This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.
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"My biggest takeaway from this study is that it’s hard to make up or cede ground this late in the year. This is a snapshot for purposes of today’s column, using today’s date as a framing device, and you can certainly find instances of bigger deficits made up or leads blown. Using a specific date, though, with usually a quarter or more of the season to go, illustrates just how rare those stories are. Since we expanded the playoffs in 2012, less than two teams a year switch playoff status after this point, and of those, almost all of them occur in tight races."
