A typical major league baseball season, played under normal parameters, is a proving ground, a long slog in which teams have to leap over multiple hurdles and survive multiple tests to advance to the last rounds of a sports version of "The Hunger Games."
It is that way because it needs to be. It is that way because the old cliché is in fact a truism: Baseball is a marathon, not a sprint. It is that way because at the game's highest level, the differences in quality between teams and players are just not that great. In most cases, in fact, they are nearly indecipherable to the naked, untrained eye.
This is why baseball can't get by with a 60-game season like the NCAA, for which the team-to-team disparity is much higher, can. In college, the nation's best team might post something like an .831 winning percentage, which is what Vanderbilt did en route to a College World Series title in 2019. That percentage translates to a 135-27 mark over 162 games. A big league team that did that would be regarded as the hands-down best baseball team in history.
The 2020 baseball season has lately been described as a sprint. As it should be. Sixty games is not normally a proving ground. It's a warm-up act. The adage is that every team wins a third of its games and loses a third, and the wheat is sorted from the chaff during the remaining third. So what happens when the first two thirds are missing?
We tried to find out by taking the past 10 seasons and sorting each campaign into three buckets: the first 60 games, the middle 60 games and the last 60 games. The middle 60 window is designed as games 52 through 111; there are 51 games before that and 51 games after that.
The thinking is this: In the 2020 season, teams will have 60 -- and only 60 -- contests in which to differentiate themselves. In a strict sense, teams will be judged on their first 60 games, which are their only 60 games. However, in theory, there will be a very different sense of urgency in 2020 than typically exists in a first-60 window, seeing as there would normally be another 100 games to play.
In a normal season, after 60 games, even players on teams that have had very good or very bad starts will say, "It's a long season." This will not be a long season. Still, we know that this year's first 60 games will still be the season's first 60 games.
The hope in looking at the last-60 window is to better replicate the sense of urgency that will accompany every game from the very start of the season we hope is coming. Still, we know that approach isn't ideal, either. Sometimes teams run away with a division or fall out of the race quickly. The last-60 window for such clubs doesn't have the kind of urgency we're talking about in 2020.
To get a little of both dynamics, we added the middle-60 measurement.
In all of these cases, the one thing we know to be true is that looking at each season in 60-game samples tells us less than looking at it through the full, 162-game standard. We're doing it only because in 2020, one 60-game sample is all we're going to get.
For what it's worth, while the correlation in winning percentage for the first-60 and mid-60 measurements, as compared to overall winning percentage, is virtually the same (.80), that figure rises to .85 when looking only at the last 60 games. However, that's likely at least in part because of the trade deadline, which tends to move veterans from noncontenders to contenders. That could account for the disparity, but then again, maybe there is something about a stretch run.
With all that in mind, let's look at some alternate realities.
2010
What happened: The top regular-season teams by record were the Phillies in the NL and the Rays in the AL. Really, the AL was a virtual tie between Tampa Bay and New York, with the Rays edging the Yankees by a game while the teams posted virtually identical run differentials. The Phillies owned a five-game edge over the Giants in the NL, but, again, their run differential was only a hair better than that of San Francisco. We'll call the expected World Series matchup -- that predicted strictly by run differential -- Yankees against Phillies.
The Giants were only 41-40 at the halfway point of the season, but they picked up steam in the second half and edged San Diego by two games to win the NL West. Meanwhile, the Rangers won the AL West with only 90 wins and the league's fourth-best run differential, but they won the division easily, assuming first place to stay on June 8. Those are very different paths, but nonetheless, the World Series matchup featured the Giants and Rangers, with the Giants winning in five. San Francisco edged the Phillies in the NLCS, and the Rangers knocked out the stronger-credentialed Rays and Yankees in the AL bracket.
