Projecting the O’s Playoff Odds: Is There a Chance?

At 72-65, the Orioles are currently 4.5 games behind the Toronto Blue Jays for the final AL Wild Card spot. Sitting half a game ahead of the Blue Jays are the Seattle Mariners, who have been one of the hottest teams in baseball over the past couple months, and sitting a game ahead of Seattle are the Tampa Bay Rays. For the Orioles to find their way into the playoffs, they’ll need to play some great baseball over the final 25 games and get some help from the teams currently ahead of them. For this projection, I’m going to focus on the two teams directly above the O’s in the standings as of today, the Blue Jays and the Mariners.

The combined Win% of the teams the Orioles are going up against for the remainder of the season is .519 (10th toughest in the MLB), but only 9 of the Orioles’ 25 remaining games are against teams with a sub-500 record. What does this mean? The Orioles simply have no choice but to take care of business against below-average teams, namely the Nationals and the Tigers, and they’ll need to find a way to win the majority of their series even against teams like the Yankees and Astros.

The good news is, the Orioles still have 6 more games against the Blue Jays, so they have the opportunity to gain back some ground. The bad news, however, is the Blue Jays are a very good baseball team. Take it from someone who went to both games of the labor day double-header and got to watch the O’s lose both games badly.

Let’s look at the remaining schedules of the Mariners, Blue Jays, and Orioles, and make some projections through some slightly rose-colored, or should I say Orioles-colored, glasses.

The remaining series for the O’s, along with my optimistic win projections, are as follows:

• Boston Red Sox (3 games, Home): O’s win series 2-1
• Washington Nationals (2 games, Away): O’s win series 2-0
• Toronto Blue Jays (3 games, Away): O’s win series 2-1
• Detroit Tigers (3 games, Home): O’s win series 3-0
• Houston Astros (4 games, Home): O’s split series 2-2
• Boston Red Sox (4 games, Away): O’s split series 2-2
• New York Yankees (3 games, Away): O’s lose series 1-2
• Toronto Blue Jays (3 games, Home): O’s win series 2-1

Key Series:

Sep. 16 – Sep.18 vs Toronto Blue Jays

This 3 game series in Toronto may be the most important series of the season for the O’s. After just losing 3 of 4 to the Blue Jays at home, the O’s will likely need to find a way to win 2 of 3 games in Toronto. Although it doesn’t feel like it (at least to me), the O’s are 7-6 against the Blue Jays this season with a 4-3 record in away games.

I have a tough time projecting any more wins than this for the Orioles, there are just too many good teams they still need to play. Should these series go as I laid out above, the Orioles would go 16-9 over the final 25 games of the season and finish with a final record of 88-74. 

Now let’s take a look at the Toronto Blue Jays’ remaining schedule along with my best-case-for-the-Orioles win projections:

• Texas Rangers (3 games, Away): Jays win series 2-1
• Tampa Bay Rays (5 games, Home): Jays lose series 2-3
• Baltimore Orioles (3 games, Home): Jays lose series 1-2
• Philadelphia Phillies (2 games, Away): Jays split series 1-1
• Tampa Bay Rays (4 games, Away): Jays split series 2-2
• New York Yankees (3 games, Home): Jays lose series 1-2
• Boston Red Sox (3 game, Home): Jays win series 2-1
• Baltimore Orioles (3 games, Away): Jays lose series 1-2

These projections would give the Blue Jays a record of 12-14 over their remaining 26 games, putting their end-of-season record at 88-74. The Win% of teams facing the Blue Jays for the remainder of the season is .537, good for 5th toughest remaining schedule in the MLB. The difficulty of the Blue Jays’ remaining schedule is the one thing keeping the Orioles’ playoff chances alive. Besides the Rangers, every team the Blue Jays will face is vying for a playoff spot.

Finally, the Seattle Mariners schedule along with my projections:

• Atlanta Braves (3 games, Home): Lose series 1-2
• San Diego Padres (2 games, Home): Lose series 0-2
• Los Angeles Angels (4 games, Away): Win series 3-1
• Oakland Athletics (3 games, Away): Win series 2-1
• Kansas City Royals (2 games, Away): Lose series 1-2
• Texas Rangers (3 games, Home): Win series 2-1
• Oakland Athletics (3 games, Home): Lose series 1-2
• Detroit Tigers (4 games, Home): Win series 3-1

This would give the Mariners a remaining record of 13-12, putting them at 90-72 for the season. This 13-12 projection for the Mariners is likely still too harsh, as the Mariners end the season with the second easiest strength of schedule in the MLB, facing a pretty pathetic .439 combined Win%. In short, I don’t see any way that the O’s (or the Blue Jays for that matter) can realistically catch the Mariners.

The remaining strength of schedules for all American League teams are as follows:

Credit: www.tankathon.com

With all this being said, my best-case scenario for the remainder of the season has the AL wild-card race ending as:

1. Tampa Bay Rays
2. Seattle Mariners

      T3. Baltimore Orioles

      T3. Toronto Blue Jays

Based on these projections, both the Blue Jays and Orioles finish at 88 wins and the Orioles win the head to head record tie-breaker. Now, is this the most likely outcome? Probably not, but I do think the Orioles still have a legitimate shot in this race.

For some context, this is how some popular playoff-odd-projecting sites are currently projecting the Orioles’ chances of making it into the playoffs:

Orioles Playoff Odds
FanGraphs	3.5%
PowerRankingsGuru	8.7%
FiveThirtyEight	11%
Baseball Reference	20.9%
Playoffstatus.com	22%

Clearly, most sites don’t think the O’s playoff odds are all that great, but at this point in the season these projected playoff percentages fluctuate wildly – the O’s playoff odds were as high as 41% on some of these sites just a few weeks ago. I would personally project the Orioles’ playoff odds at about 25-30%. As we know, anything can happen, and regardless, it’s going to be a much more exciting final month of the season than O’s fans could have anticipated.