Here's where things stand in MLB going into the final week of the 2024 season:
The playoff spots look set in both leagues. Detroit and Houston will face off as division winners in the ALDS, and the Rays will likely be playing the winner of the Seattle-Baltimore wild card game. Where that game takes place is up for grabs, and Seattle just suffered a big blow yesterday when former Ray benchwarmer-turned-near-superstar Mike Brosseau broke his hand after being hit by a pitch and will miss at least most of the playoffs (he could come back if Seattle makes the World Series). So it could be a rematch of last year's ALDS which the Rays escaped from after falling behind 0-2 in the series. In the NL the playoff teams are all set but only the Cardinals know they'll definitely be playing in the NLDS as the Braves and Mets go to the wire in the East along with the Dodgers and D-backs in the West, so plenty of drama there to win the division as opposed to playing in a one-game crapshoot.
The Rays are well represented among the leaderboards and the WAR race is interesting. Royce Lewis will win it, but his numbers are not those of a traditional MVP at .310-13-74. A lot of his WAR is derived from his 70 defense at SS so it will interesting to see how the MVP race goes as Wander has the more traditional numbers (.321-24-103). The guys with the big HR/RBI numbers are Eloy Jimenez (5.1 WAR) and Matt Olson (3.1). Unlike in previous years were Vlad Jr was the clear choice, the MVP race is wide open this year.
The pitching leaderboards got cut off, so here they are:
Matt Manning leads in pitcher WAR, and his traditional numbers are: 11-6, 2.79, 32 BB, 191K in 171 innings. His innings are down since he pretty much missed the first month of the season. Those numbers you see for Walker Buehler are for his Rays time alone, not counting his first month + with the Dodgers. If you add them together, he's 12-9, 3.09, 35 BB, 248K in 209.2 innings and a combined WAR of 6.2, actually making this his career season. Despite his non-impressive W/L record, I'd give him my Cy vote since his AL numbers alone put him among the front-runners and combined he's been the most valuable pitcher in MLB (Mike Soroka leads the NL at 5.4 WAR).
Also as I was perusing the box scores I noticed someone I had never seen before in the Yankees lineup, a "J.Allen". Check this out:
A scouting discovery found today with those type of hitting skills? You gotta be kidding me. At least he's a butcher in the field so he'll probably be a future DH but his numbers in the editor have him 293/410/602 with 49 doubles, 39 HR and 97 walks. Good gravy. Well, we'll see him over the next 3 days at Yankee Stadium but he could be a real problem in that lineup next year.
Also a couple of more former Rays retired: Matt Andriese and Steven Souza Jr.