First 60: The Giants finished behind both the Dodgers and the Padres in the NL West, going 33-27 over their first 60. Obviously, they fell off after that before getting hot over the last part of the season. There was only one wild-card entrant from each league back then, but if the current format had been in place, the Giants would have played the Cardinals in a tiebreaker for the second wild-card slot after 60 games. Meanwhile, the Rangers would have won the AL West by one game over the Angels and two over the Athletics. Based on win-loss percentage, the first-60 World Series would have featured the Rays against the Dodgers.
Middle 60: No one remembers it now, but the White Sox had a glorious mini-season in the invisible middle of their overall 88-74 campaign. From games 52 to 111 -- our middle-60 measurement -- Chicago's 41-19 mark was three games better than that of anyone other team in the majors, and the White Sox owned the best run differential during that span. Their middle-60 World Series opponent would have been the Giants, whose 36-24 mark was one game better than that of the Braves. It's a rematch of 1917. Anyway, the Rangers are still the AL West champs during this time frame, going 37-23, so despite the White Sox's forgotten spree, the road to a Giants-Rangers match would have been set up nicely.
Last 60: In the end-of-season period, the roles for the World Series combatants were reversed. The Giants went 34-26, which would have given them a comfy win in the NL West. The Rangers, who built a commanding lead in the AL West by August, cruised to a 30-30 finish. In a down year for the then-Astros-less West, that still would have earned them a tie for the division crown with Oakland. The last-60 World Series: Twins vs. Phillies, as their records topped their respective leagues down the stretch.
Conclusion: Only through the middle-60 glance do we get a clear path to our actual World Series matchup of Giants and Rangers. None of the three windows eliminates this outcome, but the paths generally include tiebreakers and winner-take-all wild-card wins (assuming a 10-team playoff structure). None of the glances showcases the best overall clubs, the Phillies and Yankees. The flavor of the season depends on which spice you pluck from the season-segment cabinet.
2011
What happened: The Yankees and Phillies won a combined 199 regular-season games and each owned the best run differential in their respective league by a significant margin. The 2011 World Series "should" have featured those teams. Neither won a postseason series.
Instead, the Rangers again emerged out of the AL. Texas won the AL West by 10 games, and at 96-66 with a plus-178 run differential, the Rangers were the clear No. 2 to the Yankees in the AL, with the quality of a 100-win club. Texas sidestepped New York altogether in October, as the Yankees were knocked out by a five-game loss to Detroit in the division series. The Phillies were also edged in five games in the division series, dropping a deciding game to St. Louis by a 1-0 score when Chris Carpenter outdueled Roy Halladay.
The Cardinals went on to beat the Rangers in a memorable, seven-game World Series.
First 60: The Phillies won 12 more games than St. Louis over the course of the season. But they were just one game better in each club's first 60 and last 60. The middle 42 games provided the rest of the margin. The Phils' 36-24 first-60 mark was one game better than the Redbirds' for the best mark in the NL. In the AL, the Rangers went 34-26 and owned the best record in their division. Texas ended in a three-way tie with Boston and Cleveland for the best first-60 record in the AL.
Because the Rangers owned the best run differential of the three, we'll call it a Phillies-Rangers first-60 World Series. In any event, the first-60 playoff bracket would have yielded roughly the same probabilities for the real-life Rangers-Cardinals Fall Classic as the full season. The Yankees, who started 33-27, would have needed a wild-card win to give us our "true talent" pairing against the Phillies.
Middle 60: The Phillies' 40-20 middle-60 mark leads the NL, and Philly captured the best run differential. As teased, the Cardinals fell off badly during this period, going 28-32. The Yankees' 41-19 mark and plus-119 run differential were both MLB highs. Our true talent expectation comes to pass: The middle-60 World Series matchup is Yankees versus Phillies. The Rangers would have won the AL West, but the Cardinals would not have come close to a playoff slot, so our real-life Rangers-Cardinals World Series could not have happened.
