Another month is in the books, and another deadline (waiver trades) has passed. While we'll still see the usual waiver shenanigans in September, any significant roster additions from here on out will likely be internal.
During a season in which parity has been the name of the game, especially in the American League, August proved to be a month of clarification, with most of the marginal contenders removed -- even if not every team seems to realize it yet.
For the pennant drive, I ran the Monte Carlo simulation based on the ZiPS projection season to get updated playoff probabilities through Monday night's games. The simulation was run one million times, with each actual game on the schedule used and the current roster configurations. Any team not listed has less than a 1 percent chance at making the playoffs.
Here's a look, by division:
AL East
Toronto Blue Jays
Currently: 1st in AL East
Chance of winning division: 74 percent; chance of reaching playoffs: 99-plus percent
The last time we checked in on playoff probabilities, the Blue Jays had doubled their divisional odds to 14.5 percent thanks to an extremely active trade deadline that brought in Troy Tulowitzki, David Price, Ben Revere and some lesser parts. After a 21-6 August, buoyed by their new acquisitions and Josh Donaldson's MVP push, ZiPS now believes the Blue Jays are actually the strongest team in baseball by a hair, and the only AL team in the top five (the Royals are the next AL team at sixth, just barely edged out by the Cubs).
The AL East is the big prize, and while the Blue Jays don't have the playoffs wrapped up, the fact that they play few contenders while the wild-card contenders mostly play each other makes it harder for them -- short of an epic collapse -- to completely miss the playoffs.