Question of the week: are the Jays going to earn a bye?

[Brock Beauchamp]

The American League has no clearly "great" team. The Tigers have come back to earth, and no one is charging out in front in the west. When the dust settles, are the Jays going to skip the Wild Card Round entirely?

[Grant77]

On 8/15/2025 at 11:07 AM, Brock Beauchamp said:

The American League has no clearly "great" team. The Tigers have come back to earth, and no one is charging out in front in the west. When the dust settles, are the Jays going to skip the Wild Card Round entirely?

Boston doesn't have the talent to catch us, as they are exceeding their talent level by double digit wins, as evidenced by their extraordinary luck on the pitching side. The bullpen as a whole is outperforming their xFIP by nearly a full run, which is insane.

The Yankees undoubtedly have the talent to make a run and catch us, but they haven't shown any signs of doing so.

The battle is really with Detroit, Houston, and Seattle and we have to beat our 2/3 of them. 

Detroit is hot, has a lead, and has a a very easy schedule. I think they finish with the best record of those three.

Seattle has extremely poor defense, very little depth, and a mediocre bullpen. Unlike the Jays, a key injury or two could absolutely cripple them. As good as the rotation is, I just can't see them making up 5 games, especially with a very difficult schedule.

I like Houston, but again, we have a 5 game lead. Injuries continue to cripple them with Hader going down.

The Jays could completely implode, but even if we go like 17-19 and get 90 wins, I just don't see us falling into the WC round. The AL just isn't very good this year.