Major League Baseball Playoff Shifts: Week 5

By Stephen Oh
Accuscore.com

NATIONAL LEAGUE

The San Francisco Giants had a tremendous week with a road sweep over Wild Card competitor, Florida, and even though they lost 2 of 3 to the Mets they were on the road and won the one game they were expected to win. None of the other NL West teams had better than a .500 week and Wild Card hopefuls like Chicago, Florida, and Atlanta all had bad weeks. The Dodgers were 3-3, but saw a major -13.8 percent drop because they lost 2 of 3 to Milwaukee and helped them get back into the early Wild Card race. A 3-3 week in all home games is not good as the Dodgers needed to have a 5-1 week if they wanted to close the gap in the NL West.

Philadelphia was 5-2 which included 3 quality wins over St. Louis. The Phillies have just a 2 game lead over the Nationals but are still an overwhelming 82 percent favorite to take the NL East. Washington is now projected for a very strong 83 win season, and they are now a legitimate Wild Card contender. A 6-6 road record is 6th best in the National League. The Mets are still at under 10 percent in playoff chances because they have not shown the ability to win on the road. They are 4-8 this season and this past week dropped 2 of 3 road games in Cincinnati.

While Philadelphia was boosted by their 3 wins over St. Louis, the Cardinals were not hurt much by these 3 losses (dropped just -2.8 percent). They were betting underdogs in all 4 of these games and in simulations were averaging just under 2 wins out of 4. Ultimately they only lost 0.5 more games than expected this week. The only reason why they dropped at all was the Brewers' solid 5-1 week with all games on the road. The offense exploded for double digit runs in 3 of the 6 games and this makes a positive statistical impact on its future expected wins. The Brewers are a threat at just 15-16 as they are only 4-8 at home this year. If they continue winning at least half their road games but win 60% of their remaining home games they could easily be the NL Wild Card. A +9.4 percent improvement (more than double last week's percentage) is a good start.

AMERICAN LEAGUE

The Tigers improved their playoff chances by 20 points thanks to a 6-1 week, but a 1-4 Week 5 resulted in a -22 point drop. The 1-4 was especially damaging because they were swept by division leader Minnesota so it was not surprising to see the Twins pick up the bulk of the Tigers' loss improving by nearly 20 percentage points after a 5-2 week. Cleveland, Kansas City and Chicago are currently after thoughts in the AL Central.

The Oakland A's got a perfect game from Dallas Braden and this highlighted a 4-2 week that led to Oakland improving its playoff chances from 17.8 to 28.2 percent. While 4-2 was good, a major reason why Oakland jumped was the horrendous 2-5 week from the Angels and 1-5 from the Mariners. Oakland did not jump as much as this week's AL Leader Texas, who leaped nearly 32 percentage points after a 5-2 week. They swept KC at home and ordinarily wins over a sub-par team would not translate to huge improvement in playoff chances but when coupled with a combined 42.6 percent drop from your two top pre-season competitors (LA, Seattle) you get a huge improvement.

Boston had a 5-2 week but barely saw an improvement in their playoff chances. Four wins came vs the struggling Angels and Boston was 'supposed' to win at least 3 of these 4. By dropping 2 of 3 at home to the Yankees they basically ended up with the record that they were expected to have this week and they lost yet another game to the Yankees. Tampa Bay was a solid 4-2 so with both the Rays and Yankees having good weeks, Boston did not help itself much despite going 5-2.