As the regular season nears its end in MLB, it’s time to turn the focus away from who can reach the playoffs and instead hone in on who can win it all. In modern baseball it’s clear that not all division winners are the same, and a 100-win Wild Card team shouldn’t be the underdog against a 92-win division champ.
But wins and losses alone don’t give the full picture at the end of the regular season. As of publish the Detroit Tigers would be on the outside looking in on the playoffs. While just a game out of the final Wild Card spot, there are two other teams still ahead of them trying to catch the Baltimore Orioles, including the last place Toronto Blue Jays. Normally this could just be chalked up to a sub-par A.L. Central, but the Tigers might not be as bad as their record indicates. Detroit has a +83 run differential, meaning they have scored 83 more runs this season than they have allowed. That’s good enough for second best in the A.L. behind only the New York Yankees.
Run Differential has been a good indicator for which teams can win a World Series, but that may just be a correlation as the most talented teams that win the most tend to have the best run differential. But for a team like Detroit, could they play spoiler in the postseason if the ball bounces their way a few more times than it has in the regular season? If enough of those one-run losses turn into wins the Tigers might have a real shot at making a deep postseason run. If the standings hold, that last Wild Card spot would play the Boston Red Sox who sport a run differential of +81, remarkably close to where the Tigers sit. If they get by Boston, all of a sudden the path to the ALCS looks a lot easier with the Chicago White Sox (+47) waiting for them.
There are, to be fair, a whole lot of “ifs” in that scenario. But if run differential supports arguments for who is the best, it’s not too far of a leap to have it explain the future for the rest of the postseason as well.
Be on the lookout for results to this survey and the rest of the SB Nation Reacts surveys later this week.