How the division races have already changed

“It’s only May,” you’ll hear when you bring up how a team has performed to this point in the season. “It’s too early to think about it. Wait until the end of the season.” It’s the constant refrain from supporters of under-performing teams, though entertainingly, those following _over_-performing teams never seem to have the same thing to say, and "don't pay attention until September" isn't really a viable option, anyway.

It is only May, to be sure, but it is not too early, because we are just past the 25% point of the season -- not the “quarter pole,” for the record, because that’s 25% from the end of a race, not the start -- and while it may seem like it’s still relatively early in the season, it’s really not. Almost every team has played 40 or more games. That's a huge chunk of the season, they all count and they all help us learn something about the players and teams involved in them.

They have, importantly, already changed the playoff picture. You can see all of that reflected in the FanGraphs playoff odds, comparing the changes from Opening Day through Friday. There are some pretty enormous differences in here.

This is, importantly, not just about taking today’s records and pushing them forward throughout the remainder of the season; otherwise, you could just look at the standings and not worry about the odds at all. (Sorry, Giants fans.)

What this is doing is taking what we’ve learned to date and applying it to the rest-of-season projections. That is, when we look at preseason projections, the kind everyone got mad about regarding the Braves, even though a lot of it came true? We’re doing that, just starting from a team’s current record, not 0-0.

Let's take a look at the five biggest gainers and five biggest decliners to see what's happened and what's real. (All statistics are updated through Thursday night's games.)

The five biggest gainers

Giants (+39 points, from +6% to 44%)
The Giants have been one of baseball’s most pleasant surprises, and it’s been for reasons both obviously and deeply unexpected. If you didn’t see the Giants coming, you weren’t paying attention, because we wrote about them as an under-the-radar team to watch in March, focusing on all the impressive process improvements they’d shown in the last two years. There was plenty of reason to believe Kevin Gausman would be very good, and he has; just look at Anthony DeSclafani (2.03 ERA) and Alex Wood (1.75 ERA) and you see why they’ve become a place pitchers go to get right.

We’ll admit we did not exactly see Buster Posey slugging .657, or Brandon Crawford slugging .563, and it’s hard to see either of those persisting all year. The Giants do have elite defense and are inducing baseball’s best ground-ball rate, and there really is just so much to like here. If there's a problem here, it's that the slow starts of the Padres (9-1 in their last 10) and Dodgers (8-2) have mostly dissipated, and each team is within two games of the Giants, with rosters still considered to be more talented.

No matter. This season has already been a success for San Francisco, though it will be interesting to see if it changes their strategy come July, since the Giants have many players on expiring deals.

Is it real: Mostly! This is very clearly a team on the rise. Is it enough to fend off the Dodgers and Padres? Probably not, but with the other two National League divisions a mess, a Wild Card berth seems very possible.

White Sox (+34 points, from 48% to 82%)
Some of this is about the Twins, because the team that most expected to be neck-and-neck with the White Sox atop the American League Central has completely cratered, leaving the Sox with only a one-sided Cleveland team (good pitching, very poor hitting) to contend with to win the division. You can see the effects of that here; Minnesota has collapsed, Cleveland is what we thought they’d be and Chicago has benefited.

That’s not to take anything away from the White Sox, who have earned this lofty standing with baseball’s best run differential. This is really the largest issue with Tony La Russa’s continued penchant for creating drama where drama need not be, because this is a team that’s been through a lot.

Their three best outfielders have all been injured, as Eloy Jiménez, Luis Robert and Adam Engel have taken 103 plate appearances combined, all by Robert. Yasmani Grandal is hitting .139, though he’s walked so much he’s still been above-average overall. Lucas Giolito has been inconsistent. Dallas Keuchel can’t miss bats.

That should have been enough to sink most teams, but the White Sox are in first place, thanks to the Yermín Mercedes Experience, thanks to valuable imports Lance Lynn and Liam Hendriks, thanks to what seem like real meaningful improvements from Dylan Cease and Carlos Rodón, and continued production from Tim Anderson and José Abreu. That should all be the story we’re talking about. Unfortunately, it’s not.

Is it real: Yes, because this roster is too talented and the Twins are too far gone. Giolito looked outstanding on Thursday, and Robert may return later in the summer. They could badly use an outfield bat and for their manager to lay low, but it’s real. The White Sox are good -- though it’d be nice if they could hit fewer grounders.

Rays (+21 points, from 27% to 48%)
Tampa Bay was on the same list of teams to pay closer attention to before the season began, and here they are. Like the Giants, their defense has been fantastic, and a projected rebound in their offense has happened, as only four teams have scored more runs, and the Rays have outscored opponents 63-23 during a seven-game winning streak. Randy Arozarena (142 OPS+) has mostly backed up his 2020 breakout, Austin Meadows (136 OPS+) has put 2020 behind him, Joey Wendle has been fantastic, Tyler Glasnow has pitched like a true ace and even Mike Zunino has 10 homers.

The team has the eighth-best ERA, and listen, if you can say "top 10 in pitching, batting and fielding," you're doing something right. Plus, you have to assume that Wander Franco makes it up at some point soon.

Is it real: It's real that the Rays are good. They did go to the World Series last year, after all, and won at least 90 games in both 2018 and '19. The problem here is that four of the five teams in the AL East are good, too.

