If you think of the Major League Baseball regular season as a marathon, the first major checkpoint happens on Memorial Day.
Now that all the early seasons streaks—either winning or losing—have come and gone, the end of May is right time to examine the standings to get a good idea about which teams have playoff potential and which ones are still “rebuilding.”
ESPN chose to check in with MLB experts Bradford Doolittle, David Schoenfield and Sam Miller to get their thoughts on what has jumped out at them in the standings thus far.
Among the surprises Doolittle, Schoenfield and Miller point to is the amount of polarity in MLB. At this point in the season, there are already several of teams with extreme run differential totals, which would project to either getting 100 wins or 100 losses.
Of the teams that currently project to hit the century mark in wins, the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Houston Astros appear to be the best in all of baseball. And, despite currently trailing the Red Sox and Yankees in their overall record, the defending champ Astros may prove to be the best again and their best-in-the-majors staff ERA is a big reason.
“There is a pretty clear separation for those teams, not just because of their records and run differentials, but also because of how those things have dovetailed with preseason forecasts,” Doolittle said. “However, I’d be tempted to put Houston on its own tier. Their record (a 106-win pace) doesn’t reflect just how dominant the Astros have been. They are on track to outscore their opponents by 389 runs. That would be the second-highest differential ever, behind the 1939 Yankees.”
On the flip side of the coin, all three experts expect that Royals, Orioles and Marlins to stumble into the end of September with at least 100 losses.
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