The .500 Division Winner: Baseball's Oldest Floor Is About to Fall
No division winner has ever finished below .500, and the fewest wins any managed is 82. The 2026 AL West champion lands under that 52.4% of the time.
Statistics · Analytics · Data science
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Independent, original MLB analysis built on public data, with the datasets served alongside the articles. Explainers, tutorials, and deep dives — every statistic traced back to a real data pull on a stated date, never invented.
Data Deep-Dives
The Placed Runner Ended the Long Game. October Doesn't Use It.
Since the runner on second arrived, 71.4% of extra-inning games end in the 10th, up from 44.8%, and home teams gained nothing. The postseason drops the rule.
Latest articles
September Is Two Months: Baseball's Scoring Slide
September 1-15 is the season's highest-scoring stretch at 8.98 runs a game. From the 16th on it falls to 8.53, below April. Fifteen seasons, and 2026's test.
Do Out-of-It Teams Quit in September? 15 Seasons Say No
Clubs 10+ games out on Sept. 1 won 37.8 fewer games than expected across 15 Septembers, a quarter-win each. The real sag comes in August, right after the deadline.
Who Wins the Tie? 2026's Playoff Tiebreakers, Computed
No Game 163: a tied record already has an owner. 16 of 25 race tiebreakers are clinched, 8 against the team ahead, and the Guardians would lose both that matter.
Does a Hot September Carry Into October? 139 Series Say Barely
The hottest team in each October field has won 1 of the last 21 World Series. Across 139 postseason series, a hot September is worth about what regression says.
The Head-to-Head Endgame: Which September Races Can Still Settle Themselves
Braves-Phillies have seven head-to-heads left across a 4-game gap. The 2-game AL West has zero. St. Louis cannot touch anyone ahead. September leverage, mapped.
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Banana Ball
The exhibition league MLB can't stop watching: the rules, the teams, and what the two-hour, win-every-inning format actually tests — sourced, never invented.