Which postseason bubble teams face biggest questions?

Making the playoffs can change the way the entire baseball world sees you, in essentially every possible way. Ask the 2023 D-backs, after all: They went from a team with a negative run differential that most people assumed would be marched out of the playoffs to a feisty NL pennant winner. Once you’re in, anything can happen.

But that raises the stakes for teams to reach the postseason. If you make it, all is possible, but if you miss it, well, nothing is ... and some big questions may need to be answered.

So, today, we’re going to do some ranking. We’re going to look at the teams who are in postseason contention but are far from assured of a playoff spot, and we’re going to attempt to assess the ramifications of them missing the playoffs entirely. Which teams will face the biggest questions if they are sitting at home in October?

We’re excluding teams with no serious path to the postseason -- the Pirates and everybody below them in the NL, and the Tigers and everybody below them in the AL -- as well as teams with playoff odds above 85% as of Tuesday, according to FanGraphs. (That’s the Phillies, Brewers, Dodgers, Padres, D-backs, Yankees, Orioles, Guardians, Twins and Astros). You got all that? Good. Let’s dig in.

1. Mariners
I’m sorry to keep bringing this up, but this Mariners team had a 10-game AL West lead on June 18. That lead was gone entirely by July 19. Seattle still held a division lead as recently as Aug. 6, but now, suddenly, is further behind those blasted Astros (five games), than they have been all year. We’ve included the Astros as a team in the playoffs, but the Mariners could still theoretically catch them to win their first division title since 2001. The Wild Card is also a possibility. But the Mariners were supposed to be running this division by now, and it looks to have slipped through their fingers again. How much more can their fans take? When does the turnaround happen? If not now, when?

2. Cardinals
Coming off their first last-place finish in more than 30 years, the Cardinals knew the pressure was on this year, which is why they refurbished their entire rotation in the offseason, most notably by signing Sonny Gray. And for a while, it looked like it might all come together: This was a Wild Card team just two weeks ago. But the bottom has fallen out. Not only do veterans like Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt look to be on a rapid decline, but young players they were counting on, like Jordan Walker and Nolan Gorman, haven’t developed as hoped. Team president John Mozeliak has been with the franchise for more than three decades, and running the front office for nearly 20. But this would be a low point for this franchise, with just one year left on his contract, and a whole bunch of unfamiliar empty seats at Busch Stadium. Trouble is brewing here. If the Cardinals miss the playoffs again -- or even finish last again -- this franchise could look very, very different, very, very soon.

3. Giants
This was supposed to be the year. With that 107-win 2021 season looking more and more like a fluke the further it gets in the rearview mirror, the Giants got aggressive in the offseason, bringing in Matt Chapman, Blake Snell, Robbie Ray, Jordan Hicks and Jung Hoo Lee. It hasn’t paid off. Some of those players have produced nice seasons, but the Giants still look like what they are: a .500 team that should maybe be a little better than that, but not that much better. Patience is very thin in San Francisco, which is one of the reasons the Giants made all those offseason moves in the first place. It is only getting thinner.

4. Cubs
Like the Cardinals, the Cubs were built to appease an increasingly frustrated fanbase heading into 2024. They brought in Craig Counsell to manage, they brought back Cody Bellinger, they signed Shota Imanaga. But it just hasn’t come together for the Cubs this year in a way that is increasingly frustrating the Wrigley faithful. One does have to wonder how much patience is left for president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer. There is some good young talent here, and more coming. But when the team traded away all those stars from the 2016 team, Cubs fans were promised that good times were on the way. They’re still not here yet.

5. Red Sox
It may be difficult to remember at this point, but when the season began, the Red Sox were the overwhelming consensus pick to finish last in the AL East. They’ve been impressive essentially since the season began, riding some terrific starting pitching early on and breakthrough seasons for Tyler O’Neill, Connor Wong, Jarren Duran and Wilyer Abreu (not to mention an MVP-caliber campaign for Rafael Devers) to find themselves right in the thick of the AL Wild Card chase. Frankly, most years, seven games over .500 would have them closer than they are right now; the Royals have thrown a real wrench in their plans, and the Sox enter Wednesday 3 1/2 games out of the final AL Wild Card spot. Boston fans want their team to make the playoffs every year, so it’ll be a disappointment if they fall short, but there’s some real proof of concept going on here, with all the young talent on display. The only Red Sox regular over 30 is Masataka Yoshida: The Red Sox, it turns out, were quietly building something interesting. If they don’t make the playoffs, they’ll still be doing so again next year.

6. Reds
Reds fans are frustrated with this team, and you can understand why. They’ve underperformed their run differential, they lose a ton of close games and they have a bad habit of following hot streaks with faceplants, like they did this past weekend in getting swept at home by the Royals in three straight blowouts. When you look at the rosters of the NL Central teams, it certainly feels like the Reds should be better than they are. But this is still a very young team, one that hasn’t quite learned how to win yet but has all the makings of one that’s going to -- and soon. Look at all the young talent on this team. Doesn’t it feel like your 2025 NL Central favorite? Now, if they do this again next year, the grumblings will be entirely justified. But as for now? The Reds look like they’re still a year away.

7. Mets
If the Mets aren’t able to pass the wounded Braves and sneak into the playoffs, will Mets fans remember how much of a nightmare 2023 was and how, no matter what happens, '24 is a huge improvement on that? And that '25 and '26 were the target dates for this franchise anyway? On the other hand, this could be Pete Alonso’s last year with the franchise, and Francisco Lindor is having an MVP-caliber year, and you want to take advantage of that. Still, it has been fun to watch some of those young players grow up. This Mets team has been a happy little surprise. Those don’t happen in Flushing often. Maybe they should make a run while the vibes are still positive.

8. Braves
The Braves were considered one of the best teams in baseball heading into the year, maybe the best team in baseball, so in a vacuum, missing the playoffs would seem like a disaster. But this season has certainly not taken place in a vacuum. The Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider injuries changed the whole equation this season, and those of course were far from the last injuries the Braves had to deal with. (Now Austin Riley is out 6-8 weeks.) The year has felt cursed, really from the start. That doesn’t mean the Braves can’t still make the playoffs -- they’re in fact favored to do so -- but if Atlanta ended up going belly-up down the stretch, no one would blame them for considering this whole rotten year a bit of a mulligan.

9. Royals
What a year it has been for the Royals. Remember, this team lost 106 games last year. 106! Anything even approaching .500 would have felt like a massive improvement this year, let alone fighting for a Wild Card spot. The Royals have felt special from Spring Training on in 2024, with the good vibes starting with the Bobby Witt Jr. extension and continuing all season. The Royals are in a good enough spot in the standings that if they collapse and miss the postseason this year, it’s definitely going to hurt. But it won’t change the fact that the Royals are clearly going somewhere exciting -- this year, next year and beyond.

10. Rays
Everyone keeps trying to write off the Rays and yet they keep staying afloat. That said: No one’s going to sweat too much if (and probably when) they fall short this year. This is a team with the top farm system in baseball, according to MLB Pipeline, and we’re already seeing young players like Junior Caminero in the lineup every day. The Rays already staked their claim as a team without too much on the line in 2024: You don’t trade away Randy Arozarena and Isaac Parades if it's this-year-or-bust. They’re winning now, but their eyes are still turned toward 2025.