Most teams in baseball have played right around 60 games. That means we have matched the length of the coronavirus-shortened 2020 season. You remember the 60-game season, right? Started in late July; no fans in the stands; a couple of COVID-19 outbreaks on the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals; the Los Angeles Dodgers rolled in the regular season, rallied against the Atlanta Braves in the playoffs and then beat the Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series as everyone wondered why Kevin Cash removed Blake Snell.
If you have forgotten all of that, we forgive you. Heck, even a Dodgers fan friend of mine refers to their championship as 37.5% of a World Series title. What if we're doing that again? I mean, thank goodness that isn't the situation. If there is anything we have learned, it's that we treasure our long, beautiful grind of a baseball season, a schedule that tests depth, health, consistency and resiliency. Still, let's take a pause and see how things would stand if the season were complete:
The playoffs
Oh, yes, the expanded postseason, which crushed the souls of baseball purists across the globe. Sixteen teams in the playoffs? Blasphemy. I preferred the best-of-three series in the first round to the one-game wild card we have in the current playoff structure, although it worked, in part, because there were no big upsets. If MLB ever went to a 16-team playoff after 162 games, I would hate to see a 100-win team lose to a .500 team in three games. Anyway, as it sits:
National League
Atlanta Braves
Los Angeles Dodgers
St. Louis Cardinals
The Dodgers would be just the No. 7 seed as opposed to their current No. 5 seed in the five-teams-per-league setup, as the division winners were seeded 1-2-3, the second-place teams 4-5-6 and the two next-best records 7-8, regardless of overall record. This is also a reminder that even though the Giants, Padres and Dodgers have the top three winning percentages, and maintain those positions, the Giants' reward for finishing with the best record would be a division series against the wildcard winner -- not the NL East or NL Central winner. Not that you necessarily want to face Jacob deGrom or Brandon Woodruff twice in a five-game series. Instead of automatically playing the wild card winner, the top seed should get to pick its opponent.
The Dodgers have plenty of time to catch the Padres and Giants, but it's fair to say they haven't been the superteam some of us expected. Even that statement is a little unkind, as the Dodgers entered Tuesday with the second-largest run differential in the majors at plus-83 (behind the White Sox) and on pace for 93 wins. That's a fine season for most teams but doesn't match the preseason expectations.
Look at the highest over/under win totals from the past 30 years, via Caesars Sportsbook by William Hill, and how those teams finished:
2021 Dodgers: 104.5 (on pace for 93)
1999 Yankees: 104.5 (won 98)
2005 Yankees: 101.5 (won 95)
2006 Yankees: 100 (won 97)
1996 Braves: 100 (won 96)
1996 Indians: 100 (won 99)
Note that all five of the previous fell to the under, although all five made the playoffs, and the 1996 Braves and 1999 Yankees won the World Series. The Dodgers will take that, but they also want to avoid the one-game wild card.
American League
Tampa Bay Rays
The Yankees are currently out of the playoffs, as the Red Sox and Astros would be the two wild cards, but they squeak in as the No. 7 seed under the 2020 format. The current standings, however, are mostly aligned with the preseason projections. The Giants are the clear surprise, and the Red Sox are a mild surprise, while the Yankees and Twins are the big disappointments. For the most part, the first 60 games have done a pretty good job of separating the contenders from the pretenders.
The advantage of the five-team system is that we should see some heated races, not just for division titles, but just to get in. It projects as a mad scramble among eight AL teams for five spots -- and that adds more value to the regular season than rewarding more than half the teams with a playoff berth.
Jacob deGrom and his 0.62 ERA
This debate would break up friendships, ruin marriages and turn fathers against sons: Would deGrom's ERA be the record? After all, how can you compare what deGrom has done over nine starts and 58 innings to what Bob Gibson did in 1968 over 34 starts and 304⅔ innings when he set the modern record with a 1.12 ERA?
Technically, deGrom would hold the record: To qualify for the ERA title or record book, you have to average one inning pitched per team game, and deGrom is qualified, as the Mets have played just 53 games. So, by the letter of the law, this would be the lowest ERA ever. We had a chance at this debate a year ago, as Shane Bieber had a 1.11 ERA through his first six starts before ending up 1.63. (We wondered what the reaction would be if somebody was chasing .400, but that never materialized.)
