“So, you're telling me there's a chance...” ~ Lloyd Christmas from Dumb and Dumber

Everybody in baseball loves a good rally. The fans cheer their hearts out. An electricity rolls through the dugout sending grown men in cockeyed caps into the past to relive little league memories. Even monkeys can lift a stadium’s spirit at the mere sniff of a rally. Enough so that the 2002 Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (then simply called the Anaheim Angels) rode their rally-loving capuchin monkey to a World Series after 40 fruitless seasons.

Rallies don’t always last for a mere inning. Rallies can last for the entire back-end of a game. Rallies can last for multiple games. They can start as early as the All-star break. As early as a mid-season managerial move. As soon as a franchise’s poor start distances them too far from the pack that they no longer feel the pressure and can enjoy playing the game they love. And sometimes it’s all of the above.

THE 2003 MARLINS

On Sunday May 11, 2003, Jack McKeon took over the reins of the Florida Marlins after they began the season 16-22. McKeon was 30 years removed from his first managerial gig with the Kansas City Royals at age 42. The Marlins began contributing immediately by winning three of their next four and outscoring their opponents 28-12. Then the streaks began: A six game losing skid followed by six wins in a row. The inconsistency continued. The 2003 Marlins were 26-31 and 12 games back at the end of May. By the half-way point, they remained 12 back of the Atlanta Braves, but had neared .500 with a 40-41 record.

Then the Florida Marlins went on a little rally.

McKeon had his team believing in themselves. And he had them believing they had nothing to lose. Their second half of the season was unimaginable back when pitchers and catchers reported. Their second half of the season was unthinkable when Jeff Torborg was replaced my McKeon on that weekend in May. The Marlins rallied to a 51-30 second-half record and the wild card berth in the National League (NL).

Florida cruised past the reigning NL pennant winners, the San Francisco Giants, in the NL Division Series. However, the Marlins looked doomed versus the Chicago Cubs in the NL Championship Series. The Cubs had taken a 3-2 series lead into Game 6 with the next two played in the Friendly Confines. The Marlins and McKeon needed one more rally.

We all know the rest of the story. Chicago 3. Florida 0. Top of the 8th. Luis Castillo battling. Steve Bartman interfering. Mark Prior melting down. Alex Gonzalez whiffing at short. Ivan Rodriguez, Derrek Lee and Mike Mordecai driving them home. Chicago 3. Florida 8.

Florida captured Game 7 over the Cubs and went on to win the 2003 World Series over the New York Yankees. No team has ever won it all after having so few wins at the half-way point since Major League Baseball (MLB) expanded each league in 1995 into three divisions including adding wild card teams to the postseason. Only 9% of playoff teams since 1995 have had a losing record after 81 games. Only the 2003 Florida Marlins prevailed in the World Series.

THE 2013 ANGELS, BLUE JAYS AND DODGERS

The beauty of sports, or of baseball, is that every fan believes their team has a shot as spring training concludes and the first pitch of a new season is ready to be tossed. Fans of the 2013 Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers believed it too. And they had reason to be hopeful.

The Angels finished 10 games back of the Texas Rangers in 2011 and missed the playoffs. That October, they watched a duel between Josh Hamilton of the Rangers and Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals for the World Series. Within two years, both superstars were acquired by the Angels in an effort to solidify their status as an American League (AL) juggernaut. Then, last season, a rookie emerged to vie for all the fans’ affection. Mike Trout hit .326, led the AL in runs scored and stolen bases, and finished 2nd in AL Most Valuable Player voting – an award most certainly his had Miguel Cabrera not achieved the Triple Crown. How could the Angels not make the playoffs?

The Blue Jays believed that 2013 was their season to strike. They became aggressive in acquiring talent through trades and free agency. The Jays landed Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Beuhrle and others in a deal with the Miami Marlins. They traded for 2012 NL Cy Young winner, R. A. Dickey, from the New York Mets and added free agent Melky Cabrera to an already potent and powerful batting order featuring Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista. How could Toronto not be optimistic?

During 2012, Guggenheim Partners acquired the Los Angeles Dodgers for north of $2 billion. The deal finally relieved the Dodgers and their fans of the financial burden placed on the franchise from the McCourt era. The Dodgers were built around their 2011 NL Cy Young winning ace, Clayton Kershaw, and 2011 NL home run leader, Matt Kemp. The Dodgers emptied out Boston’s cupboards last season by acquiring former All-stars Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez and Josh Beckett and emptied out their wallets by signing free agent Zack Greinke in the offseason. How could the Dodger faithful doubt that this was their team’s year?

