After the 2025 Trade Deadline

Here are the baseline projected standings from my master spreadsheet, run on Monday and again this morning (Saturday, 8/2, two days after the trade deadline). This is the value that forms the Pct3 score for the Postseason Odds Forecast page. The differences are not entirely due to the trde deadline – the Brewers’ forecast removes a month of Jackson Chourio thanks to a pulled hammy – but it will cover most of it.

I should also point out that these values are expressed as delta wins over a full 162-game season. Since there are only 60ish games left, teams can only be expected to realize about 1/3 of the difference seen.

The only big winners – within the context of the 2025 season – are the Padres. They raised their expected win total by almost 11 games – more than the next best three combined. Their playoff odds forecast rose from 68% – which put them clearly in the third wild card spot – up to 93%. That gives the National League six teams with at least a 91% chance of the playoffs, with the Reds (11%), Giants (4%), and Cardinals (3%) the only other teams above 1%. All three of those teams were in the 10-18% range, but the Padres hit the gas and buried them. The NL pennant races look to be all over except for the seeding.

Every team that had a 60%+ chance at the deadline improved their projection, with the exception of the Brewers – whose decline, as already noted, had nothing to do with trades. But none of them really change the playoff picture. The AL was not quite as clearly defined as the NL going into the deadline, but five spots were pretty clear – the Yankees and Blue jays in the East, the Tigers in the Central, the Astros and Mariners in the West. The Red Sox (65%) and the Rangers (31%) were the best-positioned teams for the 6^th spot, with three Central teams hovering around 12%. The Twins punted – their minus 7.8 win change was the biggest negative slide of the week – taking them completely out. The end result was the Red Sox and Rangers both gaining about 7 percentage points, increasing their spearation from the rest of the league without really changing their head-to-head status.

Went to the Bowie Chesapeake Baysox game last night. Good pitching matchup, Trey Yesavage for New Hampshire (Toronto) and Trey Gibson for the Baysox, and it was a good game while both were in, up to the fifth inning. The Baysox finished with one of the strangest team pitching lines you will ever see – they held the FisherCats to just three hits, but managed to give up 9 runs. They allowed three runs in the eighth and three more in the ninth – without giving up a hit in either inning. Walks, hit by pitches, two runs scored on wild pitches, and four errors – all of the “batter reaches” variety.

One of those errors was of a kind I cannot ever recall seeing. With the bases loaded, batter hits a groundball to the shortstop, who makes a simple underhand toss to the second baseman covering. Except that the second baseman (I can only guess here) must have thought the throw was going to first, because he’s diving to the ground to get out of the way, as the ball harmlessly floats over the bag. Run scores. I mean, I’ve seen misthrows, I’ve seen failures to cover – but I’ve never seen that. Six errors they finished with, 8 unearned runs, and none of them depended on the “missed third out” part of the rule to be unearned.