Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I continue to be amazed by everything Aaron Judge does.

In today’s SI:AM:

💰 CeeDee’s Big Salary
👨‍⚖️ Nine Astonishing Judge Stats
🥸 Connor Stalions speaks

MLB’s new 12-team playoff format has done exactly what the league wanted. The expanded postseason field keeps more teams in the race for October later in the season and encourages clubs to stay competitive after the trade deadline. At the same time, it may also discourage teams from being truly great. If you can make the playoffs with 87 wins, why bother trying to win 100 games? The Los Angeles Dodgers currently have the best record in the majors, but they are on track for just 96 wins. That would mark the first time since 2014 that no team has won at least 100 games.

But while there may not be any juggernauts this season, it has led to some seriously tight playoff races. As of Tuesday, four of the six division leaders are within four games of a lead with 33 days left in the season. But only one division has three teams within three games of the leader: the AL Central.

The Minnesota Twins and Cleveland Guardians have dominated the division for much of the past decade, winning seven of the last eight division titles. (The lone exception is the Chicago White Sox’s 2021 win, which it seems like a million years ago now.) Those two are both back in contention this year, but they’re now joined by a team looking to end their long playoff drought: the Kansas City Royals.

Here’s how the standings currently look: Cleveland is in first place at 75-57. Kansas City is one game behind (74-58), and Minnesota is 2.5 games back of first place at 72-59. Other division races are fairly close—the New York Yankees hold a two-game lead over the Baltimore Orioles, and both the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres are within four games of the Dodgers—but the AL Central is the most compelling of them all. The Fangraphs Playoff Odds currently gives the Guardians a 44.5% chance of winning the division, followed by the Royals at 29.3% and the Twins at 26.2%. Every other division leader has at least a 74% chance of winning.

The Royals are what makes this such a compelling division race. They haven’t had a winning season since winning the World Series in 2015, the last time they won the division, and after finishing last season with a 56-106 record, it appeared their rebuild was far from complete. They were active in free agency, though, signing Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha to bolster a starting rotation that ranked fourth in the majors in ERA last season. It worked. This year, Kansas City’s starters have the third-best ERA in the majors.

The real key for the Royals, though, will be the emergence of shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. as a genuine superstar. Witt arrived in the majors with a lot of hype as a 22-year-old in 2022, ranked as the game’s top prospect by MLB.com and Baseball Prospectus. And he didn’t disappoint, hitting 20 homers as a rookie and 30 last season. But Witt has taken a huge leap forward this season. He currently leads the majors in batting average at .347 and is second in WAR, trailing only Aaron Judge. Everyone expected Witt to be good, but his sudden emergence as one of the best players in the game has the Royals’ rebuilding team ahead of schedule.

Kansas City’s next two weeks will play a major role in determining who wins the division. The Royals won a doubleheader against the Guardians on Monday and have two more games in Cleveland on Tuesday and Wednesday. After a four-game road set against the Houston Astros this weekend, Kansas City has three games against Cleveland and three against Minnesota, all at home. Those are the Royals’ final games against their division rivals this season.

The final head-to-head meeting between any of the three AL Central contenders will be Sept. 16-19, when the Guardians host the Twins for four games. There will be no dramatic pseudo-playoff series on the final weekend of the season between two teams vying for the division title. But let’s not get greedy. This still figures to be a fascinating three-way race.

…things I saw last night:

5. Caitlin Clark’s three-pointer over Rhyne Howard, tying Howard’s WNBA record for three-pointers made by a rookie.
4. The standing ovation Nationals fans gave Juan Soto.
3. Referee Scott Barry’s terrible strike call on a pitch from position player Rowdy Tellez. The pitch missed the strike zone by more than a foot.
2. Red Sox catcher Danny Jansen’s historic day against the Blue Jays. He was behind the plate for Toronto on June 26 when its game against Boston was suspended. He was subsequently traded to the Red Sox, so when play resumed on Monday, Jansen became the first player in MLB history to play for both teams in the same game.
1. Aaron Judges home run robbery.