Ohio’s Two Low-Budget Cinderella Teams Crash MLB’s Postseason Race

Two low-budget Major League Baseball teams from Ohio are trying to crash the sport’s postseason party and complete historic collapses by larger-spending opponents. 

Entering the final week of the 2025 regular season, the Reds and Guardians are both looking to complete unexpected ascents to the playoffs—despite Cincinnati’s luxury-tax payroll standing at No. 22 in MLB at $140.9 million and Cleveland’s ranking No. 25 at $121.4 million. 

As of Monday, the Reds have risen into the final National League’s final wild-card slot, overtaking the Mets and their No. 2 payroll of $340.6 million over the weekend, by virtue of a tiebreaker they hold over New York. The Guardians, meanwhile, have two separate potential paths to the postseason. They are just one game behind the Tigers, holding the No. 18 payroll at $170.3 million, for the American League Central division lead, and they are also tied for the final AL wild-card position with the Astros, the league’s No. 7 spender at $247.4 million. 

Critically for the Guardians, they hold tiebreakers over both the Tigers and Astros as a massive three-game series begins Tuesday at Progressive Field between Detroit and Cleveland. 

“This last month, a lot of people could say we were out of it. I think [players] could have started to look at their numbers and just tried to look to the offseason,” Guardians outfielder Steven Kwan said. “But we’ve been playing some really unselfish baseball, grinding together, sticking together. It’s been really fun, and we’ve got a really exciting week coming up.”

Epic Rises and Falls

No team in the 57-season history of MLB divisional play has risen from a deficit of more than 14 games to win a division, with the 1978 Yankees holding the mark for the largest comeback. The Guardians were 15 and a half games behind Detroit in early July, and as recently as Sept. 11, were still nine and a half games back. Cleveland has won 15 of its past 17 games to surge back into contention, but it has had help, too. 

Detroit has dropped 9 of its last 10 games to see its once-commanding division lead all but evaporate. That mirrors the ongoing freefall in Queens, where the Mets, a team with MLB’s best record in June, have also lost 11 of the last 15 games and no longer control their own playoff destiny. 

The Reds took advantage of that by winning 10 of 15, including a four-game weekend sweep of the playoff-bound Cubs. Cincinnati is now eyeing its first postseason berth—excluding the pandemic-affected 2020 campaign—since 2013. The Diamondbacks, winners of seven of their last 10, are also still lurking, standing just a game behind the Reds and Mets in the wild-card standings.

“We’ve had some highs, a lot of lows, but I think to get hot right now is great,” said Reds outfielder/infielder Gavin Lux. “We deserve it, we’ve grinded it out, and we’re seeing the rewards at the end, but we’ve got to finish it.”

The Astros, meanwhile, have not missed the playoffs since 2016, but they are currently on the outside looking in after getting swept this past weekend at home by the Mariners.