With the regular season now more than halfway through, eyes are turning to the impending playoffs. Which teams will make it in, and which ones will fall just short? With a lot of results now available to extrapolate from, and just five games left in the season, we can get a pretty good idea.

American League AKA Backyard League

AL East

Due to the big-name coaches leading teams in it, the East was known as the “Division of Doom” before teams were even picked, and it’s lived up to that moniker. It leads the league with a combined record of 24-12, compared to 22-13, 22-14, 19-17, 11-25, and 9-27 for the other five divisions, and is the only division in the league in which every team has a winning record. The AL East teams have also cleaned house against the other divisions in the six weeks since interdivisional play started, with only six losses total in those six weeks!

The division title is a razor-thin contest between the Philadelphia A’s and the Boston Red Sox, currently tied at 7-2 after the A’s lost this past week to the Indians. The two teams even have similar schedules for the last two weeks of interdivisional play – both facing AL West teams that have recently been on the upswing in the Orioles and Wombats, followed by the two weakest teams in the AL in the Pirates and Blue Jays. Those games against the Orioles and Wombats could swing things if one of those teams goes off and pulls out the upset, but it’s also quite likely that the A’s and Sox will clean house in these two weeks and enter the final division series in the same tie for first. There’s a very good chance that the division title will come down to their head-to-head matchup in the final week of the season – and as the A’s won their Opening Week bout, that puts them in the favored position to win the division.

The Arizona Diamondbacks and Minnesota Monsters are also in the hunt at two games back apiece, but a comeback by either team seems unlikely – not only would it require multiple losses by the A’s and Sox, but their chances of going on a season-ending winning streak are low. The D’Backs have been cleaning house since leaving the division, but they’re about to face their greatest test yet, going up against the top two teams outside the division, the Indians and Rockies, and the fact that they went 0-3 in their division to start the season doesn’t bode well either. Meanwhile, thanks to a tumultous management situation, the Monsters have fallen hard in recent weeks, losing 4 of the past six games where the Sox lost none and the A’s and D’Backs lost just one apiece. New coach BootyHunter now leads the team, and he not only has gigantic shoes to fill but also some very tough competition, so a sequence of events that put them back on top would more or less require a miracle.

AL Central

The Central has been by far the most lopsided division this season, not just in the AL but in the entire league! One sign of this can be found in the fact that the bottom-feeding Pittsburgh Pirates are, at this point, the only team in the league that has been outright eliminated from the division title hunt, now six games back with just five left in the season. The Mighty Tigers will likely soon join them, down five games with an elimination number of 1, and the odds of them winning every single game, and the division-leading Indians losing every single game, from this point on are negligible. That leaves this division as just a two-horse race.

And that race itself doesn’t look as tense anymore after last week. When the Crazy Indians led the Colorado Rockies by just a single game, there was more of a feeling that anything could happen, but with the Rockies’ loss last week, they sink to two games back, and to top it off, other than their Week 14 match against each other, the two teams are facing the exact same slate of opponents for the rest of the season! That doesn’t offer up much hope for the Rockies to gain an opening to the division lead, even if they beat the Indians in their game, and so a division title by the Indians is likely the most guaranteed playoff spot right now.

AL West

The AL West has garnered a lot of attention this season for its noncompetitiveness – during the first five weeks of interdivisional play, AL West teams won just two out of twenty games, with one of those being a forfeit by the opposing team! Yet this has also led to the division remaining a tight competition among the four teams in it, nobody able to pull ahead yet, and three of the four teams won last week to not only more than double the division’s total number of wins against oustide teams, but also make for a more interesting playoff race.

At this point, the Oakland Orioles, Super-Duper Melonheads, and Super-Duper Wizard Wombats are tied for the division lead with a lowly 3-6 record, with the Blue Blue Jays a single game behind. Yet in next week’s matchup, the Jays are the only team with a favorable matchup, as the other three are facing off against the top three teams in the AL, which leaves it likely that all four teams will be tied once again at the end of the week. That means that Week 11, and the edge that some teams could get from their matchups there, could prove critical – and if so, then the Orioles and Wizards have the edge. They’ll be facing off against the two new coaches at the helm of the Tigers and Monsters, while the Jays and Melonheads have to grapple with playoff contenders in the Red Sox and Rockies. Victory is by no means guaranteed for the O’s and Wombats, but it is a favorable week for them.

