The third wild card slots in both leagues came down to the final day. In the AL Texas nosed out Seattle by a game on the final day after Minnesota had fallen off during the week after all three came into the final stretch tied. And the NL was even more dramatic. The Cubs started the week 3 behind the Cardinals but swept three games from them head-to-head over the final weekend including scoring 9 runs in the 8th inning of the last game after trailing 2-1 going into the frame. This gives us the playoff tree:
The Rays do end up with the tougher side of the bracket as it seems it always pays to be the 3rd wild card instead of the 2nd - you end up on the road anyway but the 3rd division winner usually has a worse record than the 1st wild card.
Anyway onto the Rays stats:
Excellent run prevention combined with a middle-of-the-pack offense bought us a 93-win season. The bullpen seemed like it blew a lot of games but the overall numbers were good.
And as befits a middle-of-the-road offense we had a lot of decent but no spectacular players. In fact it kind of shows you what batting average means as our two top players by WAR hit .221 and .199 respectively with Paredes doing it with the long ball and decent D while Williams rode his glove (+7.3 ZR).
And there it is - a top four of the rotation as good or better than any in baseball. Mac would have probably cleared 5 WAR had he been able to make his last couple of starts. He and Baz will be missed in the playoffs (unless we get to the ALCS). And WAR kind of shows what I was talking about with the bullpen - superficially it had a good ERA (3.29 overall) but look at Fairbanks with a 2.76 ERA and negative WAR to go with 11 losses (and 6 blown saves).
Xavier Isaac was ranked #15 but graduated off this list as he passed the 130-AB mark and lost rookie status. Smith is a dark horse for next year's rotation and Keegan deserves a look at C although the Campusano/Y.Diaz tandem behind the plate only projects to make $3.8M combined next year and probably isn't going anywhere. Looking forward to seeing what 2-way #1 pick Schoolcraft does next year in his pro debut.