so the AL West remains wide open.
How many teams will win 100 games this season and who will finish with the most wins?
Castle: I will keep three, in this order: Los Angeles Dodgers (104 wins), Philadelphia Phillies (103) and New York Yankees (102). The Dodgers are on a 97-win pace despite having three holes in their lineup and missing several key pitchers for at least part of the season so far. I see them improving their roster (with internal and external options) this summer and overwhelming clubs in the second half en route to 104 wins.
Doolittle: I think the Yankees, Phillies and Dodgers will get there, and the Yankees will take the overall MLB banner with, say, 104 wins. It’s a very well-balanced team in New York, one that has shown stifling run prevention even though Gerrit Cole’s season hasn’t started yet. The Braves have enough problems on the pitching side that I think they will fall short (and lost Ronald Acuña Jr. for the season on Sunday), but they are still a top title contender.
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Olney: Despite their winning pace, the funny thing is that the Dodgers haven’t really gotten hot yet: They’ve recently figured out their pitching, and eventually it seems inevitable that they’ll get more production from the bottom five spots in their lineup. Look at where your No. 6 through 9 hitters rank in wRC+:
No. 6: 79 wRC+ (20th)
No. 7: 54 (26)
No. 8: 55 (29)
No. 9: 75 (15th)
That’s going to get better, so the Dodgers’ offense is going to get better. They will finish with the best record and enter the postseason under enormous pressure, which is what happens with any star-studded team. The Yankees, Phillies and Braves will also finish with 100 wins.
Schoenfield: I’m going to pick four: the Yankees, Phillies, Braves and Dodgers, with the Orioles coming up short at 98. The Braves haven’t played like a 100-win team, but I bet that offense will click at some point. , propel the Braves to a 20-4 run or something that makes them challenge the Phillies again for the division title. More wins? The Yankees have a great rotation (Luis Gil!) even without Cole, a great bullpen and perhaps the two best hitters in the American League: Juan Soto and Aaron Judge. Score them with 106 wins, the most since the historic 1998 team.
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