Cleveland Guardians Playoff Chances Are Improving
The Cleveland Guardians have improved their playoff chances after a grim outlook earlier this month.
Video Transcript
About a week and a half ago, the Cleveland Guardians were in the middle of one of their worst stretches of the 2026 season, and with that, their playoff chances were starting to diminish as well.
On August 12th, FanGraphs gave the Guardians just a 31.7% chance of reaching the playoffs, and that number was even lower at 9.9% chance of winning the division.
Now on August 24th, just 12 days later, Cleveland's chances of making the postseason according to FanGraphs' model is up to 46.9% with a 26.9% chance of winning the American League Central.
And I think there are a couple key takeaways from just these numbers alone.
The first one being a lot can happen in a short amount of time, especially with how bunched up the American League division and wild card race is on its own.
Cleveland can look at those numbers and say that they've done a lot of work over the last week to get back into the playoff hunt and be one of the teams to beat.
But at the same time, if they struggle over the next couple of weeks, then the opposite can happen, and they can be on the outside looking in once again.
It really is starting to feel like the Guardians own their own destiny in this playoff race.
They continue to win, they're gonna be one of the tea- teams to beat in the American League.
But if they start to slide a little bit more, then they're gonna be in the same situation they were just a couple weeks ago with the clock starting to run out as well.
So over the last five weeks of the season, the Guardians certainly still have a lot to play for, but at the same time, they certainly need to be playing their best baseball in order to secure a spot in October.