Last 60: Here's where it gets kind of wild. Each league featured a red-hot finisher, neither of which is one of our true-talent champs (Phillies, Yankees) or our actual pennant winners (Cardinals, Rangers). The Brewers went 42-18 to finish the season, and the Tigers led the AL with a 41-19 ending kick. Those two teams each won a playoff series before falling in the LCS round, with the Cardinals knocking out the Brewers and the Rangers topping the Tigers. The Cardinals and Rangers would have both made the playoffs in this section of the schedule, with St. Louis ending up as an NL wild card.
Conclusion: It's once again a grab bag, with each sliver of the schedule yielding a different season. One of those slivers (the middle) precludes the World Series that happened (Cardinals-Rangers) and encourages the one that "should" have happened (Phillies-Yankees).
2012
What happened: Here, we don't have to imagine the second wild card for each league, as this is the year baseball expanded to the current 10-team format. The Giants and Tigers played in the World Series, with San Francisco sweeping Detroit for the crown. The Giants won the NL West by eight games but had just the fifth-best run differential in the NL. The Tigers won 88 games and had the seventh-best differential in the AL, worse even than that of the second-place White Sox in their own division. The true talent matchup would have seen the Yankees facing the Nationals.
First 60: The Dodgers, who did not make the playoffs in 2012, stormed out to an MLB-best 38-22 record in their first 60 games. Their opponent in the first-60 World Series would be the Yankees, who tied with the Rays atop the AL at 35-25 but owned a better run differential. As for the real-life pennant winners, the Giants would have grabbed the NL's second wild-card slot, but the Tigers (28-32) would not have played on.
Middle 60: This time, it was the Nationals who went 38-22 to top the NL. The other middle-60 pennant winner is Oakland, which also went 38-22, one game better than the Yankees. The Giants would have won the NL West, and the Tigers (36-24) would've rebounded to take the AL Central.
Last 60: The Orioles went 40-20 in the AL; the Giants led the NL at 39-21. That's our last-60 World Series pairing. But the Tigers owned the best mark in the AL Central, so the path to the real-life Detroit-San Francisco matchup is fairly clear. Both the Yankees and Nationals, our true talent targets, would have made the postseason, as they did in the previous glances.
Conclusion: If the 2012 season had ended at 60 games, the surprising October run of the Detroit Tigers could not have happened. The White Sox would have represented the AL Central in the playoffs. Beyond that, this is another season in which our best teams (Nationals, Yankees) earn their way into the bracket no matter how you boil down the season segment. The teams that join them change depending on which sample you look at.
2013
What happened: It's a rarity for the wild-card era: The actual World Series was the same as our true talent World Series. The Red Sox (97-65, plus-195) owned the best record and run differential in the AL. The Cardinals (97-65, plus-187) did the same in the NL. Both successfully traversed their respective playoff brackets. Then Boston edged St. Louis in six games to take the crown. This is how it's supposed to work! Let's see how this outcome holds up when we reduce the season to 60-game segments.
First 60: So far, so good. The Cardinals (39-21) and Red Sox (36-24) both posted league-best records in the first 60 games. The Redbirds matched that with the best overall run differential; Boston tied Texas in wins but had a better differential than the Rangers. The Tigers had the AL's best first-60 run differential, but we'll score this as a triumph anyway.
Middle 60: Things go haywire in the middle third. The Dodgers went 27-33 in their first 60 games, but their middle-60 mark of 40-20 led the majors. The Cardinals would have earned a wild card, however, and did post the majors' best middle-60 run differential. The Red Sox also would have been relegated to a wild card, as the Rays (39-21) owned the best middle-60 mark in the AL.
Last 60: The Cardinals and Red Sox both rebounded to win their divisions. However, neither topped their league during the season's final section. The Braves (39-21) finished hot in the NL, followed closely by the Dodgers (38-22). The Dodgers didn't translate their strong two-thirds of a season into a pennant in 2013, but they did start their streak of NL West titles that has reached seven. The Indians (38-22) paced the AL in the last-60 window.