Anyway, it wouldn't be that hard to separate two sides: We can acknowledge that deGrom would hold the record while recognizing it's not the same achievement as doing it over even 162 innings, let alone 300. By the way, deGrom's ERA is still remarkably impressive. Only three relievers have pitched that many innings with a lower ERA over a full season: Zack Britton (0.54 over 67 innings in 2016), Fernando Rodney (0.60 over 74.2 innings in 2012) and Dennis Eckersley (0.61 over 73.1 innings in 1990).
Can deGrom actually beat Gibson's record? If he pitches exactly 162 innings, 20 earned runs allowed gives him a 1.11 ERA. He has allowed four so far; so, if he allowed 16 earned runs over 104 innings, that's still a 1.38 ERA the rest of the way. In one sense, fewer innings should help him break the record, because it's simply easier to be great over a lesser workload. On the other hand, one bad outing makes it difficult because you don't have as many innings to lessen its impact.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s Triple Crown chase
Guerrero currently leads the AL in home runs (18) and batting average (.335) while sitting one RBI behind Rafael Devers and Austin Meadows (48 to 47). If you prefer the less-heralded triple-slash Triple Crown, he also leads in on-base percentage (.441) and slugging (.660). This one falls into the same category as deGrom: It's just more impressive over 162 games than 60, but it's still mighty impressive. Speaking of Vlad ...
The MVP races
Freddie Freeman and Jose Abreu won MVP honors last year, the first time a first baseman had won since Joey Votto in 2010. Guerrero is dominating his league even more than those two did -- Abreu was fifth in the AL in OPS while Freeman was second behind Juan Soto -- and would seem to be the landslide favorite in the AL ... except he has a unique rival in two-way superduperstar Shohei Ohtani.
The 26-year-old Ohtani is finally doing what we dreamed of those first few weeks of 2018, before he blew out his elbow. He is 2-1 for the Los Angeles Angels with a 2.76 ERA in 42⅓ innings as a starter, holding batters to a .162 average. Some will criticize that he hasn't pitched deep into games or as many innings as the top starters, but he is still on pace for 112 innings, and a sub-3.00 ERA over that many innings is still valuable. Then there's his bat. On Tuesday, he crushed his 17th home run -- a mammoth, 470-blast into the upper reaches of the bleachers in Anaheim -- and added a double. He has 44 RBIs and ranks third in the AL in OPS, behind Guerrero and J.D. Martinez.
Voters tend to heavily weigh WAR these days, and Guerrero's WAR (3.1) still surpassed Ohtani's combined pitching and hitting total (2.9) entering Tuesday, although those totals might be dead even after Ohtani's big game. The distinctive nature of Ohtani's season, doing something we haven't seen since Babe Ruth in 1919, will earn him some extra credit. Guerrero's Triple Crown chase versus Ohtani's two-way wizardry should make for the most exciting and intense MVP debate since Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera a decade ago.
As for the NL, it appears wide open. Ronald Acuna Jr. had a monster April, before leveling off in May, and he just hit his 18th home run on Tuesday. He might be the winner right now over Kris Bryant, but there are no shortage of candidates -- and don't ignore deGrom's chances if he keeps that ERA around 1.00.
The race for Elijah Green
The Pittsburgh Pirates finished with the worst record in 2020, but the 2021 draft lacks a clear No. 1 prospect to drool over. That is not the case for 2022, as prep outfielder Elijah Green has already been heralded as the best No. 1 overall since Bryce Harper. So, the race to the bottom is going to be very intriguing. The Arizona Diamondbacks are the surprising leaders over the Baltimore Orioles, Texas Rangers, Pirates and Colorado Rockies, which could lead the D-backs to trading away guys such as David Peralta, Eduardo Escobar and maybe even Ketel Marte, if they really wish to start a deep rebuild. The feeling is that Arizona's front office doesn't want to go that route, so don't lock them into that first pick just yet.
Just don't do what the Seattle Mariners did in 2008. Stephen Strasburg was the clear top pick for the 2009 draft, with some calling him the best pitching prospect ever. The Mariners had the majors' worst record heading into the final weekend -- but won their final three games. The Nationals lost all three and ended up with Strasburg.