Is September just around the corner, is the 2024 MLB postseason race over yet?

After five months of slow and steady, baseball is about to switch to fast and furious mode. It’s almost September and that means the annual sprint to the postseason is about to begin.

Unless it’s already happened and we missed it.

The oddsmakers at FanGraphs seem to think that the picture of the playoffs is almost already set.

FanGraphs went into business Thursday and had six teams in the American League with a better than 74 percent chance of making the playoffs, and only one other with even a 20 percent chance of getting in. The National League is even more clearly defined with five teams. with at least a 90 percent chance of making it, another with just under 75 percent, and the only other serious contender has only a 25.3 percent chance.

Every other NL team has playoff chances in the single digits, which wasn’t the case on August 1, when the day started with 19 different teams with at least an 11 percent chance of making the playoffs and a 20th – the defending champions Texas Rangers – with a 9.4 percent chance.

The playoff field, it turns out, may have a lot more to do with what happened in the last five weeks than what happens in the next five weeks.

There remain tight division races in the AL East and AL Central – and perhaps the NL West – but these races belong to teams that have a leg up in the wild card and don’t necessarily need a division title to play in October.

The New York Yankees (99.4 percent chance of making the playoffs), Baltimore Orioles (97.8 percent) and Cleveland Guardians (92.5 percent) are effectively postseason locks in the American League, while the Houston Astros ( 90.3 percent) and Minnesota Twins (87.7 percent) are statistically safe bets. The Kansas City Royals currently hold the final wild card spot with a 75.1 percent chance of retaining it.

Elsewhere, the only other team really in contention are the Boston Red Sox (39.1 percent). The Seattle Mariners are down to 12.6 percent and the Tampa Bay Rays – who made some waves in July – are down to just a 4 percent chance.

In the National League, the Los Angeles Dodgers (100 percent), Philadelphia Phillies (99.5 percent) and Milwaukee Brewers (99.3 percent) have all but clinched a spot in the postseason, while San Diego has been red-hot since the break The Padres (95.1 percent) and Arizona Diamondbacks (92 percent) have catapulted into strong positions to join them.

The preseason favorite Atlanta Braves are decimated by injuries, but even they have a long shot of 74.6 percent to win the final wild card spot. The only team meaningfully chasing the Braves is the New York Mets, whose playoff odds have fallen to 25.5 percent after peaking at just over 50 percent in late July. No other NL team has playoff chances in double digits, with only the San Francisco Giants (7 percent) having a better than 3 percent chance.

Such clarity really started during the All-Star break. The best baseball teams since the break are the Diamondbacks (23-8), Padres (22-7), Dodgers (20-11), Royals (19-11), Astros (18-12) and Brewers (18-11), and those six have changed the balance of every virtually undecided playoff spot.

The Astros have thoroughly separated themselves from the Mariners in the AL West. Those two were within a game of each other at the break, but the Mariners have floundered for weeks and have a losing record even since the trade deadline despite significant additions (the going-nowhere Oakland A’s outplayed them in August).

The AL wild card race has essentially guaranteed one spot for a long time (the second-place team in the East will undoubtedly be a wild card), but the Royals and Twins have taken control of the other two. They are tied, 3 1/2 games ahead of the Red Sox and at least six games ahead of everyone else. It’s not an insurmountable lead, but here’s a Red Sox blog trying to calculate what it would take for the Red Sox to close that gap.

Twins have a 90/91 win rate. To reach 92, they need to go 25-11.

Suppose it is 5-5 against AZ/BAL/NYY, then they will have to play 20-6 against the other teams.

They desperately need to rip off a 10-2 piece or something in this upcoming set for the math to work. https://t.co/xnh14lOalA

— Chris Hatfield (@SPChrisHatfield) August 22, 2024

In the National League, the Brewers have distanced themselves from the rest of Central. As of July 13 – the weekend before the All-Star Game – the Cardinals were within 3 1/2 games of first place and every team in the division had at least an 8 percent chance of making the playoffs. The Brewers are now the only team in the division above .500, and none of the others have even a 3 percent chance of playing in October.

In the NL West, the Giants have been better than most since the break (18-14), but they have not been able to keep pace with the attacking Padres and Diamondbacks, each of whom could have caught the heavily favored Dodgers if the Dodgers also not going well. One team will win the West, and the other two will be heavy favorites to advance as wild cards. FanGraphs has the Padres and Diamondbacks’ playoff odds similar to those of the Guardians, who have been one of the best teams in baseball with an off-the-charts vibe.

With the Philllies now in control of the NL East, the only other spot in the National League that is somewhat up for grabs is the final wild card, currently held by the scrambling Braves, who just added Austin Riley to a list of injured, which Spencer Strider was already on. Ronald Acuna Jr. and Ozzie Albies. If the Mets get hot — like they were in July — maybe they can close the gap and make a legitimate run by dethroning the preseason favorites for a playoff spot.

The Red Sox might also be able to get on a roll and dethrone one of the AL Central favorites to sneak into the postseason. It’s not like there’s nothing to play for in the next five weeks.

But when all is said and done and the playoff field is set, we might find that the real sprint to October was over before the calendar even turned to September.

(Top photo: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)