When Major League Baseball changed the schedule to ensure that the final day of the regular season featured all 15 games starting within a few minutes of each other, Sunday is what they envisioned. Mostly.
While most postseason spots and seeds were decided either within the last week or the last few days, there were two races that came down to the final day of the year. The American League West race featured the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers entering the day tied at 80-81, remarkably, and the third wild card spot in the National League between the Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks.
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The Phillies, who as recently as last week had a 99.1% chance of reaching the postseason, per FanGraphs, avoided a historic collapse and clinched a wild card series appearance with a 7-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays.
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But the Astros, even with a win, did in fact make an embarrassing type of history: they are officially the worst division-winning team in baseball history.
The previous low-water mark was the 2005 San Diego Padres, who won the NL West with an 82-80 record. And while the Astros won 9-0 over the long-eliminated Athletics to avoid the 80-82 record, 81–81 marks a new low winning percentage for a division winner over a full season.
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Even crazier? The Astros were extremely fortunate to finish the season at .500.
While wins and losses are what decide the standings and outcomes, run differential has proven over time to be a significantly better predictor of future win and loss records than the previous standings. Essentially, the better you are at outscoring the opposition, the more likely it is that you’ll win more games moving forward. One-run outcomes are not sustainable, but blowouts are illustrative of team quality.
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Run differentials are also used to build “expected” records. Meaning that in the history of baseball, a specific run differential is expected to result in a given number of wins and losses. The Miami Marlins, for example, outscored the opposition by just three runs over the course of the season, which is an “expected” record of 81-81. Makes sense, they were even with the other teams in the league, they should finish at an even .500.
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By contrast, the Milwaukee Brewers finished with a league-best +214 run differential, good for an “expected” record of 103-59. They finished 103-59.
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But teams frequently over perform or underperform against their expected win-loss record, for any number of reasons. A bad bullpen could mean a team wins blowouts, but loses more than their fair share of close games. Bad luck. Poorly timed injuries. Poor defense. Inconsistent hitting with runners in scoring position. The randomness of baseball. Or a dominant closer who shuts the door consistently in close games.
This year’s 81-81 division winning Astros team was so bad they were outscored 32 runs over the course of the season, good for just an 78-84 expected win-loss record. While the Rangers and their fans are sure to be disappointed with the outcome, missing out on the final day, they were even worse. Texas had a -46 run differential, and a 76-86 expected record.
These are not good baseball teams.
So it’s a near-certainty that Houston will make a quick postseason exit, right?
Yeah, no, not at all. Houston plays the Chicago White Sox in the best-of-three wild card series, which the Astros now host as division winners. Chicago’s a better team, but the randomness inherent in the small sample size of a playoff series makes the result effectively a toss up. In fact, FanGraphs gives the Astros a 55% chance of advancing to the ALDS.
Should Houston win that series, they’d play the extremely mediocre Cleveland Guardians, who finished with a +11 run differential and 85-77 record. Cleveland may be slight favorites in that series, maybe 57-43, but hardly a foregone conclusion. Which means we could be staring down the barrel of an 81-81 team reaching the ALCS.
MLB always hoped for last-minute drama by starting every game around the same time on the final day of the regular season. They got it.
They also got the worst-ever division winning team because the league’s financial incentives and playoff structure encourage owners to do the bare minimum and spend as little as possible to win 85 games and hope for the best. Or in Houston’s case, 81. The Astros benefited, and fans were forced to watch the AL West “battle” lost.
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