Soon after Opening Day, fans realized that expectations were not being met. All three teams stumbled out of the gate and must put together an extraordinary late season rally to make the postseason. Can these ships be righted in time? The 2003 Florida Marlins were the rarest of exceptions.

The MLB regular season is 162 games long. A random and obscure number at first glance, but quite purposefully divisible. 162 divides nicely into six 27 game segments – essentially representing the six months of regular season baseball between April and September. The following table summarizes the 2013 regular season records for the Angels, Blue Jays and Dodgers after their first 27, their first 54 and their first 81 (i.e., the half-way point) games.





Major League Baseball - 2013 Regular Season After First 27 Games After First 54 Games After First 81 Games Team Win/Loss

Record Games

Back Win/Loss

Record Games

Back Win/Loss

Record Games

Back Angels 10-17 7 25-29 8 ½ 38-43 9 Blue Jays 10-17 8 ½ 23-31 9 ½ 40-41 8 ½ Dodgers 13-14 3 ½ 23-31 7 ½ 38-43 4



I have analyzed all the teams who qualified for the MLB playoffs since 1995 in order to determine whether these three poor starts can be overcome in enough time to claim a 2013 playoff berth. I reviewed each post-1994 playoff team’s win/loss record and the number of games back each team was from their division leader after the first 27, 54 and 81 games.

The results of my analysis have been summarized in percentile graphs. I have provided an example of a percentile graph below. This example depicts the amount of wins playoff teams since 1995 had after the first 27 games of the applicable season. The 90th percentile sits at 19 wins and is represented graphically by the top of the green box. But what does it mean to be at the 90th percentile? In this case, only 10% of playoff teams since 1995 had 19 or more wins after the first 27 games. Or, in other words, there is a 90% chance that teams will make the postseason if they have 19 or more wins after the first 27 games.

Similarily, the 50th percentile rests at 16 wins in between the light green and light blue areas of the graph. This statistic means that half of the playoff teams since 1995 (the green areas and above) had 16 or more wins after the first 27 games; the other half (the blue areas and below) had 16 or fewer. Consequently, a 16-13 record to open the season translates into a 50/50 postseason proposition.







I have expanded the percentile graphs to review subsets of playoff teams since 1985. After underperforming during the first half of a season, teams often adjust their goal from winning their division and automatically qualifying for a playoff berth to punching a ticket to the postseason via a wild card spot. But making the playoffs is one thing. All teams realize making the postseason is an achievement that allows you to compete for the ultimate goal of winning the World Series. Therefore, in addition to looking at all playoff teams since 1995, I have also narrowed my analysis to those playoff teams who qualified as a wild card and to all World Series championship teams since 1995.

You will see that I have added team logos to identify the position of the 2013 Angel, Blue Jay and Dodger squads in order to make it easy to spot the predicaments they face after such rocky beginnings.







The Dodgers, for example, are plotted with 13 wins after the first 27 games and sit somewhere between the 10th and 25th percentiles. Therefore, at least 75% of playoff teams since 1995 had more wins than the 2013 Dodgers after the first sixth of the MLB season. And if you think the Dodgers’ poor start is insurmountable, the Angels and Blue Jays only posted 10 wins each and sit far below the 10th percentile.







All three teams continue to sit at or near the 10th percentile after the 54-game mark – a result not at all surprising when a month of underperformance is followed by another. For the Angels, there is a small glimmer of hope knowing that 10% of wild card teams did make the postseason with fewer than 25 wins after 54 games. However, players and fans will be discouraged to see how far back each team is from the 10th percentile of their ultimate goal – a World Series championship.







June proved to be a turnaround for the Blue Jays. Toronto was 17-10 over the third sixth of the season including rallying for 15 wins in an 18 game stretch. The Dodgers remain five games below .500 after the first 81 games, but have climbed to within four games of the NL West Division leading Arizona Diamondbacks. The Dodger resurgence is primarily thanks to the insertion of a Cuban rookie phenom, Yasiel Puig, into the lineup at the beginning of June. At the half-way point, Puig is batting .436 and has 44 base hits. 44 base hits over one-sixth of the season! That works out to 264 hits through an entire 162 game campaign – two more than Ichiro Suzuki’s single-season MLB record of 262 from 2004.

