Every team in baseball is flawed this year. That makes things more exciting

The weeks following the MLB trade deadline are a time for contenders to round into form, integrate new additions, and make a big push toward the playoffs. Just not this year.

On Aug. 1, the Toronto Blue Jays had a 3.5-game lead on the New York Yankees and a four-game advantage over the Boston Red Sox. Six weeks later, those numbers are three and 3.5, respectively.

The Detroit Tigers were eight games up on the Cleveland Guardians in the AL Central and tied with the Jays at the top of the American League as August opened. Now, they're 8.5 games up in the division and a half-game behind Toronto.

It's not that nothing has changed since the deadline, as the Mariners caught the Astros in the AL West, and the Phillies and Brewers have run away with their NL divisions, but there's a distinct sense of running in place.

What gives? Why are the teams that loaded up at the deadline not asserting themselves?

Because, as recent weeks have shown, they all have their flaws.

One of the season's most unexpected storylines has been the Blue Jays' high-scoring offense, which trails only the Yankees in AL runs despite having much of the same lineup that was 11th in that category in 2024.

But with the notable exception of Kevin Gausman, the Toronto rotation has been wobbly of late. And if the rotation is wobbly, the bullpen is staggering around drunkenly. Neither of the trade-deadline additions, Seranthony Dominguez and Louis Varland, have been consistently effective, while closer Jeff Hoffman would've lost his job by now if there was an obvious replacement. Toronto is finishing games with a guy who, at times, looks like he's pitching in the Home Run Derby. It's not what you want.

And yet, the Jays have maintained their modest lead atop the AL East because New York has mimicked their results. No team in baseball has as much eye-test variability as the Yankees. They sometimes look like a terrifying beast, able to score runs in bunches with power up and down the lineup, but they also make mistakes in spectacularly inept ways and appear as though they've never played baseball before.

The Yankees have another chance to make a statement this weekend with three games at Fenway Park against their biggest rivals. But the Red Sox haven't gained ground in the division either, as an injury to all-world prospect Roman Anthony has taken some of the sting out of a once-surging offense. Still, would you be surprised if Boston took the series against New York? You would not. Would you be surprised if it did so in totally dominant fashion? Again, no. The Red Sox are 8-2 this season against the Yankees, who have often saved their worst performances for their biggest games in 2025.

The uncertainty in the AL East left an opening for Detroit to pull away as the AL's top seed. But the Tigers haven't done so, largely because they haven't figured how to allow Tarik Skubal to pitch more than once every five days. Regardless, the Tigers have a distinct advantage heading toward the playoffs. They should clinch the AL Central any day and will only have to worry about securing one of the two AL byes. That should come easy since Houston and Seattle, battling for the AL West, are five games behind them.

Over in the National League, the picture is very different.

The Phillies and Brewers each held small division leads at the trade deadline, but they've since gone on runs and pulled away from the Mets and Cubs, respectively. The good news for the former two is that they've almost ensured that the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers - and their absurd payroll - will have to play in the wild-card round. The bad news is that the best-of-five Division Series to follow will be a crapshoot. Baseball's postseason unpredictability remains undefeated.

That might explain why so few of the teams in playoff races have looked dominant in recent weeks: Everyone already has one eye on the postseason. The six American League teams are all but locked down unless the Rangers engineer a late-September surprise. The National League is even more solidified, barring a historic Mets collapse that allows the Reds to claim the final wild-card spot (which would, admittedly, be pretty funny).

Are players - and managers - approaching things with a little less urgency knowing the crucible of the playoffs is on the horizon? That would be a risky approach of course. But as big as this weekend's Yankees-Red Sox series feels, in terms of vibes heading into the season's final stretch, it's also quite possibly a preview of the wild-card round.

The Yankees could embarrass themselves again and still have a chance to make up for it. It's been that kind of season.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.