The Yankees have been the unluckiest team in MLB this season

Washington Post

6 days ago

The 2025 baseball season has already delivered its share of unexpected twists, both in standout individual performances and surprising team results. Among those experiencing some unexpected outcomes are the New York Yankees, fresh off a World Series appearance but battling a stretch of bad luck that has obscured their true talent.
No team has been more snakebit this season than the Bronx Bombers. Despite being picked as a playoff contender, the Yankees have seen bounces go the wrong way and breaks fall for their rivals, making their current record more a reflection of variance than vulnerability.
On the surface, New York is having a decent season. The team is 10 games above .500 (53-43) and entered the all-star break two games ahead in the wild-card race. However, if you look at the Yankees' run differential, they should have better results in the win-loss column. They have outscored opponents 501 to 390 — a run differential found among teams that have 59 wins at this point in the season, not 53. Only the Texas Rangers and Atlanta Braves have seen as big a discrepancy between actual and expected wins this season, per data from FanGraphs.
New York has also won an MLB-leading eight fewer games than expected based on the sequencing of its team events, also known as BaseRuns. Why is this happening? The Yankees are underperforming not because they're a bad team, but because of a mix of bad timing and execution. Major sluggers such as Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Paul Goldschmidt have stalled in key moments, batting a combined .159 with runners in scoring position in June. The Yankees are also five games under .500 in one-run contests.
The Red Sox are in a similar predicament. Boston has won 53 games, but its run differential (plus-61) suggests a 55-win team, and the sequence of its events projects even higher to 58 wins. Instead of vying for the division lead, the Red Sox are a game ahead of the Mariners for the second wild-card spot.
The Toronto Blue Jays, meanwhile, are the luckiest team in the majors at the break. They established the longest winning streak in franchise history this season (10 games), and their 55th win is also the most before the all-star break in franchise history, surpassing the 1985 and 1992 seasons. But Toronto, 55-41, has scored 440 runs and allowed 423, similar to teams with a 50-46 record at this point of the season. Accounting for when they got their hits, strikeouts, etc., that performance is equivalent to a team with a 49-47 record.
The Baltimore Orioles have had their fair share of luck, too (43 wins compared to 38 and 37), but they would still be in the basement of the American League East no matter which method of performance estimation we used.
Why should we care? At the all-star break, Pythagorean and BaseRuns wins are essential tools for cutting through the noise of the MLB standings. While a team's record reflects what has happened, these metrics reveal what should have happened based on underlying performance. Together, they consistently spot frauds and sleepers before the standings catch up.
That matters immensely in the second half of the season, when regression to the mean can swing playoff races, reshape trade deadline decisions and create betting value. If a team is outperforming its expected record, odds are the wins won't keep coming unless something fundamental changes. Conversely, a team with a losing record but strong BaseRuns might be primed for a surge.
For example, in 2021, the Atlanta Braves had an actual record of 44-45 at the all-star break, but their underlying metrics suggested a 49-win club, a significant difference. Atlanta went 44-28 in the second half and won the World Series. A year later, the Minnesota Twins were 50-44 at the all-star break, but we should have expected 45 wins. Minnesota went 28-40 in the second half and missed the playoffs.
This year, the AL East should look completely different, and it probably will by season's end. The Yankees should be the division leader, by three games, while the Blue Jays would fall to fourth place. The oddsmakers in Vegas agree. They have New York as low as -130 to win the division (bet $130 to win $100), while Toronto's best price is +190 (wager $100 to win $190) — showing the smart money is seeing beyond teams' records and putting more emphasis on the underlying performance those are built on.