As we approach the end of the baseball season, we've got some divisions that are nearly locked up, while others are still up for grabs. mashing home runs.

Jacob Alder’s Thoughts

AL Central Winner: Detroit Tigers
AL West Winner: Los Angeles Angels
AL Wild-Card Teams: Oakland Athletics, Seattle Mariners

This isn’t the NBA, but I’m going with the star power here with Detroit over Kansas City and Cleveland. Despite overwhelmingly poor fielding metrics and a lack of depth on offense, the Tigers make it work with Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez and Ian Kinsler on offense and the stellar rotation.

In the west, the Angels have all the momentum and this is finally the year they have been playing up to their talent levels. The offense is rejuvenated and the pitching staff might be able to get over the crushing loss of Garrett Richards with the emergence of Matt Shoemaker. My two wild cards, the A’s and Mariners, both have underperformed according to their Pythagorean records and the Mariners would be interesting in the playoffs given their .591 winning percentage vs. .500+ teams.

NL Central Winner: St. Louis Cardinals
NL Wild-Card Teams: San Francisco Giants, Atlanta Braves

Despite some bumps along the way, the Cardinals still manage to be in the hunt for October. Now that Yadier Molina is back and the Cards can field a full lineup, they can compete and that should be enough to top Milwaukee and Pittsburgh.

San Francisco doesn’t have one thing that makes them so appealing, it’s just the Giants are in a great position and have a complete team with legitimate stars in the lineup, on the field and on the mound. Like the Giants, the Braves are a deep team with contributors around the diamond and are only a game and a half out of the wild card.

Jim Sannes’ Thoughts

AL Central Winner: Detroit Tigers
AL West Winner: Los Angeles Angels
AL Wild-Card Teams: Oakland Athletics, Seattle Mariners

Call it stubbornness if you wish, but I still have trouble not believing the Tigers can pull this off. I was beyond tempted to put the Indians in this slot because of the Anibal Sanchez injury, but it just seems that Detroit should have the fire-power to pull back out in front. "Should" doesn't always translate to "will," though.

As far as the A.L. West...I messed up. I called the race over back on July 4th, and now the A's are five games out. Offense is, allegedly, still important in MLB. Who knew? But, even with their recent slide, it's hard to see the A's not winning the wild card. Here are the A.L. leaders in run differential:

1. Oakland Athletics +151
2. Los Angeles Angels +118
3. Seattle Mariners +96

If this were 2012, one of those teams would not make the playoffs. This is where the sense of the second wild card team emerges. The A.L. West is not hospitable to mediocrity.

NL Central Winner: Pittsburgh Pirates
NL Wild Card teams: San Francisco Giants, Atlanta Braves

As for the National League, the Central is going to be interesting. For the season, not a single team in the division has a run differential greater than plus-15. However, in the month of August, the Pirates, Cardinals and Brewers ranked third, fourth and fifth respectively in the N.L. in wOBA. Because the Pirates are the only team that had acceptable pitching in August (Milwaukee and St. Louis ranked 12th and 15th respectively in the N.L. in staff WAR in August), I'll give them the edge.

The Giants, outside of that one putrid stretch in June and July, have actually been a great team this year. If you exclude their games from June 9th to July 12th (a scintillating 8-23 record!), the team is 66-39, which would be the best winning percentage in the league at .629. Unfortunately for them, you don't just get to pretend that one month never happened (or four months if you're the Rockies), so they may get relegated to the wild card.

I have the Braves joining them, largely because of their pitching. Despite low strikeout and mediocre walk numbers, the team still posted the third-lowest N.L. ERA in August. The Nationals were first in that category, thus the wild card discussion, but the Braves are in a good position to make some magic here down the stretch.

Ryan Heffernon's Thoughts

AL Central Winner: Kansas City Royals
AL West Winner: Los Angeles Angels
AL Wild-Card Teams: Oakland Athletics, Seattle Mariners

Detroit has the stronger roster versus the Royals, without a doubt. However, if we have one correlation to point to with playoff success, it's in the bullpen. And the Tigers have plenty of issues on that front. Even with that, I liked the Tigers until Anibal went down, and without him and a more favorable Royals schedule, I think Kansas City hols Detroit off.

In the West, I have the Angels simply because they are the hotter team right now. I think the A's will get together in time for the playoffs, but they are still coping with the loss of Cespedes, so I give the Angels a slight edge. To throw a wrinkle into things, I wanted to buy Seattle. Unless Robinson Cano just goes absolutely nuts during this final month or so, I just don't see them having enough in the tank. I think they will continue building into next season, but I have the Tigers winning that second Wild Card for now.

NL Central Winner: Milwaukee Brewers
NL Wild-Card Teams: San Francisco Giants, Atlanta Braves

The NL Central has mostly been a dud in 2014. You could argue that going into 2014, the Central was the strongest division in baseball. However, injuries to Yadier Molina, Andrew McCutchen and a drastic regression of offense in Cincinnati have made it very lackluster.

I have Milwaukee holding on in the Central in part because of the issues surrounding the other clubs, but also because I like what the Brewers bring to the table. Let's also not forget that they are fifth in all of baseball in fWAR. Before McCutchen went down, I thought the Pirates had a decent chance at grabbing that second wild-card spot, but now it looks like a two horse race. And neither of the horses look like they really planning on running away from the other. Both Cardinals and the Braves have very favorable schedules going forward, but I think this battle of attrition will side in favor of Atlanta.