MLB standings at the one-quarter mark, what now?
With roughly one-fourth of the season behind us, what have we learned and what can we expect going forward from the current MLB standings?
Most MLB teams have either just passed or are coming up on their 40th game of the season, which means we’re right around the one-quarter mark. This has been erroneously called the “quarter pole” in some places, with the MLB standings starting to reveal much of what to expect moving forward.
It’s erroneous because the “quarter pole” is an actual, physical pole in horse racing that signifies the spot on the racetrack that is a quarter mile from the finish line. If you apply that to MLB, the quarter pole would be around game 120, not game 40.
Setting aside that issue, there have been some big surprises in the first 40-ish games of the 2018 season. The Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies are at the top of the list of surprisingly good teams. We knew both teams had good young talent on the roster and more on the way, especially Atlanta, but few people expected either team to have winning percentages around .600 at this point of the season.
On the flip side, the disappointing Dodgers were expected to easily win 90 or more games but are currently nine games under .500. The Twins looked like AL Wild Card contenders in the pre-season. Now they are below .500. The Cubs were favorites in the NL Central, but are currently in a dogfight with three other teams.
Of course, it’s important to remember that there’s plenty of baseball left. Just because some teams have done surprisingly well so far doesn’t mean they will continue to do surprisingly well. It’s fun for fans to hope their high-performing teams will continue to get the clutch hits or make the big plays they’ve made so far, but regression is a mighty force.
We don’t know for sure what will happen going forward because we don’t have a magic crystal ball. We can use the information we have and project the standings going forward. Plenty of people use the “gut instincts” method to predict the rest of the season, which is fun for friends sitting around having nachos, but probably not as accurate. Let’s look at the divisions and MLB standings using the Fangraphs Projected Standings.