But still, even with that scenario playing out favorably, it’s quite likely that only a single game will separate the first-place team from the last-place team in the division, going into the season-ending division series, which means that that series will almost certainly determine who wins the division. And with all four teams still very much in it, and all four having performed inconsistently and put up wildly varying scores throughout the season, it’s pretty much impossible to predict how that series will turn out. Based on both the games before that series, and how the season-beginning division series went, we can theorize that, at this point, the Orioles have the best shot at winning. But I think that at this point, a win is perfectly feasible for any team in the division.

Wild Card

Up to this point, no team has been officially eliminated from the wildcard race – but with five games left in the season, it’s pretty reasonable to assume that any team that’s four or five games back will be unable to come back and win it, given that just two cases of either that team losing or the wildcard leader winning will knock out any of those teams. Thus, we can say with confidence that the Melonheads, Blue Jays, Orioles, Wizards, Tigers, and Pirates are out of contention here. Notably, the Tigers and Pirates are the two teams in the AL that are really as good as eliminated from playoff competition at this point.

That leaves, essentially, five teams battling it out – the Red Sox and A’s, only one of whom can win the AL East, as well as the Rockies, Monsters, and D’Backs. Once again, the Rockies’ loss to the Red Sox last week was a big one and has made their playoff chances much more questionable – now a game behind the A’s/Sox, they’ll need to perform near-flawlessly and have one of those teams defeated multiple times in order to win out. The good news for them is that this is still quite feasible – they have three favorable matchups and a toss-up against the D’Backs still to go, with their one really tough match coming in their showdown with the Indians at the end of the season. And while the Sox and A’s don’t have the toughest interdivisional matchups still to go, facing their division series again could batter them again. One is guaranteed to lose when they face each other, and the D’Backs could well add a second loss onto that. Still, though, it will be an uphill struggle now for the Rockies, forced to keep pace and make up a game against two of the toughest teams in the AL.

As for the D’Backs and Monsters, they sit two games behind, and given that the wildcard leaders are also the division leaders, their situation in this race is more or less the same as in the division race. While still in the running, neither is likely to make up the two-game deficit and win out. I just don’t think BootyHunter of the Monsters can catch up quickly enough to stand up to the A’s and Sox in direct matchups, and while the D’Backs might have a chance with a more favorable schedule, the fact that they face the Indians and Rockies in their next two matchups doesn’t bode well for them. The most likely outcome for the wild card race is that whichever of the A’s and Red Sox fails to win the division will take this one – but as we’ve seen in the past, last-minute comebacks CAN happen.

Summary: The most likely winners are the Athletics, Indians, Orioles, and Red Sox. The Pirates and Tigers are as good as eliminated from playoff contention at this point, and the Diamondbacks and Monsters are also very unlikely to win. The Melonheads, Blue Jays, Wombats, and Rockies are still in the thick of it, but not favored to win.

National League AKA Frontyard League

NL East

The NL East has been a very dynamic division this season, with the various teams rising and falling in their fortunes at various times. That’s resulted in a division where, in theory, each team is still in it – although the hopes for the trailing teams catching up are definitely fading by this point.

With an isolated exception in Week 5, the St. Louis Cardinals haven’t been scoring very high all season, their peak outside of that week coming last week with a +7. But they’ve still held solid, their AI rarely giving up many runs, and that’s led to a 7-2 record that still tops the AL East. Meanwhile, the Anaheim Angels have been terrorizing the league for most of the season, not scoring lower than a 13 since Week 2! Three early close losses caused them to start the season with a mediocre 2-3 record, but they’re now on a four-game winning streak and don’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. For now, the Cards have a one-game lead over the Angels, and there’s a decent chance of that staying the case – both have one pretty favorable matchup in the next two weeks, as well as one game against the strong Bombers. It’s quite feasible that the Bombers could beat the Cards and lose to the Angels to allow the latter to catch up right away, but it’s just as feasible that the Cards will remain one game ahead going into the final divisional series.

