The race for the top overall pick

There has been a lot of talk lately about the Mets, Blue Jays, and Royals as they compete with other top teams around the league for one of the 12 available playoff spots, but that is ignoring the other half. While there are six AL teams that still believe they are in contention for a Wild Card and between five and seven NL teams, only two in each league will make it and the rest will be just as big of losers as the last place team.

That would be true, except the last place team gets the first round pick and there are already talks that the 2016 amateur draft could be better than the 2015 version. Because the teams are so close together (all within eight games of the Wild Card in the AL, all but five within 10 games in the NL), the “honor” of being the worst team in baseball is still up for grabs. At the moment the standings look like this:

The teams listed above are those who have essentially stated they are giving up on 2015 by their actions during the trade deadline and it is interesting which teams have done so. Despite being just 3.5 games out (although behind six teams), the Tigers traded their top pitcher to Toronto, who is ahead of them in the standings, essentially waving the white flag. On the other side, the Padres and Diamondbacks are 6.5 back and behind five teams (and tied with each other) yet didn’t sell at the deadline and still consider themselves in the race.

With much less parity, the National League teams definitely have a head start in this race. It will be very difficult for any team to catch the Phillies at this point either as, like Detroit, they also traded their number one starter. In addition, while they have a fairly easy schedule in August, September looks to be a grueling month with multiple series against teams that haven’t given up, like the Mets, Nationals and Cubs.

Of course the Marlins have enough head-to-head games with Philadelphia to keep things close, but they are legitimately the better team and weren’t as active in selling off their team. With Jose Fernandez off the DL and by retaining their top hitters including Dee Gordon, they may actually finish the year on a positive note. They do have plenty of games with their NL East contenders, but with a team that would like to contend in 2016, they likely will put up a fight to prove themselves now.

The biggest movers over the final two months will likely be those players who sold considerable pieces rather than those who are just struggling, like the Red Sox, White Sox and Mariners. Technically it is still even possible for one of the three AL Central teams at the bottom of the loser rankings to jump back into the race, but none look like they have much interest in doing so.

As stated, by trading David Price, the Tigers have left themselves without a single consistent starting pitcher and still have the major bullpen issues that have bothered them all season. With Miguel Cabrera still out for some time, it is hard to imagine them surpassing teams like the Blue Jays, who just added both starting pitching and hitting to a team that wasn’t terrible in either category.

The AL Central team with the most fight left in them appears to be the White Sox. They retained Jeff Samadzija at the deadline and still have one of the more frightening rotations in baseball. They have even been playing better of late, sweeping the Indians for four games while also winning three of four against Boston at the end of July. It wouldn’t be surprising to see them over take the Tigers and thus eliminate themselves from this race for last place.

Last in the Central, but still ahead of Boston, Oakland and Seattle in the Wild Card standings, the Indians are nearly the opposite of Chicago. While they didn’t overly sell at the deadline (just jettisoning some spare parts), Jason Kipnis (aka: the only hitter worth watching Indians games for) is heading to the DL for an unknown period leaving the league’s worst offense with runners in scoring position without their best hitter. The Indians will likely use this time to try out a few rookies and if they can gain a few places in the race for last place, they shouldn’t be too disappointed.

Staying in Ohio, but moving to the National League, the Reds also didn’t sell as much as expected. While Johnny Cueto did go to Kansas City, Jay Bruce and Aroldis Chapman, both whom were involved in rumors, are still with the team as are Joey Votto and Brandon Phillips. It would seem that they just don’t want the top draft pick enough and would prefer to over spend to maintain their mediocrity as long as possible.

This is not to say that any team should actively seek the worst record in baseball (it’s probably a moot point anyway thanks to the disparity in the NL East), but every team should know when it’s time to move on. Some of these teams are maintaining and looking for a more successful run in 2016, like the White Sox, Indians and Mariners, but others are just delaying the inevitable destruction of the franchise. For teams whose World Series window is closing, getting a top pick in 2016 should be worth more than being the best non-playoff team in 2015.