2022 MLB Futures Betting: Eight Sub-.500 Teams That Could Reach the Playoffs

Even with the Los Angeles Angels mired in a six-game losing streak, Joe Maddon’s words seemed innocuous and optimistic enough as he spoke outside the visiting clubhouse at Yankee Stadium prior to a doubleheader last Thursday.

“Listen, everybody’s clamoring for Michael to be in the playoffs,” Maddon said, referring to the Angels’ all-world, three-time MVP centerfielder Mike Trout. “We are all — especially this year. It just needs to happen.”

If it happens, Maddon won’t be the one presiding over it.

Maddon was fired Tuesday afternoon, fewer than 24 hours after the Angels’ losing streak hit 12 games — a single-season franchise record. The losing streak continued under interim manager Phil Nevin on Tuesday night, when Los Angeles lost to the Boston Red Sox, 6-5, to fall three games under .500 and 2 1/2 games behind the Red Sox in the race for the American League’s third and final wild card spot.

It’s a stunning collapse by the Angels, who were 27-17 — a 99-win pace over a full season — and had three legitimate MVP candidates following their most recent win May 24.

During the Angels current 13 game losing streak, they have lost six one-run games and one, two-run game. It wouldn’t have taken more than a couple of fortuitous bounces for Joe Maddon to be waking up still employed.

— Daniel Victor (@slydanno70) June 8, 2022

But Trout, Shohei Ohtani and Taylor Ward are hitting just .168 with five homers and 12 RBIs during the losing streak, a span in which Ohtani is 0-2 with a 9.00 ERA on the mound. Los Angeles has scored three runs or fewer nine times during the losing streak, including in the second game of last Thursday’s doubleheader, when the Yankees’ Jameson Taillon flirted with a perfect game by retiring the first 21 batters he faced.

Compounding matters for the Angels, Ward went on the injured last last weekend with a right hamstring injury while Trout — who hasn’t been in the playoffs since 2014, so long ago Maddon was managing the Tampa Bay Rays and the Angels were known by the mouthful of a moniker “The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim” — exited Tuesday’s game with left groin tightness.

About the only things the Angels have going for them are the memories of the 2019 Washington Nationals and 2021 Atlanta Braves — each of whom, of course, overcame slow starts to not just make the playoffs but win the World Series.

The Nationals were 19-31 after 50 games, the worst 50-game start ever for a World Series winner, while the Braves spent the first 110 games at or under .500, the longest such season-opening stretch for an eventual champion.

The current Nationals are in last place in the NL East with the fourth-worst record in the game and are not among the sub-.500 teams with playoff aspirations. But manager Davey Martinez’s 2019 mantra — “Go 1-0 everyday” — still applies to those trying to climb out of an early-season hole.

“Hey, control what you can control today — nothing about tomorrow,” Martinez said at Citi Field last week. “The 1-0 is something I always believed in — hey, I’m going to try to win my day everyday. I relayed that message to the boys. Everyday, it’s little by little. We’re about winning the first game of a series and then when we’ve done that, it’s just win the series after that, Don’t look at the standings, because that will take care of itself. And sure enough, at the end of the year, we were right where we needed to be.”

With this season past the 50-game mark, time is already running short for the Angels and their sub-.500 brethren, especially with the Braves and Boston Red Sox in the midst of winning streaks that have lifted them over the break-even mark. 

Here’s a look at eight baseball teams — five from the more wide-open AL and three from the NL, where there already appears to be five teams with a clear path to playoff spots — looking to join the 2019 Nationals and 2021 Braves as in-season Cinderellas. All odds from DraftKings.

Angels (+140 Opening Day, +210 now): The losing streak has magnified just how top-heavy the Angels (27-30) are, with almost nothing in the lineup behind the Ohtani-Trout-Ward triumvirate and a six-man rotation comprised of a bunch of no. 3 starter types. Still, a team that played .600-plus ball for six-plus weeks can figure how to do so again, but the Angels’ hopes might completely evaporate if they can’t scratch out at least three wins over the next seven games against the titanic trio of the Red Sox, New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers.

White Sox (-390 Opening Day, -215 now): Residing in the AL Central should keep the White Sox (26-27) in the playoff hunt all season, but there’s been little sign they’re anything other than an underachieving, underwhelming bunch. Maybe the returns of Tim Anderson and Lance Lynn from the injured list later this month will provide the spark some of us thought might have been generated with the doubleheader sweep of the Yankees.

Guardians (+400 Opening Day, +425 now): The White Sox and Minnesota Twins should be careful about letting the Guardians (25-26) hang around. While they’re the clear third-place team, talent-wise, Terry Francona’s teams tend to get better deeper into the season. The 2004 Red Sox went 42-18 after the trade deadline, his first team in Cleveland earned a wild card by going 21-6 in September and the 2017 team won 33 of its final 37 games.

Mariners (+170 Opening Day, +380 now): Some of us dismissed the Mariners’ track record of struggling the year after they overachieved their way to a winning record and touted them as an AL West favorite. Whoops. At 25-31 and with a negative-run differential, the regression to the mean has arrived again for the Mariners, whose general manager, Jerry DiPoto, is insisting they’re not going to finish last with five guys flirting with a WAR of 4.0 or higher. OK, but they’re going to need more than Ty France, J.P. Crawford, Julio Rodriguez and Eugenio Suarez posting OPS+ above the league average to climb back into the playoff race.

Dipoto says, verbatim, “I dare you to go out and find a last place team in any given year that’s got 5 regulars posting 3.5-4 win seasons.”

Weird dare!

— Mariner Muse (@MarinerMuse) May 31, 2022

Rangers (+650 Opening Day, +1200 now): Can’t mention the Mariners and Angels without also noting the team in between! The Rangers (26-29) are probably a year away from really contending, but they’ve gone 19-15 since a 7-14 April and Marcus Semien doubled his home run total Tuesday. In addition, Martin Perez is the biggest and most surprising pitching success story this side of Nestor Cortes. 

Phillies (-140 Opening Day, +170 now): The Phillies (26-29), apparently emboldened by the idea you can’t fire a manager mid-season and expect to make the playoffs, are 4-0 since firing Joe Girardi and have pulled within 3 1/2 games of the San Francisco Giants for the last wild card spot. With only 26 games left against teams currently occupying a playoff spot, the schedule presents the Phillies a chance to construct a playoff run without addressing their deficiencies on defense or in the bullpen.

Marlins (+275 Opening Day, +900 now): It’s unlikely Tuesday’s 12-2 rout of the Nationals is anything more than Don Mattingly understanding the best time to call a team meeting lasting more than an hour is right before a team faces an opponent starting the major league leader in losses. But it’d be a good tale if the Marlins (23-30) turned their season around after a Festivus-esque airing of grievances.

Pirates (+1800 Opening Day, +4000 now): The Pirates (24-29) are probably even further away from contention than the Rangers, but at least there’s a chance of getting out of last place in the NL Central after three straight fifth-place finishes and a little light at the end of the tunnel in the midst of another extended rebuild.