Meanwhile, the formerly up-and-down Montreal Marlins have been on the rise lately, scoring 13 or higher in their last three games, but a tough loss against the Tapirs last week set them back a game to be two games behind the Cardinals – and while they have a favorable matchup this week, the Battle of Montreal in Week 11 is a questionable game for them that doesn’t offer the best hope for a comeback. And while they started the season strong, the Atlanta Braves have proven stagnant as the season has progressed, their scores remaining at about the same level. They’re now three games behind, and with a probable loss to the Tapirs next week, their playoff hopes seem to be ended.

As usual, the season-ending division series is likely to be a key part of deciding how the division will turn out – and with the Marlins and Angels having increased their run output over the season, and the Cardinals not, it seems likely that one or both will defeat them in head-to-head matchups, and (partially on those victories) pass them up for the division lead. In particular, the Angels defeated the Cardinals in their initial matchup and are just one game back, so it seems highly likely that they’ll pass them up and win the division – and it’s hard to see the Angels losing any more games at this point, given the strength they’ve exhibited recently. Still, if the Marlins can keep pace with them over the next four weeks, then pull off the upset victory in their head-to-head match in Week 14, they would have the tiebreaker and thus win the division instead. Meanwhile, the Cardinals’ hopes of hanging on and still winning the division rely on them beating the Angels in Week 12, while also winning the majority of their other remaining games. While the Braves are probably out of luck, it will be a tense last few weeks of competition for the other three teams in the division.

NL Central

Early on in the season, the Central was a pretty close division where any of the four teams could potentially see success. However, through poor fortunes for some teams and the consistent dominance of others, it’s grown more lopsided, and more than any other division has become a two-team race.

The Baltimore Bombers have been not excessively dominant, but still strong, throughout the season, their scores frequently hovering around +10 en route to an 8-1 record. The Albuquerque Tapirs started off inconsistent, but found their groove in Week 4, scoring +14 or more every week since then except for a hiccup in Week 8, which was immediately followed by a peak in a +25 versus Montreal. That’s led to them continually nipping at the Bombers’ heels, sitting at just a game behind. And looking ahead at the coming weeks, the edge actually belongs to the Tapirs despite them being behind. They have matchups coming up against the Braves and the Cubs, neither of which is likely to give them much trouble if they keep to normal scores, while the Bombers are about to go into two tough matches against the Cardinals and Angels, who themselves are battling for the division title in the NL East. While they’ve been strong, the Bombers’ best score all season is lower than the Angels’ worst score in the past seven weeks, leaving a loss there likely, and it’s possible that their output will suffer against the Cardinals’ AI as well. In either case, the Tapirs will probably at least have tied them up going into the season-ending division series. While both teams have good chances of beating their division rivals there, their Week 13 contest against each other will very likely be of crucial importance, and determine who wins the division – and based on recent scores, the edge there also goes to the Tapirs. They’re the most likely division winners at this point.

Meanwhile, the Seattle Mariners currently sit 3.5 games behind, likely to soon be 3. They haven’t been able to reach the run output of the Tapirs and Bombers, and face questionable matchups against the Expos and Devil Rays in the next two weeks. Even if they win those, they’d need to defeat both the Bombers and the Tapirs head-to-head in order to have a chance of winning the division, and at this point, that seems quite unlikely. At the bottom of the division, the New York Yankees slumped hard after a series of home games at Casa de Pablo, which leaves them now virtually eliminated at 5 games behind. They can be written off as contenders at this point.

