Ranking every postseason & award race by most intriguing

My kids’ school sends out a newsletter that often begins with the words, “It’s hard to believe …”

As in, “It’s hard to believe school has started again!” Or, “It’s hard to believe the first semester is ending!” Or, “It’s hard to believe how many e-mails elementary schools send to parents!”

In that spirit, I would just like to say that it’s hard to believe we are only three weeks away from the start of the MLB postseason. With precious little time left in the 2024 regular season, let’s take stock of ALL the races – for the 12 playoff spots and for the eight major awards handed out by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America – and rank them in order of intrigue.

1. NL Wild Card

Unless the Cubs have some magic in them, it’s four teams – Padres, D-backs, Braves and Mets – for three spots. It’s conceivable that we could have a three-way or, dare I say, four-way tie for those three spots, in which case we’d have to break out the abacus and settle it via math.

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But even if that doesn’t happen, there are plenty of satisfying storylines here. You’ve got the Padres having righted themselves after a maddening 2023, the D-backs proving last season's NL title run was no fluke, the Braves trying to forge their way through a litany of impact injuries and the Mets making us all say (and sing) “OMG!” in what had once appeared a rebuild year after last year’s high-priced squad folded under high expectations. At the start of the season, it seemed inconceivable that the Mets could make the playoffs over the Braves, but that’s obviously a distinct possibility now.

2. NL Rookie of the Year

It’s the Padres’ Jackson Merrill vs. the Pirates’ Paul Skenes, although 20-year-old Brewers left fielder Jackson Chourio sure is pushing himself into the conversation with a .320/.380/.584 slash in the second half entering Tuesday.

Merrill appears to have become the favorite here in a season in which he switched positions from shortstop to center field and made it look like no biggie. He’s come up with one clutch hit after another while padding his 127 OPS+ for a needy contender. Plus, he’s played all season. On the flip side, you could argue that Skenes (10-2, 2.10 ERA, 200 ERA+) has instantly established himself as one of the absolute best starters -- rookie or otherwise -- in all of baseball and should not be punished for being (unnecessarily, it would appear) held back at the start of the season.

Whoever wins – and at the risk of being a prisoner of the moment -- this NL rookie class feels like one we will look back on one day as an all-time great, which is why this race ranks so high here.

3. AL East

In this playoff format -- and given what we’ve seen thus far in the revised Wild Card rounds -- it’s hard to get as jazzed about the outcome of a division race between two teams that are both October-bound, regardless.

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Still, there is embedded panache to the AL East title, and the No. 1 overall seed in the AL is in play. The banged-up Orioles have had a rough second half, but the race is still ultra-tight (the Yanks are a half-game ahead) and could come down to the final week. It just so happens that they’ll face each other in the Bronx that final week (Sept. 24-26).

4. AL Central

For me, this one would rank ahead of the East if the first-place Guardians and second-place Royals – separated by 3 1/2 games -- had not already completed their season series and if the third-place Twins (six back) were playing better.

As it stands today, all three of those clubs would make the playoffs, anyway. But with Cleveland having turned things around after a 2023 setback and Kansas City having risen from the ashes of a 106-loss season, there is compelling content here. The Royals erased what had once been a nine-game lead for the Guards, only to go into an untimely (to put it lightly) seven-game losing streak. But they still have a fighting chance of becoming the first team to lose 100-plus one year and win their division the next. Also, unless the Orioles falter and the Astros surge, this could be a case where the division winner rests and the second-place finisher has to play the Wild Card Series on the road.

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5. AL Wild Card

This race was virtually non-existent (with only seeding among the Orioles and the second- and third-place AL Central squads to be determined), until this past weekend, when the Twins were swept by the Royals, and the Mariners, Tigers and Red Sox all won their weekend series.

The Tigers are just three back of the Twins for the sixth seed, with the Mariners and Red Sox trailing Minnesota by four games. Heck, the Rays are six back, if you really want to widen the canvas. It's fair to have healthy skepticism about all of those squads, but what a story it would be if the Mariners overcome a disastrous midseason funk that cost them a 10-game division lead and cost manager Scott Servais his job and made it to October, anyway. Or if the young Tigers surged to overtake a division foe. Or if the Red Sox crafted a new ending to that in-production Netflix documentary.

6. AL West

It’s been a wild ride out west, with the Mariners having somehow turned what was once a 10-game lead into a 4 1/2-game deficit. Frankly, it’s hard to imagine the Astros, whose rotation has evolved over the season to once again emerge as elite and whose lineup has heated up of late with the returns of Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker from injury, ceding their lead. But just because they do still have a remaining series against the Mariners in the final week (Sept. 23-25), we’ll rank this one here.

7. AL Rookie of the Year

Definitely a close race, though the numbers involved ultimately aren’t as compelling as what Merrill and Skenes have put down.

