Image credit: © Jeff Curry-Imagn Images
Last week we talked about how the regular season is priming us for a middling team potentially winning it all come October, more so than at any other point in the Wild Card era. At that point, seven of the 12 teams projected to make the playoffs were on track to finish with fewer than 90 wins. Now, just a week later, it’s eight. If things keep tracking like they have so far, we’ll see such a team through at least the first two rounds, possibly in both leagues. It’s relevant because only four teams in the last 30 years have won the World Series with fewer than 90 wins. It’s happened every six to eight years, with the 2021 Braves being the last ones to pull it off. It’s getting to be about that time, whether it’s endearing or not.
For as much as reaching this part of the season might create a roadmap for the rest of the way, teams are not static. The teams on the fringes are the ones that could gain the most by shaking things up, but are also the ones that could be least likely to make a meaningful trade because of how they’re straddling the fence. In an effort to differentiate themselves from the pack, one dial they could turn is how they handle the basepaths.