With the Dodgers only sitting four back of Arizona, it got me thinking that my analysis should not focus solely on win totals. Consequently, I have prepared the following percentile graphs by replacing win totals with the number of games back each team trailed the division leader. The “games back” figure is described as a negative number. For example, the Los Angeles Dodgers would be given a value of -4.0 after 81 games this season. On the other hand, division leaders are valued with positive numbers representing the number of games they led the second place team at that point in the season.







When focusing on games back, the probability of the Dodgers making the postseason greatly increases. Based on data since 1995, the Dodgers have a 50% chance of making the playoffs as a wild card team. These results do provide a sense as to how close teams are to capturing a division title; however, the wild card graph in the middle is more misleading than the other graphs. The reason for the inaccuracy is due to weak divisions (such as the 2013 NL West) overrating the teams pursuing the division leader. For example, it is often the case that a franchise 10 back in a strong division will finish ahead in the standings, and thus qualify for a wild card spot, versus teams only a few games back in a weaker division.

As I have shown, the Blue Jays still have an outside shot at the postseason with a strong second-half. Toronto’s new goal is a wild card spot. Catching a division leader that is up 8.5 games at the midway point is statistically unrealistic. On the other hand, the Dodgers have not accumulated enough first-half wins to make a serious run at either NL wild card spots. However, the Dodger faithful shouldn’t count their team out as they chase down their NL West rivals for the division and an automatic berth in the postseason. And then there are the Angels – a team lagging in wins and in games back of their division leader. The probability is slim that the Angels will compete for a title this year. They would need more than just a monkey to rally from this deficit.

IF NOT THEM, THEN WHO?

If the Angels are unlikely postseason participants and the Blue Jays and Dodgers are long shots, then who are the teams with the best chances of playing October baseball?

For the following graphs, I have charted all 30 MLB teams after the first 81 games of the season versus playoff teams since 1995 in their respective leagues. The percentile graph below is based on win-totals. Note that any team in the green area or above have a 50% chance of reaching the playoffs based on their first half performance.







There is a noticeable difference when comparing the AL and NL teams after the first 81 games. Even the best AL teams are only slightly better than 50% of playoff teams since 1995. This fact will allow for the possibility of underachieving teams like the Blue Jays to sneak back into the race. The Blue Jays are not alone in a group huddled near the 10th percentile. The New York Yankees (perennial playoff contenders), the Detroit Tigers (last year’s AL pennant winners) and the ever strong Tampa Bay Rays have all struggled and will have tough sledding ahead to make the playoffs.

The NL has a small group of dominant teams well above median (i.e., the 50th percentile). Therefore, it is likely that the Braves and the three NL Central leaders, the Pirates, Cardinals and Reds will all see postseason action. With three NL Central powerhouses this year, the chances are strong that the Dodgers will need to win the AL West in order to qualify for the playoffs.

I have also reviewed each MLB team’s position after the first 81 days in comparison to the division leader and plotted how many games each team trailed (i.e., negative numbers). For division leaders at the midway point, I placed a logo to represent the size of their margin over the second place team (i.e., positive numbers).







The “games back” graph provides hope to teams who are below the 10th percentile in the win-total graph. However, these teams must accept that they are competin for the division in order to reach the playoffs. As mentioned earlier, the Dodgers are a perfect example. But, so are the rest of their division rivals as they all sit on or slightly above the 25th percentile in their pursuit of the Diamondbacks.

In the AL, the Tigers, Royals and Twins appear to have glimmers of hope at the half-way point of the season that they didn’t have when looking at the win-total graph. However, it’s likely they will need to take over the division lead down the stretch to make the playoffs a reality.

Teams above median in both win-total and games back should never rest on their laurels, but they can take comfort statistically that their first-half has put them in the driver’s seat. By the end of September, we will see if Boston, Pittsburgh and Atlanta have all punched their ticket. There will be at least two AL teams that elevate their game and bump themselves up from below median (i.e., blue area and below) and qualify for the postseason. But what team will that be? In the AL, it looks like it could be a battle between Baltimore and the teams that fall short of the division title in the AL Central (Cleveland or Detroit) and the AL West (Texas or Oakland).

We will know all these answers as the leaves turn and the postseason begins. Until then, fans can still hold out hope that their teams will rally. Until then, fans can recall the 2005 Astros (38-43 after 81 games) or the 2001 Athletics (21 games back at the midway point) and believe in the possibility. Until then, the Angel, Blue Jay and Dodger faithful can look back ten years to Jack McKeon and his improbable Marlins and know that their team still has a chance.

Bob Sullivan writes periodically for SportingCharts.com and can be followed on Twitter at @mrbobsullivan.