Conclusion: Although the full-length season produced two clear-cut league favorites and the god of randomness smiled on the Cardinals and Red Sox in October, the mini-seasons provided plenty of obstacles for them. What's already clear, however, is that even run differential doesn't necessarily identify the cream of a league over 60 games. In other words, when we get those final 2020 standings and try to decipher them through the prism of differential, we aren't necessarily going to know who the favorites in the postseason are. (At least, not by that method. There are added layers of nuance that we can turn to and surely will when the time comes.)
2014
What happened: Well, it was a bizarre season from the standpoint of statistical integrity, if your aim is to see the most deserving teams advance to the Fall Classic. In the AL, the Angels' 98-64 mark was the best in the circuit. However, Oakland's plus-157 run differential was 14 runs better than that of L.A. Still, the Angels finished 10 games ahead of the A's in the AL West. Oakland had to settle for being the road team in what turned out to be an epic wild-card game at Kansas City, which it lost. The Royals, by the way, had just the seventh-best run differential in the league. In the NL, the Nationals (96-66, plus-131) were the clear-cut true talent champions. But the Giants (88-74, plus-51) advanced to play the Royals in an all wild-card World Series. It was exciting. But rarely has baseball's playoff format felt more like a tournament than the crowning of a champion.
First 60: In the first part of the season, the Giants looked like the champions they became. San Francisco's 39-21 mark was two games better than that of any other team, and the Giants led the NL in run differential. Meanwhile, Oakland led the AL at 37-23, with a whomping supporting differential of plus-120. In other words, the A's were thumping opponents by an average of two runs per game. The Royals (29-31, minus-18) did not look like a club that was about to turn the corner.
Middle 60: The Angels went 38-22, one game better than Baltimore and Oakland. But the A's once again led the AL in differential. The Dodgers and Pirates both went 36-24 in the NL, one game better than the Nats, with L.A. getting the run-differential edge. While our first-60 World Series featured the Bay Area (Giants-A's), our middle-60 Series features L.A. (Angels-Dodgers). As for those upstart Royals, they went 34-26, good enough for a middle-60 AL Central crown. The young club was coming together. However, you wouldn't have been analyzing that eventual Giants-Royals World Series just yet: After their dominant first-60 showing, the Giants tumbled to a 27-33 mark in the middle section.
Last 60: In the last section, we once again end up with a regional World Series. The Orioles and Nationals both went 39-21 to lead their respective leagues. The Royals (37-23) started playing like a force to be reckoned with, even if their plus-23 run differential in this span didn't reflect it. The Giants, at 30-30, once again were in a muddle, with a mark that would not have gotten them into the playoffs.
Conclusion: If all you knew about the 2014 season was the first-60 performance and the actual World Series results, what would you have thought? The Giants looked like baseball's best team early and indeed won it all. But for two-thirds of the campaign, they weren't even postseason-worthy. The Royals flipped that around, but if you clipped the season after 60 games, that great mid-decade story would never have been written. All in all, the absolute randomness of combining a 60-game season with a 10-team playoff structure is apparent. In each section of 2014, we end up with top seeds that would favor an eventual World Series meeting between natural interleague rivals. Each of those matchups was different -- Giants-A's, Dodgers-Angels, Nationals-Orioles -- and none of them came to pass.
2015
What happened: The mid-decade Royals were a team whose record/run differential disparity dumped old Pythagoras on his hind quarters. Kansas City's 95 wins paced the AL in 2015, and the Royals rode that top seed to a second straight pennant and a World Series crown. KC's plus-83 run differential ranked third in its league and was dwarfed by the differential of the team it beat in the ALCS, Toronto, whose plus-221 was the best in baseball. In the NL, the Cardinals won 100 games and led the circuit in run differential. Then the wild-card Cubs knocked St. Louis out of the NLDS, clearing the path for a Mets pennant. New York ranked fifth in the NL that season in both wins and run differential. C'est la vie.
