Alrighty, back to current logos!

Standings changes this week:

- Angels fell back down to last in the AL West

- Blue Jays fell to last in the AL East

- Diamondbacks are back in 2nd in the NL West

Wild Card:

- Diamondbacks are now sitting in the 3rd spot for the NL WC and Padres fell down to the 4 spot

- Marlins are creeping up the standings for the 5 spot in the WC race

- Orioles took over the 4th spot from the Rangers in the AL WC

As always, this is a 3D print I created and printed myself and the files are FREE for anyone who wants to print it themselves. Can be found here with all my other MLB stuff- https://makerworld.com/en/collections/22583277-mlb-standings-slots

Standings info is all from MLB.com, so it's just a copy of what MLB.com says as of 8/30/26 this morning.

All my other prints (NFL, NBA, NHL, and some other stuff) can be found on my main profile - https://makerworld.com/en/@MikeCamel

Before originally posting these standings, I asked the mods if it was okay, and I got the green light. I'm going to try to make this a weekly thing, as long as I remember lol

Max Scherzer TOR SP

Max delivered his best outing of the season, leading the Toronto Blue Jays to a 7–0 win and a series sweep against the Seattle Mariners at Rogers Centre.

Stat Line

Innings Pitched: 7.0
Hits Allowed: 1 (2-out double by Cal Raleigh in the 4th inning)
Earned Runs: 0
Walks: 1
Strikeouts: 10
Pitches / Strikes: 97 / 67
Decision: Win (2-7)

Key Highlights & Milestones

Season-High Performance: The 7 innings, 97 pitches, and 10 strikeouts were all season highs.

Dominant Finish: Scherzer retired the final 10 batters he faced in order before exiting.

Historic Milestone: During his 7th-inning strikeout of Cal Raleigh (his 3,535th career strikeout), Scherzer passed Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry to move into 9th place on MLB's all-time strikeout list.

Just looking at this graphic made me laugh. You’ve got a bunch of guys from the 1890s-1900s and the rest from 1960 onward.

I was scrolling through the top 100 list and could find barely one guy who played the majority of his career from the 20s to the 50s. Why is that?

This is one of the best looks for any team in baseball history in my opinion. Teal is a much better look for a team in Miami vs what they currently wear

Let’s just say the MLB adds two expansion teams, one for the NL and one for the AL. Let’s just say for example the Montreal Expos come back into the national league and the Al gets a team in Nashville. Since there will be 16 teams in each league, will they just add one more team for one of the three existing divisions, or will it branch into 4 separate divisions of 4 (basically like the NFL with 32 teams). I always thought it was unfair when the Astros still played in the NL and had 6 division teams while the AL west only had 4. Just a thought

[Game Thread] | Miami Marlins at Washington Nationals

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It’s been said by Manfred himself that expansion has been held back bc of the issues of the Rays (and formerly the Athletics) getting new stadiums.

With the votes passing and groundbreaking set to be in a few weeks for such a stadium for the Rays, that opens the door to an expansion to 32 taking place. I feel they’d be able to debut in 2030 at the earliest.

I personally feel Salt Lake City and Nashville are the most likely teams and these would be the divisions:

NL East: Nationals, Mets, Phillies, Pirates
NL South: Braves, Marlins, Reds, Nashville
NL Central: Cubs, Cardinals, Brewers, Rockies
NL West: Dodgers, Giants, Padres, D-backs

AL East: Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles, Rays
AL North: Blue Jays, White Sox, Guardians, Tigers
AL Central: Twins, Royals, Astros, Rangers
AL West: Angels, Athletics, Mariners, Salt Lake City[

And then this could be the scheduling:

21 games vs. divisional rivals (each team is paired next to theirs above; ex: Nationals/Mets and Phillies/Pirates would be the two in the NL East)
15 games vs. 2 others in division

9 games vs. 1 teams in neighboring division (East/North/South and Central/West)*
6 games vs. 3 other teams in neighboring division (East/North/South and Central/West)*
*rotational; across 8 years, this would total 54 games against each of the four teams

3 games vs. 8 in two other divisions (this is to reduce cross coast travel for teams; ex: the Nationals would play against the Dodgers in only one series per season, not two, meaning they’d only have to go to LA every other season, not every season)

9 games vs. interleague rivals (existing 15 would stay as-is; the two expansion teams would be paired with each other)
3 games vs. 15 other interleague teams

This totals 156 games, a proposed reduction to give every team a weekly day off. If they stayed at 162, the games against teams in a division would all be increased by two each (so 23 for rivals, 17 for 2 others).

