⚾ 2016 MLB season

Chicago Cubs won the title. They also finished top rated, at 1585.

30 teams · 32 weeks · through 2016-11-06 · Elo series by Neil Paine; era names, honours and brackets from MLB.xlsx

Jump to any season1876–2026

The race

Elo rating by week. Higher is stronger; 1500 is average.

How this is measured

Elo moves after every game by how surprising the result was, with an adjustment for home field. One pool per season, so ratings compare across the whole league but not across eras.

Week 0 is the preseason seed, carried over from last season with a pull back toward average. It is an input to the season, not a result of it.

CubsRed SoxIndiansBlue Jays30 of 30 shown · tap or drag any point for that week · tap a line to lock it

Tap or drag on the chart: the nearest team's rating that week.

Final standings, Sun, 6 November 2016

full season
End of

2016 standings

Where every team stood on the date set above.

How this is measured

Grouped by league and division from 1969, by league before that, and by the league each club played in during the nineteenth century. W-L is the regular season as it stood on the date; the Playoffs column is blank for a team that was not in the postseason, which is not the same as 0-0. The Elo column keeps moving through October, so a team can climb after its regular season has ended. GB div is games behind the division leader on that date (the league leader before 1969), GB playoff the gap to the last playoff place from 1994, when the wild card began: the division lead or the last wild card, whichever is nearer. A team in a place shows it: Div 1 to Div 3 for the division leaders in seed order by record, or WC1 to WC3. One table per league, side by side on a wide screen. Wild cards go to the best non-leaders by winning percentage; a tie is settled by what happened in the end, not by the real tiebreak rules.

Final standings · Sun, 6 November 2016

American League

Boston Red SoxPlayoffs
AL East · 93-69 .574 · Div 3 +0-3
1555
+37 yr
AL East · 89-73 .549 · WC1 +5-4
1550
-14 yr
Baltimore OriolesPlayoffs
AL East · 89-73 .549 · WC2 +0-1
1526
+5 yr
AL East · 84-78 .519 · 9 GB · 5 to playoff
1519
-2 yr
AL East · 68-94 .420 · 25 GB · 21 to playoff
1492
-18 yr
Cleveland IndiansWorld Series
AL Central · 94-67 .584 · Div 2 +10-5
1555
+29 yr
AL Central · 86-75 .534 · 8 GB · 2.5 to playoff
1516
+43 yr
AL Central · 81-81 .500 · 13.5 GB · 8 to playoff
1506
-55 yr
AL Central · 78-84 .481 · 16.5 GB · 11 to playoff
1490
+8 yr
AL Central · 59-103 .364 · 35.5 GB · 30 to playoff
1451
-52 yr
Texas RangersPlayoffs
AL West · 95-67 .586 · Div 1 +0-3
1510
-12 yr
AL West · 86-76 .531 · 9 GB · 3 to playoff
1523
+30 yr
Show all 15 teams
AL West · 84-78 .519 · 11 GB · 5 to playoff
1521
-5 yr
AL West · 74-88 .457 · 21 GB · 15 to playoff
1510
-3 yr
AL West · 69-93 .426 · 26 GB · 20 to playoff
1476
-4 yr

National League

NL East · 95-67 .586 · Div 2 +2-3
1537
+19 yr
New York MetsPlayoffs
NL East · 87-75 .537 · WC2 +0-1
1518
-16 yr
NL East · 79-82 .491 · 15.5 GB · 7.5 to playoff
1479
+6 yr
NL East · 71-91 .438 · 24 GB · 16 to playoff
1442
-9 yr
NL East · 68-93 .422 · 26.5 GB · 18.5 to playoff
1466
+29 yr
Chicago CubsChampion
NL Central · 103-58 .640 · Div 1 +11-6
1585
+48 yr
NL Central · 86-76 .531 · 17.5 GB · 1 to playoff
1523
-15 yr
NL Central · 78-83 .484 · 25 GB · 8.5 to playoff
1495
-53 yr
NL Central · 73-89 .451 · 30.5 GB · 14 to playoff
1486
+9 yr
NL Central · 68-94 .420 · 35.5 GB · 19 to playoff
1468
+16 yr
NL West · 91-71 .562 · Div 3 +5-6
1522
-6 yr
NL West · 87-75 .537 · WC1 +2-3
1523
+2 yr
Show all 15 teams
NL West · 75-87 .463 · 16 GB · 12 to playoff
1478
+17 yr
NL West · 69-93 .426 · 22 GB · 18 to playoff
1462
-30 yr
NL West · 68-94 .420 · 23 GB · 19 to playoff
1465
-4 yr

2016 postseason

Every series, round by round, earliest on the left.

How this is measured

The field and the number of rounds have changed repeatedly: a single World Series from 1903 to 1968, league championship series from 1969, division series from 1981 and 1995, a wild card from 2012. The shape shown is whatever that season had. A series that ended level has no winner and is marked as such; a one-game tiebreaker decided who entered and sits below the bracket.

Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series.

The honours

Who won the title, the pennants and the divisions.

Champion

Pennant winners

Division winners

Best record in the league

10 teams reached the postseason.

The best games

The 20 highest-rated postseason games of 2016, best first.

How this is measured

Game Score is the site's composite rating of how good a game was to watch. It combines hype, quality, stakes and matchup rank, so a tight, late-series game between two strong sides scores highest and a loss can outrank a routine win. The workbook scores postseason games only, so this is the postseason's best. It is the same metric the all-time and by-decade boards on the MLB hub and the franchise pages use, so a game keeps the same score wherever it appears.

1
2 Nov 16 · World Series g7
8-7F/10
3.57
2
30 Oct 16 · World Series g5
3-2
1.80
3
1 Nov 16 · World Series g6
9-3
1.72
4
28 Oct 16 · World Series g3
1-0
1.57
5
19 Oct 16 · ALCS g5
3-0
1.48
6
29 Oct 16 · World Series g4
7-2
1.44
7
20 Oct 16 · NLCS g5
8-4
1.44
8
22 Oct 16 · NLCS g6
5-0
1.42
9
13 Oct 16 · Division Series g5
4-3
1.37
10
11 Oct 16 · Division Series g4
6-5
1.35
Show all 20 games
11
26 Oct 16 · World Series g2
5-1
1.33
12
11 Oct 16 · Division Series g4
6-5
1.33
13
16 Oct 16 · NLCS g2
1-0
1.32
14
10 Oct 16 · Division Series g3
6-5F/13
1.30
15
10 Oct 16 · Division Series g3
4-3
1.29
16
18 Oct 16 · ALCS g4
5-1
1.26
17
17 Oct 16 · ALCS g3
4-2
1.26
18
15 Oct 16 · ALCS g2
2-1
1.22
19
6 Oct 16 · Division Series g1
5-4
1.18
20
15 Oct 16 · NLCS g1
8-4
1.13

Where these numbers come from

Weekly Elo ratings are Neil Paine’s MLB series. Era names, honours, records and brackets come from the project’s MLB workbook and refresh when it is updated. Baseball-Reference, 2016.