Will the Rangers, Orioles, Giants And MLB’s Other Surprise Contenders Keep Rolling?
These teams are looking to finish out the Year of the Underdog in style.
The first half of this MLB season was characterized by its surprises — high-payroll teams that were supposed to dominate but haven’t, and plucky underdogs who have defied the odds. As we turn our attention to the second half of the schedule, let’s focus on that latter group and ask: Can they keep it up? We know that baseball is a strange sport, in which even large samples of games can brazenly lie to us. So for each team that was projected in spring training to finish below .500 but now carries at least a 20 percent playoff probability, here are the reasons why they can finish their surprising seasons strong — or why they might fall back to earth in the end.
Texas Rangers
Projected: 79.9 wins | Current pace: 93.7 wins | Playoff odds: 94 percent
The Rangers went all-in with an expensive, risky turnaround strategy this season, and the results have been undeniable — even if things haven’t gone perfectly according to plan. Texas has staying power in part because its depth extends well beyond the big-ticket names; an MLB-high 12 different members of the team are on pace for at least 2.5 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) so far.
The Rangers also deserve a better record than the one that currently has them leading the AL West. Only the San Diego Padres and Chicago Cubs have a bigger negative gap between their actual W-L mark and the one we’d expect based on their runs scored and allowed. And no team — not even the mighty Atlanta Braves — has more total WAR this season than Texas.
Perhaps the only reasons to be skeptical of the Rangers are that their schedule goes from fifth-easiest to seventh-hardest by average opponent Elo rating from here onward, and that many of those productive players have performed far beyond their previous track records — so a slowdown may be incoming, or may already have begun. (Texas is just 16-14 in its past 30 games.) Still, the Rangers easily have the best playoff and World Series odds of any team in this group.
Baltimore Orioles
Projected: 76.7 wins | Current pace: 91.4 wins | Playoff odds: 88 percent
After the Orioles won 83 games with MLB’s fourth-youngest roster last season, maybe this team should have been given the benefit of the doubt looking ahead to 2023. But the statistical projection systems thought Baltimore would regress instead, and the O’s have spent all season making them look silly. Much like the Rangers, the Orioles have gotten a host of key contributions from up and down their roster, including a lineup that places them among the best hitting teams in baseball and a bullpen that ranks second in total WAR — led by the impossibly good duo of Yennier Cano (1.58 ERA) and Félix Bautista (1.00). Just as importantly, they are now tied for the AL East lead and have a huge cushion in the wild card race, with an 8-game gap over the Red Sox.
Baltimore’s relief performance might be more sustainable than it would be for other teams, as the O’s ranked fourth in bullpen WAR last year as well. But they are also 16-9 in 1-run contests and their record is outpacing what we’d predict from their run differential by an AL-high 6 games. Toss in the second-hardest remaining schedule by Elo, plus a recent injury to starting CF Cedric Mullins, and the Orioles might need to beef up at the trade deadline to keep things from getting too interesting during the second half.
San Francisco Giants
Projected: 80.3 wins | Current pace: 88.2 wins | Playoff odds: 76 percent
The Giants always love to zig when the forecasters think they’ll zag, so it makes sense that they’d be on 2023’s list of surprising contenders. In a crowded NL West race, they’ve staked out a tie for second place, wedged behind the rival Los Angeles Dodgers and next to the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks (more on them later). San Francisco has little in the way of glaring weaknesses — it ranks 18th or better in WAR at every position save for shortstop (25th) and center field (23rd) — and the Giants have the capacity to potentially improve their few shortcomings at the trade deadline.
One area that might portend a decline for San Francisco is its bullpen, which ranks fifth in both Win Probability Added and WAR after finishing 24th and 13th, respectively, last season. Relief pitching is the only subcategory of WAR where the Giants rank among MLB’s top 10 (their next-best categories are 13th in starting pitching and baserunning), so San Francisco is relying on a less sustainable area of the game to power its surprising run. But that’s admittedly a bit of a reach. The O’s have been solid all season and resilient in the face of injuries, earning them a 2-game lead for the final wild card spot and a 76 percent playoff probability by the statistical models.