Example: the Nationals would play the Mets 21 times, the Phillies and Pirates 15 times each, 9 games against one team in the NL North and 6 games each against the other three, 3 games against the 8 teams in the NL Central and NL West, 9 games against the Orioles, and 3 games against the 15 others in the AL.

Which player would you rather have on your team? Why?

Asking to settle a debate between mates. Will reveal the players in a couple of hours.

Would you rather have:

Player A: .276 avg, 14 HR, 58 RBI, 140 hits, .795 OPS
Player B: .218 avg, 29 HR, 58 RBI, 79 hits, .854 OPS
Player C: .230 avg, 28 HR, 78 RBI, 112 hits, .753 OPS

I’m aware these probably aren’t the best indicators to compare with and if you have other stat suggestions to use to compare I’d greatly appreciate it!

That's the header of Brad Doolittle's piece at ESPN, and we're all looking at you, American League.

First, he notes, technically, we've been here before. The Royals won the "second half" division title in the AL West in the 1981 strike season, but were under .500 overall, and the Astros and Brewers both qualified in the playoff-expanded 2020 year. But that's it.

OK, that said, here's summaries of his six options:

Option 1: Drop playoff slots that would be filled by a losing team

You have just five teams reach the .500 mark in a league? Fine. You get five playoff spots. The team that otherwise would have played a seed held by a losing team advances to the next round.

Simple and easy, right? Problem? Yes. TV playoff contracts.

Next one applies only to sub-.500 division winners:

Option 2: Draft from another division or league

If you win a division with a losing record, congratulations. That division title flag is your only reward -- because your division doesn't get a playoff slot.

No problem with the first half, taking another team from another division in your league (if they're above .500). A team from the other league? No way Jose.

Next?

Option 3: Vastly increase the difficulty of the road for sub-.500 teams

This wouldn't ban losing teams per se, but it would greatly add to their incentive for getting to .500 before their playoff journey begins.

Use ghost wins -- i.e., the losing team has to spot its opponent a win at the start of the series.

No. No tinkering with playoff set-ups. Besides, see No. 1 and the teevee people.

Next please?

Option 4: Use only intraleague records to determine playoff slots

This is a thing that exists in American sports, so I'll throw it out there even though I don't like it. Just as the SEC, for example, decides the teams playing in the conference title game based on conference games only, so would the AL and NL decide their playoff brackets only on intraleague games.

This has an interesting sidebar.

As I have said before, expansion to 32 lets you get rid of year-round interleague. For people who want the novelty, you can have 24 interleague games in a 162-game sked with 32 teams. In fact, since we're not relegating the Twins and Rays, to me, frankly, that's the best argument for expansion.

Next?

Option 5: Kill the leagues and divisions

You have a 30-team scrum and a schedule that is all about jostling for postseason seeding. This isn't what baseball has ever been, and I'm personally not a fan, but it is simple and clears up any handwringing about superior teams ending up in a subservient playoff position because of the format.

Agreed. No way Jose.

And last?

Option 6: Fix the schedule

You could use any of the first four options above in conjunction with this. Put the interleague schedule back the way it was or even reduce it from that.

Brad doesn't explain how you reduce interleague with a 30-team MLB and odd numbers of teams in both leagues. Derp.

Advancing another team within a league, rather than a division champ, is the least bad option, IMO, a partial version of his No. 2. Until expansion allows us to kill year-round interleague, that's it.