If the regular season ended today, both teams that played in the 2023 World Series would not be in MLB's 2024 postseason picture. Could Arizona and Texas be among the teams who surge into the playoffs with a strong second half, though? MLB's current postseason field consists of 12 teams, but since it was expanded from eight to 10 in October 2012, there have been 11 completed seasons, including an All-Star Break. In one of those 11 seasons (2016), nothing changed.
Each of the 10 teams who made that year's postseason was at least tied for a playoff spot during the All-Star Break. In each of the other 10 years, however, there was at least one change in each league, with a combined total of 27 (out of a possible 114) instances in which a team that ultimately made the playoffs was not in the "if the regular season ended today" postseason bracket at the time of the All-Star Game. Before any fans of last-place teams get their hopes up, though, let's be sure to note that most of those 27 teams came back from fairly negligible deficits.
Ten were either one game or half a game out of the playoff picture during the break. Only six were more than three games back. And when the 2021 St.
Louis Cardinals (7.5 GB) made the biggest of the second-half surges into the playoffs, it certainly didn't hurt that the Padres had a second-half collapse for the history books, going 26-43 after their 53-40 start. Long story short, recent history says we should expect at least two teams to make it into Oc.