In our most recent MLB.com poll from late August, Orioles outfielder Colton Cowser (20 homers, 21 doubles, 120 OPS+) was out in front of Yankees starter Luis Gil (13-6, 3.24 ERA), A’s closer Mason Miller (2.43 ERA, 23 saves, 0.88 WHIP) and Red Sox outfielder Wilyer Abreu (15 homers, 31 doubles, 127 OPS+). Gil just returned from the injured list with a dominant outing against the Cubs over the weekend, and his teammate -- catcher Austin Wells – has taken over the cleanup spot by slashing .283/.371/.518 since the start of July.

A lot of ways this one can still go.

8. AL MVP

Everybody on planet Earth -- even the cartoon dogs -- knows what Aaron Judge is up to. He leads the league in… well, everything. And his second MVP in the last three years seems so obvious that even this ranking is probably too ambitious.

But Judge entered Tuesday in an uncharacteristic 10-for-47 stretch with an even less-characteristic zero home runs in that span. Were he to somehow struggle for a prolonged period, there’s Bobby Witt Jr.’s avenue to steal the MVP the way he steals so many bases.

Witt is already the first player ever with 30 homers, 40 doubles, 10 triples and 25 steals in a season, and he’s right there with Judge in both the Baseball Reference and FanGraphs calculations of Wins Above Replacement. His season has guided the Royals into contention a year after they set a franchise loss record. In our latest MLB.com poll, he received six first-place votes to Judge’s 31. Maybe, with Judge’s help, he can pull off an upset.

9. NL MVP

It’s so strange to see a DH as the prohibitive favorite in this race, considering no full-time DH has ever won the award. But then again, no DH -- or any player at all -- has gone 50-50, as Shohei Ohtani appears destined to do. The voters definitely didn’t ding Ronald Acuña Jr. for composing his historic 40-70 season within the heightened stolen-base environment last year (he won the NL MVP unanimously), so they’re not going to hold it against Ohtani, either.

Francisco Lindor has been incredible, though. He’s the biggest reason why this Mets team is in the unlikely position of gunning for a playoff spot, and he plays a premium position, which, whether you trust WAR to calculate it or not, is certainly way more valuable than no position. Maybe those bombastic New York media members, who always make their voices heard (love ya, folks!), will continue to make enough noise about him to make this an actual ballot battle. Our poll had Lindor getting nine first-place votes to Ohtani’s 28.

Again, though, 50-50 (or wherever Ohtani lands) will probably overtake all other factors here.

10. NL West

The red-hot Diamondbacks and Padres got within two games of the Dodgers in mid-August, but things have normalized since then, with L.A. holding a 4 1/2-game lead. The D-backs are done facing the Dodgers, while the Padres still have another series remaining against them at Dodger Stadium on Sept. 24-26. The Dodgers keep taking injury hits to their rotation, and Arizona and San Diego are both going to be super dangerous come October, but for now it seems L.A. is on its way to an 11th division title in 12 years.

11. AL Cy Young

It’s Tarik Skubal’s to lose, and he’s probably already done enough to not lose it. Detroit’s 27-year-old left-hander has been a joy to watch this season, and he’s got a shot at the AL pitching Triple Crown with the AL lead in wins (16), ERA (2.53) and strikeouts (208).

Though the Mariners’ Logan Gilbert finished second in our recent MLB.com poll, the only pitcher other than Skubal to get a first-place vote was Emmanuel Clase. The Guardians’ closer has been otherworldly again this year, but, I must tell you, he has zero chance of winning the Cy. Especially with the year Skubal has had as a traditional ace.

12. NL Cy Young

Our latest poll was even more clear in the NL, where Chris Sale received all 31 first-place votes. With apologies to the Phillies’ Zack Wheeler and the others with strong seasons, just etch Sale’s name onto his first career Cy Young trophy now and be done with it. His resurgence with the Braves (16-3, 2.38 ERA, 175 ERA+) has been one of the best stories in baseball this season.

13. AL Manager of the Year

Sure, this is probably not as decided as some awards ranked higher, but… it’s Manager of the Year. I can’t rank it higher than 13th. Anyway, you figure this will ultimately be decided by the result of the AL Central race. The Guardians’ Stephen Vogt, having replaced a legend in Terry Francona and instantly led Cleveland into contention, and the Royals’ Matt Quatraro, who is at the helm of a Royals team that lost 106 games last year and is now on the verge of October, both provide the necessary narratives.

Again, it will probably just go to the skipper of the superior squad. Right now, that’s Vogt. And it might be Vogt either way, given the Francona factor.

14. NL East

Yo, Philly! The boys from Broad Street essentially wrapped up their first division title since 2011 by Memorial Day. Impressive.

15. (tie) NL Central and NL Manager of the Year

The Brewers lost Craig Counsell, who is generally regarded as one of the best managers of his era. They traded one ace in Corbin Burnes and had another, Brandon Woodruff, out for the season following shoulder surgery. Then their star reliever, Devin Williams, was diagnosed with stress fractures in his back during Spring Training. Because of all this, the Brewers weren’t a popular pick to make the playoffs, much less win the Central again.

And yet their predominantly young team is winning the NL Central going away. And their first-time (at least without an “interim” tag in MLB) skipper, Pat Murphy, is doing the same with Manager of the Year.