The 2024 baseball season was, frankly, a bit of a fever dream. If you’d told a fan back in March that the Chicago White Sox would lose 121 games while the Detroit Tigers would ride a "pitching chaos" wave into October, they probably would’ve asked you to take a breath. But here we are. The final MLB standings 2024 are etched in the history books, and looking back, the numbers tell a story of extreme polarity—super-teams doing super-team things and a historic basement that we might not see again for another century.
The National League Power Shift
For a long time, the NL West has basically been the Los Angeles Dodgers’ personal playground. 2024 didn't change the ending, but the journey was a lot sweatier than usual. The Dodgers finished with 98 wins, the best record in all of baseball. It’s kinda wild to think that in a year where Shohei Ohtani created the 50/50 club, they still had to fight off a relentless San Diego Padres squad until the final week.
San Diego ended up with 93 wins. Honestly, they were the hottest team in the second half of the season. They didn't just sleepwalk into a Wild Card spot; they sprinted. Jackson Merrill played like a veteran despite being a rookie, and Jurickson Profar had a career year that nobody—and I mean nobody—saw coming.
The NL East was equally top-heavy. The Philadelphia Phillies held the best record in baseball for a huge chunk of the summer, finishing at 95-67. They finally dethroned the Braves in the division, which felt like a massive weight off the city's shoulders. Meanwhile, the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves played a chaotic doubleheader on the final day of the season just to decide who got to keep playing. Both finished 89-73, but the drama to get there was peak baseball.
In the NL Central, the Milwaukee Brewers just keep winning games they aren’t supposed to. They lost their ace (Corbin Burnes) and their manager (Craig Counsell), yet they coasted to 93 wins and a division title. It’s a testament to Pat Murphy’s leadership and a bullpen that seemingly grows high-velocity arms on trees.
Final MLB Standings 2024: The American League Breakdown
The American League was basically a tale of two halves. In the East, the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles played a season-long game of leapfrog. The Yankees eventually took the crown with 94 wins, largely because Aaron Judge and Juan Soto performed like a modern-day Ruth and Gehrig. Baltimore’s 91 wins were impressive, but you could tell their young pitching staff was running on fumes by September.
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- New York Yankees: 94-68
- Baltimore Orioles: 91-71 (Wild Card)
- Boston Red Sox: 81-81
- Tampa Bay Rays: 80-82
- Toronto Blue Jays: 74-88
The Central was the real shocker. For years, people called this the "Comedy Central" division. Not in 2024. The Cleveland Guardians won 92 games under first-year manager Stephen Vogt. But the real story? The Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals. Detroit was under .500 in August! They traded away players at the deadline and still fought their way to 86 wins and a playoff berth. Kansas City also hit 86 wins, completing one of the best year-over-year turnarounds in recent memory after losing 106 games the year before.
Then there’s the AL West. The Houston Astros started the year 7-19. Everyone thought the dynasty was dead. It wasn't. They clawed back to win the division with 88 wins. The Seattle Mariners, on the other hand, wasted one of the best starting rotations in recent history. They finished with 85 wins, just one game out of the playoffs, because they simply couldn't hit a beach ball for most of May and June.
The Historic Low: The Chicago White Sox
We have to talk about it. You can't look at the final MLB standings 2024 without acknowledging the 41-121 record of the Chicago White Sox. It is officially the worst season in the modern era of baseball, "surpassing" the 1962 Mets.
It wasn't just that they were bad; it was how they were bad. They had a 21-game losing streak. They traded away their best hitters. At one point, it felt like the goal wasn't to win, but just to survive nine innings. For fans on the South Side, it was a grueling 162-game marathon of disappointment. It serves as a stark reminder of how quickly a rebuild can go off the rails if the foundation isn't solid.
Award Winners and Individual Brilliance
While the standings tell the team stories, the individual stats were Cooperstown-level.
- Shohei Ohtani (LAD): 54 home runs, 59 stolen bases. The first 50/50 season ever. He was the unanimous NL MVP for a reason.
- Aaron Judge (NYY): He hit .322 with 58 homers and an OPS of 1.159. Those are "video game on easy mode" numbers.
- Tarik Skubal (DET) & Chris Sale (ATL): Both lefties won the Pitching Triple Crown in their respective leagues (leading in wins, ERA, and strikeouts). That hasn't happened in both leagues in the same year since 1918.
Why These Standings Matter for 2025 and Beyond
If 2024 taught us anything, it’s that the "middle class" of baseball is shrinking. You either have the titans like the Dodgers and Yankees spending half a billion dollars, or you have the "scrappy" teams like the Tigers and Royals using pitching depth and speed to disrupt the status quo.
The rule changes—the pitch clock, bigger bases, and shift restrictions—have fundamentally changed how the game is played. Games were faster (averaging 2:36), and stolen bases hit a 100-year high. This favors teams with athletic rosters over those built purely on "three true outcomes" (home runs, walks, strikeouts).
Actionable Insights for Fans and Bettors
If you’re looking at these standings to prep for next season, keep these things in mind:
- Pitching depth is king: The Tigers made the playoffs with essentially one traditional starter (Skubal) and a "chaos" bullpen. Expect more teams to mimic this.
- The AL Central is legit: Don't count on easy wins against Cleveland, Detroit, or KC anymore.
- The 100-win plateau is harder to reach: For the first time since 2014 (excluding the 2020 short season), no team won 100 games. Parity is actually increasing at the very top.
The final MLB standings 2024 represent a shift toward a faster, more athletic version of the sport. Whether you’re a die-hard fan or a casual observer, the 2024 season was a reminder that in baseball, the back of the baseball card doesn't always predict the future.
To dig deeper into how your favorite team stacked up, you should check the official MLB Sortable Stats page to see how run differential or X-BA (Expected Batting Average) might have predicted these finishes better than the win-loss column. Studying the "BaseRuns" standings on sites like FanGraphs can also show you which teams got lucky and which ones are primed for a massive jump in 2025.