As the season careens into its stretch run, there seems to be a pronounced lack of stakes to the proceedings. Sure, teams are still fighting for playoff spots, but how hostile are these races at the moment?
A Phillies-Mets knife fight for the NL East that we were hoping for a month ago has failed to develop, with New York floundering for months now. Likewise in both Central divisions, where the Tigers and Brewers hold 10- and six-game advantages, respectively. The Yankees, Red Sox, Mariners and Padres are all within striking distance of making their division races interesting, but even still, all four of those teams are very likely to make the postseason even if they fall short of first place.
As of this writing, FanGraphs currently gives 10 teams at least a 96% chance at making the postseason, with the Astros (90.7%) and Mariners (76.8%) rounding out the 12-team field. The team with the next-best odds? That would be the Rangers, who, despite being just 1.5 games out of the AL’s third wild-card spot, have just a 12.2% shot of crashing the field. Last year at this time, the Mets were the team outside the playoff picture with the best odds of making it (38.7%), and eventually did so as part of an inspired run to the NLCS. While the Rangers or another team could make a similar surge, it’s looking unlikely.
Rather than dwell on the absence of white-knuckle pennant races, let’s shift our attention to a different cohort of teams: the also-rans. FanGraphs currently assigns nine teams a whopping 0.0% chance at making the playoffs (the site is not quite ready to wave the white flag on behalf of the Angels, who own MLB’s longest active playoff drought and whose current odds are 0.1%). Though these clubs might be ready to flip the page to 2026, that doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons worth tuning in for their final few weeks’ worth of games.
Here’s a player on each of these teams that’s worth tuning in for over the last stretch of the regular season, playoff hopes be damned.
Los Angeles Angels: SS Zach Neto
Neto has been among the few bright spots for the Angels all season long. The 2022 first-round pick broke out last year, his first full season after being rushed to the majors in ‘23, and has taken his game up a level this year. Through 120 games, he has a 117 wRC+ with 25 homers and 24 stolen bases, giving him an outside shot at becoming just the seventh shortstop to record a 30–30 season.
Baltimore Orioles: SP Trevor Rogers
Though Baltimore has long been out of the playoff hunt amid a deeply disappointing campaign, Rogers’s dominant run over the past couple months has been a windfall. After making the All-Star team with the Marlins in 2021, his age-23 season, Rogers posted a 5.09 ERA from ‘22 to ‘24 as he battled injuries. Through 14 starts this year, Rogers is 8–2 with a 1.39 ERA and 2.44 FIP over 90 1/3 innings. He’s allowed one or zero runs in 11 of those outings, with a career best 5.6% walk rate. If he can maintain anything close to this form next season, the Orioles will have their much-needed staff ace.
Minnesota Twins: 2B Luke Keaschall
Keaschall, one of Minnesota’s top prospects entering the year, burst onto the scene during his first week in the big leagues in mid-April, batting .368 with five stolen bases over his first seven games. That quick ascent was cut short after he was hit by a pitch and broke his forearm, keeping him out until Aug. 5, but he’s since returned and continued raking. He’s hit .296/.373/.490 with four homers and three stolen bases since coming off the IL, and looks to be a key part of the Twins’ core as they enter a new era following their trade deadline fire sale.
Chicago White Sox: SS Colson Montgomery
Montgomery, Chicago’s 2021 first-round pick, looked like one of the best prospects in all of baseball a couple of years ago before his pronounced swing-and-miss issues clouded his big-league forecast. Since debuting on July 4, those issues haven’t subsided—his 28.4% strikeout rate is the 18th-highest among 167 qualified hitters over that span—but they also haven’t stopped him from terrorizing opposing pitchers. Montgomery has launched 16 homers in 49 games, tied for the most among shortstops in that time frame. If he never adjusts, he’ll likely never run an average on-base percentage, but his power output and strong defensive skills at a premium position will more than make up for his deficiencies.
Athletics: C Shea Langeliers
Were it not for Cal Raleigh, we’d probably be talking a lot more about his fellow AL West backstop. The A’s catcher is one homer away from becoming just the fourth catcher in the past 20 years to hit 30 homers, joining Raleigh, Salvador Perez and Gary Sánchez. Since the All-Star break, only Kyle Schwarber (19) has more home runs than Langeliers (17).
Colorado Rockies: CF Brenton Doyle
Last year, Doyle looked to be one of the Rockies’ key building blocks after he won his second Gold Glove and hit 23 home runs with 30 stolen bases. He then spent the first half of the season looking completely lost, posting a .202/.254/.322 slash line (with Coors Field as his home field, mind you) through his first 82 games. Since the break, though, Doyle has been a new player. He’s batting .354/.382/.575 with seven home runs and six stolen bases in 37 games. Doyle’s defense remains elite (he’s seventh among all outfielders in Statcast’s outs above average), and if his offensive revival is here to stay, he looks like he could be an All-Star.
Pittsburgh Pirates: SP Paul Skenes
There’s no overthinking this pick: Skenes remains the draw in Pittsburgh. The 23-year-old leads the majors in ERA (2.05) and the NL in FIP (2.44), yet only has a 9–9 record to show for it. If the Pirates’ offense continues to let him down, Skenes could become the first starting pitcher to win the Cy Young Award with a losing record. The only other pitcher to earn that distinction is Eric Gagné, a closer who won the 2003 Cy Young Award with a 2–3 mark (and 55 saves).
Atlanta Braves: SP Hurston Waldrep
Waldrep got battered around in his cup of coffee last year, but Atlanta’s 2023 first-round pick has been stellar since getting called up on Aug. 2. In six starts, the righthander has allowed a total of four runs with 33 strikeouts. Last season, it was Spencer Schwellenbach who shined for Atlanta down the stretch to put himself in a position to be a rotation mainstay the following year. Perhaps Waldrep is heading for a similar trajectory.
Washington Nationals: LF James Wood
Wood has been the reason to keep tabs on the Nationals all year long, as the game’s former top prospect earned his first career All-Star nod in July. But Wood’s bat went ice cold immediately following the break, as he hit .183 with a near-40% strikeout rate and just one home run in a 28-game span starting July 18. He’s picked things back up of late, and it will be imperative for the Nats that Wood end the year strong to position himself to take another step forward in what the team hopes is a more successful ‘26 campaign.
Miami Marlins: CF Jakob Marsee
Looking at the league’s fWAR leaders since the start of August, most of the names likely won’t surprise you. That is, until you scan Marsee’s name among some of the game’s biggest stars:
Not bad for your first month in The Show.
Marsee was a sixth-round pick by the Padres in 2022 before getting traded to Miami as part of the Luis Arraez deal. He’s hit at every stop along the way at the minors, and has amassed 144 stolen bases over the past three seasons before getting called up on Aug. 1. His Baseball Savant page is a thing of beauty, and he runs a double-digit walk rate alongside manageable strikeout and whiff rates with a strong arm and plenty of range to stick in center field.
Maintaining this type of pace over a full season’s worth of games would be a steep ask, but Marsee has the look of a cornerstone for a Miami organization that can use all the building blocks it can find.
More MLB on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as One Player Worth Watching on MLB’s Bottom-Feeding Teams.
