MLB Breakdown: When Should Teams Like the Giants, Nationals, and Mariners Start to Worry About Slow Starts

The Washington Nationals had the highest projected win total in baseball (along with the Dodgers). They got off to a 2-6 start before winning the last two games. The San Francisco Giants, the defending World Champions, are 3-8 after losing seven games in a row following Madison Bumgarner’s triumphant horse ride. With key injuries and losses, the team is still finding their way and may be continuing the odd/even year thing they have going off not losing in the playoffs, then not even making them. Teams like the Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, and Seattle Mariners that were seen as potential contenders have gotten off to slow starts.

We hear that it is too early to panic (and generally speaking, it’s almost always to early to panic since rarely does something good come of it), but when do the standings start to resemble how they will shake out by late September? In other words, when do the contenders start to show themselves as the best teams?

Here’s a “heat map” of the last five seasons in both the American League and National League (so 10 league-seasons each). For each week of the season (measured from the standings after the Sunday games using the baseball-reference standings locator), the likelihood that the team at each position in the league standings eventually finishes Top Five in record at season’s end is listed. For example, 6 of the 10 teams who had the best league record after week 1–just one week–eventually finished with a Top 5 record in that league. Of course, as an example of how we shouldn’t react to one week, 4 of the 10 teams with the worst record in the league after the first Sunday finished Top 5.

The full summary, where blacked out spots mean no team in that place on that particular week finished Top 5, and the colors gradually move from blue (for only 1 or 2 teams eventually finishing Top 5), to gray (for 3, near league average), to gradually darker shades of red.

Some notes and thoughts.

• There’s not really a defined area where the standings start to look like they eventually do, but it certainly starts earlier than you might think. Yes, week 1 is a crap shot with a weaker correlation. By as early as week 3, though, every spot from 10th to 15th (I included 16th among the 15th place spots for pre-Astros AL Move NL standings) is below average, with 3 or fewer teams ultimately going to the Top 5.
• By the end of week 2–so less than 15 games in–over half of the top 3 teams in the league standings ultimately finished in the Top 5. By the end of week 5, roughly on or before Mother’s Day, two-thirds of the teams in the Top 3 ultimately finished Top 5.
• Last year’s Milwaukee Brewers were very much an exception, a team that had the best record and completely fell apart in the second half to finish out of the Top 5. They are the lone “best record” to finish out, in weeks 10, 11, and 13.
• By the end of week 7, before Memorial Day, fewer than 1 team per year finished in the top 5, while being in the lower half of the league standings (9th or lower). The true exceptions buried low in the standings once June rolled around were memorable. Oakland in 2012 was 38-42 after Sunday, July 1st. They went a league-best 56-26 the rest of the year. The 2013 Dodgers were 38-43 after Sunday, June 30th. They went a league-best 54-27 the rest of the way.

So, if you want to get to the playoffs (other than being in a really weak division), you better be in the top half of standings by June, with few exceptions. And if you are not, you better be the type of team capable of winning two-thirds of your games the rest of the way.