As the month of August comes to a close, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:
1. Postseason eligibility for external additions ends today:
With several quality names currently on the waiver wire and more potentially useful pieces available through free agency, teams and players will have to match up by 11:59pm ET tonight in order for players to retain postseason eligibility with their new organizations. That won’t be an issue in the case of waiver wire players like Lucas Giolito, Matt Moore, Randal Grichuk, Hunter Renfroe and Harrison Bader, as the waiver period on those players ends this afternoon. Players who were recently released or elected free agency, such as Josh Donaldson, Adam Kolarek and Trey Mancini, will presumably look to find a new home before the end of the night. While they could sign with a club in September, they would only be eligible to participate in regular season games for the major league club.
2. AL West turns toward September:
Every team in the AL West has a day off today, leaving the Mariners, Astros, and Rangers bunched within half a game of each other at the top of the division as the calendar flips to September. Houston has something of an advantage headed into the season’s final month due to the easiest strength of schedule among the three clubs, including six games against the Royals and three against the A’s, though Seattle arguably has the most control over its own fate among the three clubs. The final three series of the Mariners’ schedule are on the road against the Rangers (3 games), at home against the Astros (3 games), and at home against the Rangers (4 games). Given the number of intra-divisional games at the end of the schedule with three teams still in hot pursuit of the division title, it seems likely that the AL West race will go down to the wire this season.
3. Series Preview: Braves @ Dodgers
The Braves have started their west coast road trip on a strong note to this point, taking two of three against the Giants at Oracle Park before sweeping the Rockies at Coors Field. Meanwhile, the Dodgers posted an identical record in taking two of three from the Red Sox at Fenway while sweeping the Diamondbacks at home. The two titans of the NL will clash in a four-game set starting today at Dodger Stadium. With both clubs already all but guaranteed a bye in the postseason, the coming series provides a possible preview of the 2023 NLCS, in addition to a rematch of the same series from both 2020 and 2021.
Right-hander Spencer Strider (3.46 ERA) will take the mound this evening against fellow righty Lance Lynn (5.56 ERA), who despite weak overall numbers this season sports a sterling 2.03 ERA in five starts since being traded to Los Angeles. While the Dodgers haven’t announced the starter who will take on right-hander Bryce Elder (3.50 ERA) on Saturday, Friday will see a matchup of southpaws Max Fried (2.85 ERA) and Julio Urias (4.41 ERA). On Sunday, 39-year-old veteran Charlie Morton (3.29 ERA) will face off against 24-year-old rookie Bobby Miller (4.00 ERA).
The NL West should be a great race, but because of the way MLB works now it’s really not that important.
What’s at issue is: Do the Toronto Blue Jays win enough games to make the payoffs as a wild card?
Currently they’re 2.5 games behind the Rangers. It’s quite possible that the Astros, Mariners, and Rangers will all qualify for the playoffs this year. Which makes for a sort of screwy regular season race in the AL West that normally would be so interesting for fans.
AL west race is still interesting regardless. I love playoff baseball. Wish they could cut the regular season by a month and use September for an all-inclusive 7-game playoff format that is heavily skewed in terms of home-field toward the higher seeds in the early rounds. Though, they would need to expand to 32 teams to make it happen.
Winner gets a bye. It’s onnnnnn
Some fans complained last year that the team that wins the division and gets the bye is actually penalized because their team doesn’t play competitive baseball waiting for the Wild Card games to conclude. The argument is that it throws many of those teams players timing off.
Even if a club is disadvantaged that way, it’s made up for by avoiding a Wildcard loss.
say, Bye Team is harmed, reducing its ALDS victory odds to 40%. It’s better than its 2 potential opponents from the two WC round, who each have a 30% chance to win the ALDS.
I find it absolutely impossible that the Mariners might possible fade at the end of the season. That has never happened to the Mariners before, right?
With so many games between the Rangers and Mariners, the advantage goes to Houston to gain while those two pick each other off.
LAD vs ATL tiebreaker implications as well. Wouldnt Miller be on 5 days rest for game 3 and Kershaw full rest for game 4 of that series??
Matt Moore would be a nice addition to a bullpen. That’s about the only one worth taking on.
“Every team in the AL West has a day off today…”
Thank you for using the term “day off”, instead of the overused term “off-day”, which has a totally different meaning.
Sounds like you might be having a bit of an off day! Or is it just a day off?
Needs a day off thus the off day.
You should be getting paid 🙂
Look it up in your Funk & Wagnalls.
“Critical thinking–another lost skill”.
For the hard-working American, any day off is an off-day. Get back to work you lazy bozos!!!!
You must not follow ESPN and all the myriad others who don’t allow any comments at all.
I’m glad we have a chance to state comments on MLBTR, and trust their judgment on how to run MLBTR.
Tim Dierkes, that you?
If MLBTR were to take away comments…they’d see a fraction of traffic they do now.
I agree. Why are they allowed to talk about something but we can’t comment on it?
You can comment on it. Just not here. It’s their site. It’s their rules. Twitter/X is the place for you.
Because they don’t have the staff to moderate offensive comments in real-time. And there are a lot of offensive comments these days.
Sadly this is the real reason why some demand open comments on every story and will interject their offensive remarks into unrelated stories if that’s what it takes.
Lol I think Twitter or Facebook might be more your speed.
I’d say the Braves are on a western, not a west coast, road trip. Denver is quite far from the Pacific Ocean.
Eras come and go but baseball journalism cliches never die.
The Braves played in San Francisco immediately before Colorado and start a weekend series in Los Angeles tonight. If that’s not a west coast road trip, I don’t know what is.