Arizona Diamondbacks
Projected: 77.7 wins | Current pace: 87.0 wins | Playoff odds: 64 percent
Arizona has long established itself among the most entertaining of this year’s surprise teams, in part because it was well-suited to take advantage of MLB’s new rule changes. The D-backs are a great running and fielding team that hits for power and features many young, exciting players such as likely NL Rookie of the Year Corbin Carroll. What’s there not to root for as we look ahead to the last two-plus months of the regular season?
Unfortunately, the shine has already started to come off of the Diamondbacks’ sparkling start to the year: Arizona is 13-17 in its past 30 games, falling from 4 games up in the NL West on June 17 to 1½ games behind as of Thursday morning. No team has a bigger ramp-up in future schedule strength (No. 4) versus past schedule strength (No. 25), either, and the competition in the D-backs’ division and wild-card races is heating up. While Arizona has won only 13 of its past 30, its primary rivals in either race — the Dodgers, Giants and Phillies — have all gone 18-12 or better over the same span of games. That’s how a team with roughly 80 percent playoff odds a month ago can fall to 64 percent now.
Miami Marlins
Projected: 76.4 wins | Current pace: 84.9 wins | Playoff odds: 45 percent
Heading into 2023, a successful season of baseball in South Florida seemed to simply involve flirting with .500 (as FanGraphs, the statistical forecaster who was highest on the Marlins, suggested was possible). Sitting in the thick of a playoff race in mid-July? That was beyond the wildest expectations of even the most pro-Miami pickers. Yet the Marlins are just a half-game out of the NL’s final wild card slot, thanks to the magic bat of Luis Arraez (.376 AVG) and MLB’s sixth-best pitching staff by WAR. And the scariest thing about Miami might be that its pitching has been that good without Sandy Alcantara, last year’s Cy Young winner, firing on all cylinders. If he picks up the pace, look out.
However, there are cracks in the Marlins’ formula which might limit their potential during the stretch run. Despite Arraez’s brilliance, their offense ranks fifth-to-last in scoring, with few other contributors posing much threat to pitchers around the league. Alongside the Orioles and Milwaukee Brewers, no team has gotten luckier than Miami in terms of outplaying the record we’d expect from its run differential, a byproduct of going a league-best 21-8 in 1-run games. After facing the league’s ninth-easiest schedule to date, the Marlins’ slate ranks sixth-hardest over the remainder of the season. And a recent cold streak has dropped Miami out of playoff position if the season ended today. All of these factors add up to make the Marlins’ playoff chances a coin-flip despite how well they played throughout the first half.
Cincinnati Reds
Projected: 69.5 wins | Current pace: 81.2 wins | Playoff odds: 24 percent
Whenever you rattle off your franchise’s longest winning streak in 66 years, people take notice — and that’s what happened to the Reds when they zoomed to the top of the NL Central with 12 consecutive wins in June. Like the D-backs, Cincinnati is a young, electric team seemingly made for baseball’s new rules, with a fresh superstar (infielder Elly De La Cruz) who is rewriting the book on what a player can be capable of at his size and position. During their winning streak, it was hard not to get swept up in the excitement of the Reds’ improbable bid for a postseason berth.
Cincy has come back down to earth some recently, though, with 10 losses in its past 20 games (and 7 in its past 10). De La Cruz’s instant impact aside, the truth was that the Reds were always playing somewhat over their heads — their expected record is four games worse than their actual record, and they probably deserve an even worse record based on their underlying stats. Aside from baserunning — where it helps to have the fastest player in baseball — the only other elite aspect of Cincinnati’s profile is its bullpen, which has made a quantum leap from 22nd in WAR last year to No. 1 this season. But as first place in the Central has slipped through the Reds’ grasp and they find themselves multiple games out of the NL’s last wild card spot, one can’t help but feel like Cincinnati peaked with its magical midseason winning streak.
Filed under: Baseball