First 60: Yet another season subset yields a regional World Series pairing: The Royals and Cardinals both paced their leagues over the first-60 window, and in this instance, the Royals backed that up with a league-best run differential. The Mets started just 31-29, tied with Washington for tops in the NL East, and both teams had a minus-3 run differential. That's not a great start for the division.
Middle 60: Once again, the Cardinals (38-22) and Royals (37-23) posted league-best records. Once again, we get a 1985, I-70 rematch in an imaginary, short-season World Series. The Mets again posted a 31-29 section, and that, once again, was the best the NL East had to offer. This time, New York was two games better than the Nationals, posting a positive run differential at plus-8. Still, we've looked at two sections of the 2015 season, and neither one suggested that we'd get an NL pennant winner from the East.
Last 60: The Cubs caught fire at this point, going 42-18 and matching Toronto's AL-best record. If momentum had anything to do with it, we'd have seen a Cubs-Blue Jays matchup that fall. However, the Mets got hot at that time as well, going 38-22 and previewing their postseason run. The Cardinals (35-25) would have earned the NL's top wild card, and the Royals (34-26) were again the AL Central's top club.
Conclusion: Run differential aside, the Royals were consistent from stem to stern in 2015 and emerged as worthy champions. If you assume that there was a fair amount of cruising in the Royals' relatively quiet (but still good) finish because of their huge division lead, then you can pluck any segment of that season, and the same tale can be written. The NL side of the narrative is more complicated, but in each instance, the Cardinals were positioned to prove themselves as what they appeared to be: the NL's top team. Shrinking the season didn't really change that.
However, because of what we know about the 2016 season, it certainly appears that a changing of the guard occurred in the NL Central in 2015, as the Cubs continued their late-season success all the way through 2016. That happens every so often, with a rising team emerging and at first confounding expectation, and it's always exciting. In 2020, we can't really have that, as expectation will be established more by prognostication and forecast than by early-season results.
2016
What happened: It was the Year of the Cubs, as Chicago dominated, going 103-58 with an MLB-best run differential that suggested they could have won even more games. They capped that by quenching a 108-year-old thirst by beating an outstanding Cleveland team in a seven-game World Series. The Rangers posted the AL's top record (95-67) but did so with a barely positive differential (plus-8). The Indians finished just a half-game back of the Rangers. The Red Sox had the top run differential, though, so it's muddy to declare a true talent World Series. But we'll keep with our established parameter and say it should have been Cubs-Red Sox.
First 60: The Cubs started 42-18, with an astounding run differential of plus-151, a number that translates to an expected record of 46-14. The Rangers led the AL at 37-23, one game better than Baltimore. The Red Sox had already emerged with the AL's top differential, while the Indians' 34-26 start put them atop the AL Central.
Middle 60: The Cubs cooled to a middle mark of 34-26, still good for tops in the NL Central, and still pulled off the NL's second-best run differential behind that of Washington. The Nats' 36-24 mark paced the league. The Blue Jays and Tigers each went 37-23 in the AL, one game better than Cleveland, so the Indians would have had to survive a wild-card game in that scenario.
Last 60: The Cubs rebounded to get everyone revved up for October, finishing 42-18 with the NL's best finishing run differential. In a repeat of the first-60 window, the Rangers went 37-23, tied with Boston for the AL's best last-60 record. The Red Sox put up the overall best run differential. The Indians would have taken the AL Central.
Conclusion: It seems as if the Year of the Cubs still would have come off in a short season, or at least the stage would have been set for it. However, what if the middle-60 scenario had been the one that played out? In that case, rather than entering the postseason as prohibitive favorites, the Cubs would have played second fiddle to the Nationals. The Cubs might still have won it all, but their run would have had more of an upstart feel to it. Meanwhile, all through the season, the Red Sox looked like the AL's best team, just as they appeared to be in the real season. They still could have just as easily been upset by the Indians, as they were in the real-life ALDS, in any of these scenarios.
