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2024 MLB second-half projections, World Series chances: How playoff races are shaping up

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2 months ago

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2024 MLB second-half projections, World Series chances: How playoff races are shaping up

We are officially at the midseason break of the MLB season. The dog days of July and August can be a slow time during baseball season, but that’s only true if you’re not paying attention to the playoff races. With an expanded playoff field, more teams are within striking distance of a playoff berth than what we are used to.

As it currently stands in the American League, five teams are within 7.5 games of a wild-card berth, the National League has seven teams with six games. Will some teams have to decide if they are selling at the trade deadline? Yes, but all you have to do is get into the playoffs and anything can happen. Just look at last season when the Arizona Diamondbacks made the World Series while winning 84 games and sneaking in as the last wild-card team in the NL.

My MLB model creates a projection for every player which can then be combined into a team rating. From there, I’m able to simulate every game of the regular season and playoffs to see how often every team wins the World Series. This process runs 100,000 times to get a large enough sample to most accurately reflect the expected results. I will note that I do not project any trades before they’re official.

2024 MLB rest of season projections

XWINS is how many wins, on average, a team finished with over the simulations. PLAYOFFS is how often a team made the postseason, DIV is how often it won its division, PENNANT is how often it made the World Series and CHAMPS is how often it won the World Series.

team xWins PLAYOFFS DIV PENNANT CHAMPS

93.7

99.1%

93.4%

28.8%

16.4%

95.9

99.4%

56.8%

26%

14.8%

97.8

99.9%

88.3%

25.3%

13%

94.8

98.6%

41.8%

20.5%

11%

90.5

94.7%

11.3%

13.9%

7.2%

89.5

84.2%

47.1%

14.3%

6.8%

85.9

60.9%

49%

10.7%

5.2%

88.8

89.9%

77.2%

11.7%

5%

85.3

54.1%

41%

7.7%

3.5%

89.1

80.8%

41.1%

8.8%

3%

84

52%

4.6%

6.1%

2.9%

85.2

45.4%

11.4%

4.8%

2%

85.5

49.5%

1.3%

4.4%

1.9%

83.1

42.8%

0.4%

4.1%

1.8%

83.3

45.3%

15.7%

4.3%

1.7%

81.2

25.1%

1.2%

2.4%

1.1%

81

16.2%

9.8%

2.2%

1%

80.3

18.8%

0.8%

1.3%

0.5%

79.3

12.9%

2.8%

1%

0.3%

79.5

14.7%

3.4%

1%

0.3%

78.8

4.8%

0%

0.3%

0.1%

78.5

4.3%

0.4%

0.3%

0.1%

76.6

4.3%

0.9%

0.2%

0.1%

76.8

1.6%

0%

0.1%

0%

72.6

0.2%

0.1%

0%

0%

72.3

0.4%

0%

0%

0%

63.9

0%

0%

0%

0%

63.1

0%

0%

0%

0%

59.7

0%

0%

0%

0%

53.4

0%

0%

0%

0%

The Los Angeles Dodgers are your World Series favorites in both my model and at BetMGM, which gives the Dodgers +333 odds of winning it all. My model disagrees with who the second favorite should. BetMGM has the Philadelphia Phillies (+450) while the Yankees are the second-most likely champion after my simulations. Subjectively, I do think my model is a little high on the Yankees. Part of that is the tricky projection of Gerrit Cole for the rest of the season. Cole’s velocity was down from his historical norm over his first two starts, but has trended upwards over the last three. Cole’s form will be paramount to the Yankees finding success in October.

BetMGM currently has the Phillies win total at 100.5 with -120 odds on the over. My model isn’t quite as high (97.8 wins), but it agrees that the Phillies are the most likely team to end the regular season with the most wins. If the Phillies want to beat a superior Dodgers team, getting home-field advantage throughout the National League playoffs will go a long way.

The year keeps changing, but my model continues to underrate the Cleveland Guardians. The Guardians have a 4.5-game lead at the break, but the simulations are favoring the Minnesota Twins in the AL Central. Again, subjectively, that number seems a bit off, but I wouldn’t be rushing to the window to bet BetMGM’s price of -175 for the Guardians to win the division. My money would be on the Twins at +200.

Of the teams currently outside of a playoff spot, the Houston Astros are the most likely team to make the playoffs in the American League and their projection (60.8%) is actually higher than the Boston Red Sox (49.5%), but a lot of that has to do with the Astros being in contention for the AL West while the Red Sox are a long shot to contend for the AL East.

As for the National League, the San Diego Padres are the most likely team to make the playoffs that isn’t in the playoff picture as things stand today. The Padres have a higher chance of making the playoffs (52%) than two of the current NL Wild Card teams. The Cardinals (45.3%) and Mets (42.8%) both made the playoffs in less than half of the simulations.

(Photo of Shohei Ohtani and Teoscar Hernández: Michael Owens / Getty Images)

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