How MLB playoff races look going into final month of season

Major League Baseball's decision to increase its playoff field in recent years has produced mostly positive results, at least as it relates to improved league parity and giving more teams' fans an opportunity to see playoff baseball. It's also been a lucrative move for the league and its broadcast partners because more playoff teams mean more playoff games, which means more money for everybody involved.

It's a win-win-win. 

The only real loss in it is that it has somewhat diluted what has traditionally been one of the best parts of September baseball — the playoff races.

With the calendar set to roll over to September early next week, most of the playoff races across the league already seem to be set. 

Just going by ESPN's playoff probability number, there is only one team not currently in a playoff position that has a playoff percentage of more than 10%, and that is the Kansas City Royals at only 13.1%. They trail a wild-card spot by three games in the American League.

The next closest teams after them — the Texas Rangers and Cleveland Guardians — who are both within five games of a wild-card spot, have playoff odds of only 5% and 3.4%.

In other words, it would take a stunning sequence of events over the next month for one of the six playoff teams in the American League standings to change. 

It's even more settled in the National League, where the only teams on the outside of the playoff picture with even more than a 1% chance are the Cincinnati Reds (4.6%) and San Francisco Giants (1.2%). 

That means you are looking at an overwhelming likelihood of the American League playoff teams being the Toronto Blue Jays, Detroit Tigers, Boston Red Sox, Houston Astros, Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees, while the National League teams will likely be the Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Phillies, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres and New York Mets. 

Even the divisional races are not offering a lot of intrigue.

The Mets just swept the Phillies in the NL East race, but all that did was close the gap down to five games. The Phillies are still in the driver's seat. 

The only divisional races that are within three games of one another National League West and the American League West. In the former, the Dodgers lead the Padres by two games, while the Astros lead the Mariners by two games in the latter race. 

It might be at least another month until you see truly meaningful baseball again in either league, because the playoff teams look mostly set.