NL West

In the early weeks of the season, the NL West stood out mostly because of the exceptional performances of the Devil Rays’ and Giants’ AI teams. Since those AIs were definitively defeated, and have continued to routinely lose since then, there hasn’t been too much to watch in this division. In particular, they have struggled mightily since beginning interdivision play – the Giants and Cubs have been winless since then, the Devil Rays have won just one game, and the Expos just two, for an overall record of 3-17. Much like their AL counterparts, these teams have struggled a lot, which has led to an open competition for first place.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays started the season with a bang, winning their first four games to become the second-to-last team in the entire league to record a loss. However, they’ve slumped hard since then, now on a five-game losing streak. Still, thanks to the lack of success of their rivals, they sit with a comfortable two-game lead. Two games behind are the New York Giants, who went 2-1 to start the season but are now on a six-game skid as their only score higher than a +3 came against the Angels, and the Montreal Expos, who failed to score a run for the first four games of the season, but suddenly came on strong in the last three games, scoring +10 or higher in all three and winning two of them. The Crazy Cubs sit in last place not just in the division but in the entire league, having submitted late in several different weeks (their result from last week is still pending) and never getting off the ground with their offense, with their high score of +5 sitting as the lowest such high in the league (discounting BootyHunter’s two-game run with the Monsters).

At this point, it seems likely that either the Devil Rays or Expos will win the division. Without improving their run output, the Giants won’t be able to win games and make up the deficit, especially with stiff matchups against the Cardinals and Marlins in the next two weeks. The same can be said for the Cubs, who have a lighter matchup against the Yankees next week but also an extra game to make up. The Devil Rays would win based on the two-game lead that they currently have, while if the Expos maintain their newfound strength, they shouldn’t have too hard of a time winning enough games to make up the deficit on the Devil Rays. Both teams will be facing the Mariners in the next two weeks, a matchup that could swing either way. For their other matchups, the Expos will face off against the Marlins in the Battle of Montreal, a match that probably favors the Marlins but could swing either way, while the Devil Rays face a probable loss to the Angels. Both teams have a strong chance at sweeping the Giants and Cubs in the final division series, leaving what could be a critical Week 12 head-to-head matchup between the two. From recent scores, the Expos seem like they would have the edge in this rematch, thereby gaining an extra game on Tampa Bay. Still, for now, the uncertainty of the Expos’ new strength, or its efficacy in their next two games, combined with the 2-game lead that the Devil Rays enjoy, and the fact that their early success in-division gives them the tiebreaker over the Expos in almost any situation, mean that the Rays continue to be the favorites to win the division.

Wild Card

With the tight races for first place in the East and Central, whichever teams fail to win out in those will be battling just as fiercely for the Wild Card position. Any teams unable to keep up in those races also won’t be Wild Card contenders – the Cubs have already been eliminated from contention there, while the Devil Rays, Giants, Expos, Mariners, Yankees, and Braves can all likely be safely written off as well.

Currently, the Tapirs lead the Wild Card race, with the Angels 1 and Marlins 2 games behind (the Tapirs’ defeat last week of the Marlins coming in hugely important here). We’ve favored the Tapirs to win the NL Central, and if we assume that, then the Bombers currently lead the closest competitor by 2 games – or 1 game, if we also factor in our favoring of the Angels in the NL East. Put more simply, the four, one-game apart tiers consist of the Bombers; Cardinals and Tapirs; Angels; and Marlins, where two of those teams will win their divisions and thus be dropped from the equation.

Further complicating the predictions of this race, the Bombers are facing the Cardinals and Angels in the next two weeks. These games should both have massive implications for the division races as well as the Wild Card race, and there’s too many variables in them to predict the results with much confidence. Unfortunately, until we know how these turn out, we don’t really have a clear picture of what the Wild Card race will look like on the other end. Thus, at this point, further analysis of this race isn’t very feasible.

For now, based on recent scores, the most likely outcome would seem to be that the Bombers lose to the Angels but beat the Cardinals, and that the Angels and Cards both win their other games in the next two weeks. That would leave the Bombers still one game ahead of their closest WC competitors going into the final division series (the Tapirs in the same position as they’re likely to win their next two games), and given that the NL Central hasn’t been as tough of competition as the NL East, the Bombers are likely to preserve their lead and win the Wild Card, assuming that the Angels and Tapirs take the divisions.

Summary: The most likely winners are the Angels, Tapirs, Devil Rays, and Bombers. The Giants, Cubs, Mariners, Yankees, and Braves are all very unlikely to win at this point. The Expos, Cardinals, and Marlins are still in contention, but not favored to win.