No AL Wild Card Race This Year
The wild card is one of those things that probably drives baseball purists mad. After all, if a team can’t win its divisional title, why should it make it into the postseason?
When the creation of a wild card was put to a vote back in 1993, Texas Rangers owner George W. Bush was the only owner to vote against it, claiming that “history will prove I was right.” The six wild card teams that have since won World Series titles would almost certainly disagree with the future president’s assertion.
Regardless of what baseball fans think about the current wild card format, it’s a week before the All-Star game and one thing is abundantly clear: There’s not going to be any wild card drama, at least not in the American League.
The divisional races are still paramount, in that they give home-field advantage to teams that prevail. But the top five teams in the American League are already identified, and something pretty drastic would have to occur to keep the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Cleveland Indians, Houston Astros or Seattle Mariners home in October.
Let’s start with the AL East, where Boston clings to a small lead over their historic rivals from New York. Both teams are on pace to win at least 100 games, and both can be assured it won’t be like 1978, where one team moves on and the goes home. There won’t be any Bucky Dent heroics this year because none will be needed, at least not in the regular season.
Likewise in the AL West, two teams are so far out in front that the rest of the division can only watch them pull away. Fans of the Astros and Mariners aren’t really historic rivals, especially since Houston only recently joined the American League. However, it seems the Mariners can give the reigning champions a run for their money in the second half of the season. And even if they don’t win the division, they will easily make it into the postseason.
It’s a different story in the AL Central, where Cleveland has opened up a big lead over a very lackluster group of also-rans. The Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals are on pace to lose 100 games or more this season, and the Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers are well below .500. With a big division lead, it’s good times for Cleveland fans in this post-LeBron environment, but not so great for the rest of the teams in the midwest.
In all the years since baseball went to a 162-game schedule back in 1961, there hasn’t been four teams with 100 or more wins in the same season, but it looks like it could happen this year. On the other hand, there are 10 other American League teams—fully two-thirds of the league itself—that will have lots of free time when the regular season ends on September 30.
George W. Bush once opposed the wild card, and for this year, at least, the American League is going to be wild-card-race free. There will still be wild card teams, of course, but there just won’t be any drama to it. Perhaps the National League can make up the slack in this regard. As always, time will tell.