Cardinals (+17 points, from 29% to 46%)
That 29% on Opening Day felt low, maybe, because the Nolan Arenado trade sent seismic waves through the entire NL. Then again, it was a reflection of the jumbled NL Central -- the Brewers, as expected, have had truly dominant pitching -- and the fact that Arenado alone wasn’t likely to fix what had been one of the weaker offenses in baseball in 2019-20, particularly since their outfield was deeply inexperienced.

Arenado has been great, of course, though fellow infielders Paul DeJong, Paul Goldschmidt and Matt Carpenter have all disappointed. St. Louis has an interesting offensive issue happening in the sense that Yadier Molina is striking out more than ever and mashing, while Tommy Edman is striking out less than ever and not actually contributing much. More importantly, the outfield has been a pleasant surprise. Dylan Carlson, Tyler O’Neill and Harrison Bader have all hit around 30% better than league average, and each are good-to-outstanding fielders.

Is it real? That the Brewers can’t hit might make it so by default, but the Cardinals' pitching is a real problem, as they have the fourth-lowest strikeout rate and highest walk rate in baseball. Jack Flaherty has been outstanding, and Giovanny Gallegos has been reliable out of the pen, but the pitching could hold this club back.

Red Sox (+17 points, from 39% to 56%)
In at least one sense, the Red Sox have been what you'd expect, which is to say that the offense has mainly run through the two huge stars on the left side of the infield (Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts) and a welcome rebound season from designated hitter J.D. Martinez. Sure, Alex Verdugo has been solid enough, and Bobby Dalbec has had a big moment or two, but this was expected to be a top-heavy offense, and it is.

But what we didn't expect was how effective the pitching has been. Nathan Eovaldi has thrown 50 innings and has yet to allow a homer, incredibly. Matt Barnes (38 strikeouts / 4 walks) has been one of baseball's most dominant relievers and Rule 5 Draft pickup Garrett Whitlock has been a find. Chris Sale is taking steps forward. Eduardo Rodriguez is back, and they've turned Nick Pivetta into a solid starter after the Phillies were unable to.

Is it real? The top-end bats are certainly for real. Eovaldi going much longer without allowing a home run isn't, and the team as a whole has allowed easily the lowest HR/9 in the AL, which seems like it can't last all season long. The biggest problem is the competition in the AL East, but all these wins are banked. Playoff odds north of 50% now seem realistic.

The middle of the pack
We’re not going to list out each of the middle group of 20 here because there are, well, 20. But it doesn’t mean these teams are all having the exact same season, either.

For example, a handful of teams (like the Orioles, Pirates, Rockies, Rangers, Tigers, Marlins and Mariners) entered the year with playoff odds of 3% or less, and while their seasons haven’t entirely gone the same way, nothing’s happened to date that meaningfully changed those outlooks.

Then you’ve got those good-shot teams who still are considered to have good shots. The Blue Jays, for example, had 51% playoff odds on Opening Day and are 49% now, because they still have serious pitching questions and in the brutal AL East, a 23-19 record is still fourth-best. The Mets were favored to win the NL East in March, and they still are in May. Nothing has really changed that much for the Brewers, or the Royals, or the Cubs, or the Phillies, and so on. They’re in about the same spots they were two months ago.

At the top of the line, the Mets, Yankees, Dodgers and Padres were all expected to be very good, and while that hasn’t quite gone as smoothly in any of their cases as you’d hope, they’re each within two games of first place with rosters loaded with talent. They’ll be fine, if slightly less dominant than it might have looked; either way, their odds of seeing October baseball have not changed much.

Finally, there are two teams in the AL West -- the A's and Astros -- who have each boosted their odds by 10 percentage points, in part because the Angels have fallen from 40% to 11%, and that gap has to be made up somewhere. Oakland has gained value in simply winning 26 of their first 45 games, though they've still been outscored on the season. Houston has been quite simply the best offense in baseball.

The biggest decliners (-10% lag or more)

Reds
Nationals
Angels
Braves
Twins

These five teams have had their playoff odds drop by as little as 12 points (Reds) to as much as 57 points (Twins), but they're in different levels of trouble.

For example, take the Reds and Nationals, who had an identical 22% playoff odds starting the season, and are now down at a nearly identical 10%, in large part because they're each under .500 with 23 losses (Washington has played two fewer games), and each has had pitching problems. Cincinnati has the second-highest walk rate in the Majors (Washington is 9th), and the second-highest ERA. Meanwhile, the Nationals have outscored just three teams.

The Angels (down 29 points) once again have been unable to pitch Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani into the playoffs, with a 5.20 ERA and below-average defense, and now Trout is lost into July with a right calf injury. No matter how impressive Ohtani has been -- and he has been -- it's difficult to see this one turning around. Is it real? Too real.

We somehow still feel better about the Braves (down 37 points), though, even though they've had many of the issues the projections warned about -- like Marcell Ozuna and Ian Anderson being unable to repeat unexpectedly great 2020 seasons, and the bullpen being worryingly thin -- come true. While they're in fourth place, they're only 3 1/2 games out of first place in the NL East, and it's easy to expect more from Ozuna and Freddie Freeman going forward, although being without Huascar Ynoa and Mike Soroka for the foreseeable future will be difficult to overcome.

Finally, the Twins, who have the AL's worst record, who have seen their odds drop from 63% to 6%, who would need to play .630 baseball from here on out just to get to 90 wins. They won't, and so they won't. While the lineup has been OK, the pitching staff -- especially in high leverage spots -- has been a catastrophe. Are they better than this? Yes, probably. Is it too late for it to matter? Seems that way. It's real. Very real.