All-Star week is baseball's carnival, a sudden respite from the pennant race, full of events and a casual atmosphere. But baseball players get back to work today, some of them after a week of chilling in San Diego. And the hard work begins immediately, because with just over two weeks until the trade deadline, this is the last chance for teams to carve out a serious role in the pennant race before the big decisions that will need to be made before July 31.
So to kick off the start of baseball's second half, I ran the updated ZiPS projections (a million times) for the rest of the 2016 season. These will obviously look different than the preseason standings, and they should; it's best to think of projections not as something etched in stone, but gently in chalk as expectations run square into reality.
So with that, let's look at the ZiPS projected standings and division title/playoff percentages, as well as the chances a team will end up with the No. 1 pick in the 2017 draft.
Coming into the season, it was reasonable to expect a scenario for each of the five teams that would result in a divisional title. Only three of the teams are still in the midst of creating those scenarios, and the Orioles, Blue Jays and Red Sox are all very close from a probability standpoint as the only division with three teams that have a 20 percent shot of the title (only one other division has two).