2017
What happened: This was the first year of the latest super-team era, as three teams won at least 101 games. The Indians (102-60) were a game better than Houston, with the Yankees (91-71) posting the run differential of a 102-win team. Cleveland's plus-254 differential was the best in baseball. The Dodgers ran roughshod over the NL, despite one inexplicable 1-16 stretch late in the season. L.A.'s 104 wins led the majors, and its run differential (plus-190) easily paced the NL. The Dodgers took the pennant but fell to the Astros in a seven-game World Series, setting up all kinds of fun offseason stories this past winter.
First 60: The Astros started 42-18 to top the AL, though the Yankees' run differential was better. The Nationals (38-22) had the NL's best record, though the Dodgers (35-25) had the top run differential. L.A's dominance had not quite emerged, but the broad outlines of the 2017 season were mostly in place by the end of the first-60 window. The one exception was Cleveland, which started 31-29.
Middle 60: Our eventual Astros-Dodgers matchup emerges here, with Houston's 36-24 record one game better than Kansas City's. Meanwhile, the Dodgers blistered the competition: L.A. won 48 of its middle-60 contests and outscored opponents by 126 runs during that span. For most of the 2017 season, the Dodgers and Astros looked to be on a collision course ...
Last 60: ... but the last section created some serious doubts about the inevitably of a Dodgers-Astros World Series. The Dodgers suffered that awful stretch yet still finished 33-27 in the last-60 window, good enough for an NL wild-card slot. The Astros also finished 33-27 and appeared to be on cruise control, though they would still have won a division crown. The Indians, on the other hand, reeled off a 22-game winning streak. Cleveland was 69-56 after the games of Aug. 23 and finished 102-60. That's a 33-4 finish, if you're scoring at home. The defending champion Cubs led the NL with a 38-22 finish.
Conclusion: As mentioned, for much of the season, a Dodgers-Astros World Series looked to be all but inevitable. And that's what happened. However, because the last-60 window played out so differently, a Cubs-Indians rematch seemed every bit as plausible by the time the playoffs started. A season that in hindsight seems quite logical would not have been so neat and clean if we'd had only the last 60 games to go on.
2018
What happened: The super-team trend deepened. The AL featured three 100-win teams and four whose run differentials gave them 100-win quality. The Astros had the differential of a 112-win team, tops in the AL, though the Red Sox put up a league-best 108-54 record. Boston parlayed that top seed into a pennant and championship. The Red Sox beat the Dodgers in the World Series to become the second straight visiting club to celebrate a title on the turf at Dodger Stadium. L.A. needed a tiebreaker to nudge out Colorado in the NL West, but at plus-194, the Dodgers' run differential suggested that they were indeed the league's best team. The Brewers also needed a tiebreaker to win their division, beating the Cubs at Wrigley Field. That gave Milwaukee the NL's best record (96-67).
First 60: The Red Sox and Yankees each raced to a 41-19 start in the AL East, with Boston taking the run-differential edge by a mere two tallies. The Dodgers, meanwhile, stumbled out of the gate, going 30-30, and would have missed the playoffs. The NL's front-runner was Milwaukee, which started 37-23, one game better than the Cubs. The Brewers lost to the Dodgers in seven games in the NLCS, an obstacle they would not have had to overcome if the playoff bracket had been based on the first-60 window.
Middle 60: The Red Sox stayed hot, going 42-18 with the majors' best differential. Boston's status as the favorite continues unabated in this second sampling of the season. The Dodgers rebounded to lead the NL at 38-22, making our middle-60 World Series a preview of the real thing.
Last 60: Boston finished 38-22, leaving the Red Sox one game short of Oakland and Tampa Bay in the AL standings. In other words, the historically great Red Sox would have been hosting a wild-card game at Fenway Park. The Brewers' 38-22 record paced the NL, with the Dodgers' 35-25 mark good enough to top the NL West. Our Red Sox-Dodgers matchup could still have happened in this scenario, but the seedings created more obstacles.
