Odds To Make MLB Playoffs: Potential Longshot Picks

The MLB season is headed to the home stretch, with about a quarter of the season remaining and September fast approaching. Some races, such as the NL Central and NL East, are all but decided. Others, however, remain up in the air. Which teams are on the fence in odds to make the MLB playoffs?

TheLines examined MLB Playoff Odds, keeping in mind the projections housed at FanGraphs and each team’s injury situation. We’ll see which teams the market believes are best positioned to win these races and which may offer betting value.

Each Team’s Odds To Make MLB Playoffs

Click any of the odds below to make a wager at betting apps in your area. Use the pulldown in the top left to check the odds for each team.

AL Playoff Races

AL East

The Orioles and Yankees are basically in. The only major question is, which earns a bye via winning the division? It would take something pretty crazy for either of them to miss, given the Orioles (trailing the Yanks) are six games ahead of the first team out (Boston).

And yet … I’ve seen crazier things than the Orioles collapsing down the stretch here, given what’s happened to their starting rotation. They have an entire reasonable five-man group on the IL (Grayson Rodriguez, Kyle Bradish, John Means, Zach Eflin, Tyler Wells).

Their offense might be MLB’s best, so they should definitely get in. But I’ve seen nuttier bets than Orioles to miss () come home.

That leaves Boston as the other team with a realistic shot. The Red Sox have come on very strong. They have the fourth best offense in MLB in the second half. They’re also close to full strength with Triston Casas and Tyler O’Neill back from injury. By BaseRuns (which strips out sequencing) they’ve been a better team than the Royals, whom they trail by 3 1/2 games.

Given all that, I really couldn’t blame someone for taking the dog money at .

AL Central

This is a tight three-team race, with whichever teams missing on the division crown being strong favorites to take Wild Card slots. The Royals and Twins (two games back of Cleveland) are 2 1/2 games up on Houston and 3 1/2 up on Boston.

Surprisingly, the Royals have the best run differential of the three by quite a bit at +110. That’s well ahead of the +69 and +73 the Guardians and Twins have posted, respectively.

Cleveland looks like the most suspect here. They’ve been the luckiest team in MLB from a sequencing standpoint, with BaseRuns of a sub-.500 team. Could the bottom fall out on this high-wire act? The market thinks not, so a price to miss playoffs may be enticing.

Minnesota has the best team of the bunch by a good margin when healthy. They also have the easiest schedule left. Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton are down with non-serious injuries (though does any such injury qualify for Buxton), and staff ace Joe Ryan may miss the rest of the season, however.

Circle their four-game set with Cleveland and three-game series against Kansas City. Both are on the road, but if the Twins can play to their talent and possibly get their boppers back, the division is there for the taking ().

AL West

The West is down to Houston vs. Seattle, and the Mariners are wobbling. They’ve dropped eight of their last nine, failing to take advantage of Houston losing a series at home to Boston and dropping a game to the abhorrent White Sox. What was once a 10-game lead over Houston has become a five-game deficit.

Reports emerged on Thursday that the team was axing manager Scott Servais, a stunning move in the midst of a playoff chase.

Few, if any, teams can boast the firepower of this Mariners staff. But with their playoff chances down to 10% per FanGraphs, it’s probably too late.

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NL playoff Races

NL East

The divisional race is realistically over, since the Braves failed to secure a home sweep over Philly. They’d likely need to sweep the teams’ remaining four-game road set to have a prayer.

That means Atlanta and New York are locked into a heated chase for the final Wild Card, having been surpassed easily by the Diamondbacks and Padres. The Braves once held a comfortable lead in this race with greater than 90% playoff probability for most of the summer.

While the roster has been hit by a staggering number of injuries, spread equally among the rotation and the bats, FanGraphs’ projections still believe in the Braves. Those numbers expect them to win nearly 56% of their remaining games, ahead of even the Phillies. Considering the Braves still lead MLB in HardHit%, there may be something to that.

Atlanta has the most favorable schedule of these three teams as well.

New York has a good offense, but the starting rotation and bullpen are quite pedestrian. They’ll probably need some good fortune to surpass the Braves and cash tickets.

NL Central

The Brewers could have slammed the door on St. Louis by winning a road series, but they dropped the final two games to leave the door open just a crack. However, this is another race that’s realistically over, with FanGraphs’ tabbing the Brewers’ chances at 99% thanks to a 10-game lead.

Each under .500, the Cardinals, Reds, and Cubs aren’t realistic Wild Card contenders in odds to make MLB playoffs.

NL West

With Max Muncy and Mookie Betts back in the fold, the Death Star that is the Dodgers offense is now fully operational for the first time in months. Sure enough, they piled up 17 runs in their first health series despite facing the Mariners’ intimidating staff.

Arizona and San Diego made them sweat for a bit, but L.A. should be a shoo-in to make the playoffs. And with Arizona now a minimal threat thanks to injuries to their two best hitters, Christian Walker and Ketel Marte, the Dodgers will almost certainly get there via the division title.

The only lingering uncertainty comes from the number of good pitchers on the IL, which now includes Tyler Glasnow in addition to River Ryan and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Speaking of injuries, one wonders whether the losses of Walker and Marte will slow the Arizona train down. The Diamondbacks have been baseball’s best team in the second half. But they face a rather difficult closing schedule, with seven out of 11 series against teams squarely in the playoff hunt. Two more come against San Francisco, which remains on the fringe ().

Arizona has a comfortable 5 1/2-game lead currently, but if any NL West team falters, it figures to be the Snakes ().

Best of luck with any bets you make on odds to make the MLB playoffs. October will be here soon enough.