In the era of three wild card tickets into the postseason, most teams have a decent shot at extended October baseball. Prior to Thursday’s games, only seven teams had a less than 10 percent chance of making it to the playoffs according to FanGraphs’ odds. Among those seven, only four had odds that rounded to 0.0 percent. Naturally, the Kansas City Royals were one of those four, as they’ve been competing with the relocating Oakland A’s for the worst record in baseball and one of the worst seasons of all-time.
With the expanded playoff format has come a seller’s market at the trade deadline.