Conclusion: You've probably long picked up on where this is headed. Yes, the worthy pairing of the Dodgers against the Red Sox in the Fall Classic was always a good possibility. But there is no season in which the primary narratives hold up in every subsection of the campaign. In 2018, if the information we had entering the playoffs had been based on the final 60 games, a Brewers-Rays World Series would have been as logical a pick as Red Sox-Dodgers, and the powerful Astros and Yankees would have been relative afterthoughts. Baseball seasons are not short stories; they are novels. In 2020, we will have to deduce what happened in the chapters we are missing.
2019
What happened: The Nationals came back from a 19-31 start, they came back from an NL wild-card game deficit, they came back from a 2-1 disadvantage to the Dodgers in the NLDS, and they came back from a 3-2 hole on the road against Houston in the World Series. It was a great story. Whether it could have been written in a 60-game season depends entirely upon which 60 games you look at.
The AL again featured a trio of 100-win teams, but Houston stood above every other team, going 107-55 with a plus-280 run differential. The Dodgers' plus-273 differential and 106 wins nearly matched the Astros' standard. If we had ended up with a Dodgers-Astros rematch from 2017, it would have been one of the most high-powered Fall Classic matchups of all time. That's the kind of thing we lose out on too often in the wild-card era.
First 60: The Astros-Dodgers dominance manifested early, with L.A. racing to a 41-19 start to top the NL. The Astros and Twins each went 40-20 to lead the AL, though the Twins, at plus-104, had a slight edge in differential, as Houston was at plus-99. There were more runs scored overall in Minnesota's games, though, so if you convert those differentials into Pythagorean win estimates, the Astros come out ahead. As such, the Twins would have been a nice story, as they were, but in a first-60 scenario, we still would have been eyeing an Astros-Dodgers World Series. The Nationals, as teased, would not have been part of the picture. However, the Nats had already upped their pace to 27-33 by the end of the first-60 window.
Middle 60: There was a lot of separation in the middle-60 window last season, with seven teams winning 37 or more times. The Indians (40-20) topped everyone, and the Dodgers (39-21) again paced the NL. Cleveland and L.A. also topped the run-differential leaderboards. The Nationals were just a game back of the Dodgers in this window, and the Astros were two behind Cleveland. Our eventual 2019 Astros-Nationals narrative was very much alive in the middle-60 window, even if it was no more certain than in the real season.
Last 60: The Astros kicked into high gear down the stretch, going 42-18 with a run-differential-based expected winning percentage of .733. While the Astros were clearly in the upper rung of contenders in the first two windows, in the last-60 glimpse, they are the team to beat. That's true even though the A's, Twins, Rays and Yankees all won 37 or more games in the last section. The Dodgers won the NL in the last window once again, completing a three-for-three showing. But they were tied with ... the Mets. If the 2019 season had been reduced to each team's last 60 games, the Mets would have edged the Nationals by a game to win the NL East. The Dodgers still had the NL's best run differential during that window.
Conclusion: Once again, the general outlines of the full-season story are mostly prevalent in each window. But it's the details that often define a season. If the first 60-game sample rules, then the Nationals flop, Washington is still looking for its first World Series win since the Jazz Age, and Dave Martinez is likely no longer Washington's manager. If the last window is the right one, then the Mets have emerged as the story of the season, and just maybe, Mickey Callaway is still in charge.
Really, the takeaway from all of this is entirely unsurprising: By reducing the season to a 60-game sprint, almost anything can happen. Invariably, the way we eventually come to view this season will be different than how we would have perceived it in a normal, 162-game slog. The results to come will be dissected and debated for years.
The problem is evident throughout these alternate universe retellings of the past decade of baseball history. So many narratives in a season move to the fore, but just as many of them fade back into the ether as play out to the end. This year, there is little doubt that one or two of those false narratives will sneak into the history books as one of the stories about this weird, wild 2020 season.