American League Baseball Standings Overview
AL Division Races Have Fully Taken Form
We are officially in the home stretch of the 2023 MLB season. With just over a month left of the regular season, it’s obvious which teams are contenders, which teams are on the fringe of being able to make the postseason, and which teams are merely playing out the string. This is especially true in the American League baseball standings because each division is either close to decided (the Central) or has a defined group of possible champions (the East and West).
The Wild Card race is also still up for grabs with teams like the Toronto Blue Jays (1.5 games back; -180 to make the playoffs) and Boston Red Sox (3.5 games back; +450 to make the playoffs) within striking distance of the final two Wild Card spots, currently held by the virtually tied Seattle Mariners (-270 to make the playoffs) and Houston Astros (-450 to make the playoffs). But, after the Red Sox, the next closest team is the woefully underperforming New York Yankees (10 games back), whose odds of making/miss the playoffs have already been taken off the board.
Regarding the MLB division standings, the AL West battle is shaping up to be the best in baseball. As of Friday morning, the 72-55 Texas Rangers (+155 to win the division) are leading the way, but they’re only one game up on the Mariners (+225 to win the West) and Astros (+125 to win the West). Mere percentage points separate 71-56 Seattle and 72-57 Houston. So, that division looks like it genuinely will come right down to the wire.
The MLB schedules dictate that Seattle’s last 10 games of the regular season are against either Houston (three games) or Texas (seven games). Houston and Texas only have three more games against each other. It’s very likely that those head-to-head matchups will determine the AL West champion and, in turn, the AL Wild Card race will swing on those games as well.
Vegas likes Houston’s chances to win its sixth division title in the last seven seasons, even though the Astros’ starting pitchers have been getting crushed by opposing teams recently. They lost one of the more lopsided baseball scores of the season on Thursday as they got crushed 17-1 by the Red Sox, with J.P. France allowing 10 runs. If Houston will outlast Texas and Seattle, the Astros will need guys like France to step up.
Houston (+350) is, interestingly, the favorite to win the AL even though the Astros aren’t currently even leading their own division. The pedigree that team has built up — as well as the deadline pickup of Justin Verlander — justifies that kind of faith in the markets.
The other intriguing race is in the AL East, where the American League baseball standings have the surprising upstart 79-48 Baltimore Orioles (-275 to win the division) as the presumptive AL East favorites, with the Tampa Bay Rays (+200 to win the AL East) two games behind. The Orioles have been playing such consistently good baseball for a while now that it won’t be easy for Tampa Bay to catch them, but two games is still a very small deficit with over 30 left to play. Plus, these teams have a critical four-game series coming up in September, so plenty of standings movement is left.
Based on the current odds, the Orioles (+900) and Rays (+1000) are legitimate contenders to win the World Series. They’ve been the two best teams in the AL from the get-go this season, so it’s not much of a surprise that they’re the teams left standing in the AL East, probably MLB’s best division from the top down. It’s just that teams like the Blue Jays and Yankees were expected to contend for the title, not the Orioles and Rays.
As usual, the AL Central has easily been the AL’s least-competitive division in the American League baseball standings. It looks like the Minnesota Twins (-1000 to win the AL Central) will win the division easily, as they have a six-game lead over the Cleveland Guardians. For a while, it seemed like no team was going to separate itself from the rest of the pack in the group but thanks in large part to the Guardians having a dreadful August, Minnesota has been able to separate itself.
Six games isn’t an insurmountable gap for Cleveland to make up, but it doesn’t seem like the Guardians have enough offensive firepower to surpass Minnesota. Terry Francona’s team has six more games against the Twins, which provides an opportunity to gain ground, but, if the Guardians don’t win at least four of those games, it’s hard to envision them having enough time to get back in the race. Cleveland is +1000 to make the playoffs, and even that feels like a line that will be taken off the board soon.
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