Three things to watch in the National League standings post trade deadline
Every baseball season goes like this: It’s early, you blink and you’re 110 games in. So here we are.
With the trade deadline solidifying which teams are gunning for October 2025 baseball and which are counting their losses, the National League playoff picture has started to come into clearer focus. It’s also a complete mess.
Here’s what we’re talking about, with three things to watch in the NL standings the final almost-two months of the season:
We have our six. (Unless …)
Six-leg parlays are almost always irresponsible, so no need to take this that far, but here’s a statement whose future falsification would come as a shock: There will be no National League postseason team from anywhere but New York, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Chicago, Los Angeles or San Diego.
Probably, that is. Because while something is certainly brewing in Milwaukee, something else might be … swimming in Miami.
Specifically in loanDepot park, despite the fact that the fish tanks lining foul territory are long gone. The Marlins have gone 24-10 since the morning of June 22. It is half a game behind the Brewers for the best record in baseball in that span. They’ve won six straight series — including ones over the Padres, Brewers and Yankees — and sit just six games out of the third National League Wild Card spot.
OK, if we’re going to talk about a team six games back, we should talk about the other team six games back, the one 5 1/2 games back and the one three games back. Here: The Giants have won three of 16 and accordingly just had a sell-off, the Cardinals gutted their bullpen and the Reds — fine, are in it.
The No. 6 seed is the Padres, who just did A.J. Preller maniac things at the deadline and have the second-easiest schedule in baseball from here on out. The next-closest team would be the Philadelphia Phillies. A particularly vulnerable pair (even with the Mets thrown in)? Perhaps not. But don’t tell Connor Norby that.
NL East crown — and a Wild Card Series?
No Phillie or Met has woken up in the morning with a division lead or deficit greater than two games since June 16.
No, that is not normal.
It’s a shame that their final meetup of the regular season will occur with 15 games still to go, because it will likely be a dogfight until the (extremely) bitter end.
There’s a chance the stakes will be … moderate?
The way things are shaping up, it’s very possible that the winner of the NL East gets the No. 3 seed in the National League and still has to play in the Wild Card Series, hosting all three games against the NL’s last October qualifier. That would be the case right now for the Mets, who sit one measly game off the Dodgers for the No. 2 seed and 3 1/2 off the Brewers for the No. 1.
You have to figure that whoever wins the NL East will have likely played decently down the stretch. But you can say the same about the Central and West, currently separated by two and three games, respectively. The Mets also have MLB’s sixth-hardest schedule left, with the Brewers eighth. (Philadelphia is 17th and Chicago 28th.)
Whoever emerges between the Dodgers — the only team with an easier schedule than the Padres — and the Padres is a good bet, as of now, for a bye. The other free pass into the NLDS? Who knows. But as the Phillies showed last year, maybe you don’t want it. But as every other team showed last year, yes, of course you do.
Parity like it’s 2018
That said, this may turn out a pretty good year for the bye-deniers to flex their skeptical muscles.
The top seed in the NL, Milwaukee, is on pace to win 97 games. The last postseason qualifier, currently San Diego, is on pace to win 89.
That eight-game separation between the No. 6 (postseason or not) and No. 1 seed would be something the National League hasn’t seen since 2018, and before that, 2009. The Senior Circuit almost did it last year — the gap was nine — but here was the gap the last four years before that in reverse chronological order: 20, 24, 24, 20. Then, Covid, then the eight-game anomaly, and then: 18, 17, 16, 14, 11, 12, 16, 11.
So eight is small. And, with all due respect, hardly anyone sees the pancake-eaters as world-beaters.
Of course, the picture could change. But Milwaukee’s schedule, plus San Diego’s (and the ironically surnamed Mason Miller) could bunch things up even further, unless the Mets or Cubs or Dodgers or Phillies take charge.
Or, hell:
The Marlins.