Five Teams Play NL Wild-Card Poker

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Purist hand-wringing aside, this is why Bud Selig and his spear-carriers instituted the wild card – two additional postseason berths, two additional fevered pennant races, and all the additional revenue that follows. Look no further than this year’s National League wild-card race to see why Major League Baseball took such a controversial tack. With five teams – the Phillies, Mets, Marlins, Astros, and Nationals – all within two games of the NL wild-card lead, September is shaping up to be a hotly fought stretch drive with access to the postseason service entrance at stake. So which team, if any, can claim an advantage?


The key consideration is strength of schedule. That’s because since 2001, MLB has played an unbalanced schedule, which means teams these days play from more than one third to more than one-half of their games against intra-division opponents. The upshot is disparate levels of competition and, on another level, manifest unfairness toward those in tough divisions. The chart below shows the road ahead for the five NL wild-card contenders.


As you can see, the Astros have a much easier remaining schedule than the rest of the wild-card fray. This is a function of their playing in the NL Central, which houses four losing teams. After a home stint with St. Louis, Houston can look forward to two series with Milwaukee, followed by a four game date with Pittsburgh.


The NL East, meanwhile, is brimming with winners, so the home stretch for those teams is largely an exercise in self-immolation. The Marlins, in particular, have a less than accommodating final month, which includes 27 games in 29 days (17 of them on the road), the highest opponents’ winning percentage of any NL wild-card hopeful, and two series against the Braves. Philadelphia’s prospects aren’t much better.


Looking over the remaining schedule, one could argue that the Mets have a tougher go of it than the Phillies, but they do finish the regular season with four at home against the league worst Colorado Rockies. The Nationals, meanwhile, face only modestly tough opponents the rest of the way, and they enjoy 19 of their final 29 games at home. It’s worth noting that the Nats are 36-26 at RFK this season and only 31-37 on the road. So in terms of remaining schedule, Houston and Washington have clear advantages the rest of the way.


There’s also the matter of who’s been over- or under-performing to date. Using run differentials, component-level measures of offensive and defensive performance, and quality of opposition, Baseball Prospectus comes up with what it calls the “third-order wins”- or how many wins a team would have if things unfolded as they should have according to the above criteria. As third-order wins go, the Mets should have a 2 1/2 game lead over the Astros in the wild-card standings. The Phillies and Marlins would be roughly five games back of New York, while the Nationals would trail by 13 1/2 games. Yes, 13 1/2 games. That’s mostly a function of the fact that the Nats have an 18-run differential (runs scored minus runs allowed). As for the Mets’ high regard according to third-order wins, it’s the result of the team’s +81 run differential, which is the third-best mark in the NL, and the fact that New York has thus far played the fifth-toughest schedule in all of baseball.


What can be gleaned from run differentials, third-order wins, and the like is how these teams might fare over the remainder of the season. In the Mets’ case, that should portend better days ahead. While it’s easy to dismiss the team’s chances because of the season-ending injury to Mike Cameron and what could be the season ending injury to Mike Piazza, the Mets have cobbled together some highly capable replacements.


Ramon Castro is a much stronger defensive catcher than Piazza, and so far is capably approximating Piazza’s plate production with a .257 BA/.333 OBA/.466 SLG batting line. Castro’s minor league dossier suggests he’ll probably maintain those offensive numbers. And while he hasn’t previously met with much success in the majors, Castro had logged only 531 career plate appearances – barely a full season’s worth -coming into 2005. So it’s possible Castro was merely dealing with the early fits and starts that plague all players transitioning to the highest level. He has also shown an ability lately to step up with the big play, as he did with an eighth-inning, three-run homer in the Mets’ huge 6-4 win over Philadelphia on Tuesday night.


Outfielder Victor Diaz, while not certainly possessed of a Cameron-caliber glove, is batting .262 AVG/.348 OBA/.503 SLG in limited duty on the season, which makes him an apt replacement. With Cameron out for the rest of the year, Diaz can finally stop worry about playing time and concentrate on hitting every night. At third base, David Wright has compiled a .385 batting average in August (thereby undermining concerns that he would fade in his first full big league season). On the mound, the Mets made a belated and sensible move when they replaced the deeply unreliable Kaz Ishii in the rotation with the steadier Jae Seo.


In other words, this is a quality team that may well play better than expected down the stretch, even with a couple of regulars watching from the dugout.


The question is whether this newfound depth is enough to overcome Houston’s playoff-friendly schedule. Of the Astros’ final 16 games, 14 come against losing teams, a stretch that’s broken up by a late-September visit to the Cardinals, who will be in “just stay healthy” mode by that point. Then again, Houston has only two days off the rest of the year, which will complicate any attempts to go to a four-man September rotation.


That would be of immense value to a team like the Astros, who have so much value tied up in their top three assault of Roger Clemens, Roy Oswalt, and Andy Pettitte, but the schedule makes such a move untenable.


All things considered – schedule, performance to date, key indicators heretofore, and injuries – the Astros still must be regarded as the favorite to steal the NL Wild Card. But don’t count out Ner York. For the Mets to win the wild card, they’ll either need to exceed expectations, or Houston must encounter some unlikely obstacles. A key injury to the front of the Astros’ rotation or a hot September in New York from an unlikely contributor could be all it takes to tip the scales in this nip-and-tuck race.



Mr. Perry writes for Baseball Prospectus. For more state-of-the-art commentary, visit www.baseballprospectus.com.


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