SI:AM | This Is MLB’s Most Fascinating Playoff Race

It’s a three-way race in the AL Central with no clear favorite.

Bobby Witt Jr. has helped lift Kansas City into playoff contention. / Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I continue to be flabbergasted by everything Aaron Judge does. 

In today’s SI:AM: 

💰 CeeDee’s big payday
👨‍⚖️ Nine mind-blowing Judge stats
🥸 Connor Stalions speaks

Who’s going to take the crown? 

MLB’s new-ish 12-team playoff format has done exactly what the league wanted it to. The expanded postseason field keeps more teams in the hunt for October later in the season and incentivizes clubs to remain competitive after the trade deadline. At the same time, though, it may also be disincentivizing teams from trying to become truly great. If you can make the playoffs with 87 wins, why try to win 100 games? The Los Angeles Dodgers currently have the best record in the majors but are on pace for only 96 wins. That would mark the first time since 2014 that no team won at least 100 games. 

But while there may not be any juggernauts this season, that has led to some really tense playoff races. As of Tuesday, four of the six division leaders have leads of less than four games with 33 days left in the season. But only one division has three teams within three games of the lead: the AL Central. 

The Minnesota Twins and Cleveland Guardians have owned the division for most of the past decade, winning seven of the last eight division crowns. (The lone exception is the Chicago White Sox’ 2021 win, which seems like a million years ago now.) Those two are both in contention again this year, but they’re joined by a team looking to snap a long postseason drought: the Kansas City Royals. 

At the moment, the standings look like this: Cleveland is in first place at 75–57. Kansas City is one game back (74–58) and Minnesota is 2.5 games behind first at 72–59. Other division races are fairly close—the New York Yankees hold a two-game lead over the Baltimore Orioles and both the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres are within four games of the Dodgers—but the AL Central is the most compelling of them all. The Fangraphs playoff odds currently give the Guardians a 44.5% chance of winning the division, followed by the Royals at 29.3% and the Twins at 26.2%. Every other division leader has at least a 74% chance of winning. 

The Royals are what makes this such a compelling division race. They haven’t had a winning season since they won the World Series in 2015, the last time they won the division, and after they finished with a 56–106 record last season it seemed like their rebuild was a long way from completion. They were active in free agency, though, signing Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha to bolster a starting rotation that ranked fourth-worst in the majors last season in ERA. It worked. This year, Kansas City’s starters have the third-best ERA in the majors. 

The real key for the Royals, though, is the emergence of shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. as a bonafide superstar. Witt arrived in the majors with plenty of hype as a 22-year-old in 2022, ranked as the top prospect in the game by MLB.com and Baseball Prospectus. And he didn’t disappoint, hitting 20 homers as a rookie and 30 last season. But Witt has made an enormous leap forward this season. He’s currently leading the majors with a .347 batting average and is second in WAR, behind only Aaron Judge. Everyone expected Witt to be good, but his sudden emergence as one of the best players in the game has the Royals’ rebuild ahead of schedule. 

Kansas City’s next two weeks will play a major role in determining who wins the division. The Royals swept a doubleheader against the Guardians on Monday and have two more games in Cleveland on Tuesday and Wednesday. After a four-game set on the road against the Houston Astros this weekend, Kansas City has three games against Cleveland and three against Minnesota, all at home. Those are the Royals’ final games against their division rivals this season. 

The final head-to-head meeting between any of the three AL Central contenders will be Sept. 16–19, when the Guardians host the Twins for four games. There won’t be any dramatic pseudo-playoff series on the final weekend of the season between two teams vying for the division crown. But let’s not get greedy. This is still shaping up to be a fascinating three-way race. 

Lamb signed a four-year extension with the Cowboys. / Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

The best of Sports Illustrated

• Conor Orr isn’t sure what the Cowboys’ long-term plans are after they signed receiver CeeDee Lamb to a big contract extension.

• Orr also wrote about the potential in-game use of Guardian Caps and whether the NFL’s macho culture will lead to their widespread adoption.

• Tom Verducci found nine more stats to illustrate just how incredible Aaron Judge has been this season.

• Emma Baccellieri profiled Paralympian Jarryd Wallace, who won bronze in the 200-meter in Tokyo but is now trying to medal in the long jump.

• Jon Wertheim reflected on the career of Dominic Thiem, who is retiring from tennis after losing in the first round of the U.S. Open.

• Looking for a name for your fantasy football team? Jennifer Piacenti has 75 suggestions.

• Connor Stalions spoke publicly for the first time about the Michigan sign-stealing scandal in a new Netflix documentary.

• Jason and Travis Kelce just signed a new podcast deal worth more than $100 million.

The top five…

… things I saw last night: 

5. Caitlin Clark’s three-pointer over Rhyne Howard to tie Howard’s WNBA record for threes by a rookie. 
4. The standing ovation Nationals fans gave Juan Soto. 
3. Umpire Scott Barry’s terrible strike call on a pitch from position player Rowdy Tellez. The pitch missed the strike zone by more than a foot. 
2. Red Sox catcher Danny Jansen’s history-making day against the Blue Jays. He was behind the plate for Toronto on June 26 when the game against Boston was suspended. He was subsequently traded to the Red Sox, so when the game resumed Monday, Jansen became the first player in MLB history to play for both teams in the same game. 
1. Aaron Judge’s home run robbery.