If you look back at the 2014 MLB baseball standings, you’re not just looking at a list of wins and losses. You are looking at a weird, transitional moment in baseball history where the old guard started to crumble and the "bullpen revolution" actually took hold. It was the year of the pitcher. Scoring was down. Homers were scarce.
Honestly, the regular season felt like a fever dream. The Milwaukee Brewers led the NL Central for 150 days and then just... collapsed. They didn't even make the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Kansas City Royals—a team that hadn't smelled October since 1985—scratched and clawed their way into a Wild Card spot. That single spot changed the trajectory of the franchise. It’s wild how much one or two games in September can reshape a decade of baseball.
The AL East: The End of the Jeter Era
The Baltimore Orioles absolutely ran away with this division. Nobody expected that. Buck Showalter’s squad finished with 96 wins, leaving the Yankees and Red Sox in the dust. It’s easy to forget now, but the Orioles were a powerhouse of efficiency back then, led by Nelson Cruz hitting 40 bombs and a bullpen that felt invincible.
The Yankees finished second with 84 wins, but the standings don't show the emotional weight of that season. It was Derek Jeter's farewell tour. The Red Sox? They went from World Series champs in 2013 to dead last in 2014. Baseball is cruel like that. They won 71 games. Total disaster. Toronto and Tampa Bay just sort of hovered in the middle, unable to find the consistency needed to catch Baltimore.
Why the 2014 MLB Baseball Standings Looked Different in the Central
The AL Central was a dogfight. The Detroit Tigers eventually took the crown with 90 wins, but it came down to the final weekend. This was the peak of the Scherzer-Verlander-Price rotation, which, on paper, should have won 110 games.
But look at the Kansas City Royals. They finished just one game back at 89-73. That record earned them the top Wild Card spot. If you only look at the 2014 MLB baseball standings, you might think the Royals were just "okay." You'd be wrong. They were a defensive juggernaut with a "three-headed monster" in the bullpen—Herrera, Davis, and Holland—that basically shortened every game to six innings.
The Cleveland Indians (now the Guardians) stayed relevant with 85 wins, while the White Sox and Twins were effectively non-factors. It was a two-team race that stayed tense until the very last pitch.
The West belonged to the Angels (briefly)
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim had the best record in all of baseball. 98 wins. Mike Trout was in his absolute prime, winning the MVP. They looked like a juggernaut.
Down the coast, the Oakland Athletics were doing "Moneyball" things again. They started the year looking like the best team in history, then traded Yoenis Céspedes for Jon Lester, and nearly missed the playoffs entirely. They limped into the second Wild Card spot with 88 wins, just barely beating out the Seattle Mariners by a single game. Imagine being Seattle. You win 87 games, your best season in years, and you still go home because of one game in the standings. Tough.
The National League: A Tale of Two Dynasties
In the NL East, the Washington Nationals were terrifying. 96 wins. Jordan Zimmermann threw a no-hitter on the final day of the season. They were the clear favorites. The Mets and Braves both finished under .500, and the Phillies were starting a long, painful rebuild.
Then you have the NL Central. The Cardinals won it with 90 wins. They were boringly good, as always. But the real story was the Pirates. They grabbed a Wild Card spot with 88 wins, fueled by Andrew McCutchen and a rowdy PNC Park crowd. The Brewers’ collapse mentioned earlier is the real "what if" of this division. They were 20 games over .500 in July! To finish 82-80 is just statistically heartbreaking.
The Giants and the Art of the Wild Card
The 2014 MLB baseball standings for the NL West show the Los Angeles Dodgers on top with 94 wins. Clayton Kershaw was doing things that didn't seem legal, winning both the Cy Young and the MVP.
The San Francisco Giants finished second with 88 wins. At the time, nobody thought they were a "great" team. They were a Wild Card team. They had holes in the lineup. But they had Madison Bumgarner. The standings say they were the fifth-best team in the National League, but the postseason proved that the standings are just an entry ticket.
Final AL Regular Season Standings
| Team | Wins | Losses | PCT | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AL EAST | ||||
| Baltimore Orioles | 96 | 66 | .593 | — |
| New York Yankees | 84 | 78 | .519 | 12.0 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 83 | 79 | .512 | 13.0 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 77 | 85 | .475 | 19.0 |
| Boston Red Sox | 71 | 91 | .438 | 25.0 |
| AL CENTRAL | ||||
| Detroit Tigers | 90 | 72 | .556 | — |
| Kansas City Royals | 89 | 73 | .549 | 1.0 |
| Cleveland Indians | 85 | 77 | .525 | 5.0 |
| Chicago White Sox | 73 | 89 | .451 | 17.0 |
| Minnesota Twins | 70 | 92 | .432 | 20.0 |
| AL WEST | ||||
| LA Angels | 98 | 64 | .605 | — |
| Oakland Athletics | 88 | 74 | .543 | 10.0 |
| Seattle Mariners | 87 | 75 | .537 | 11.0 |
| Houston Astros | 70 | 92 | .432 | 28.0 |
| Texas Rangers | 67 | 95 | .414 | 31.0 |
Final NL Regular Season Standings
In the National League, the gap between the haves and the have-nots was pretty massive. The Rockies and Diamondbacks were both essentially out of it by Memorial Day.
The NL East saw the Nationals cruise with 96 wins, followed by the Braves (79), Mets (79), Marlins (77), and Phillies (73). In the Central, after the Cardinals (90) and Pirates (88), the Brewers finished at 82, the Reds at 76, and the Cubs—who were just starting to build their 2016 core—at 73.
The West was the Dodgers (94), Giants (88), Padres (77), Rockies (66), and Diamondbacks (64).
The Statistical Anomalies of 2014
People forget how much of a "pitcher's year" 2014 was. The league-wide ERA was 3.74. For context, in recent years, we've seen that jump significantly. If you were a hitter in 2014, you were struggling. The league batting average was .251.
Looking at the 2014 MLB baseball standings, you see a lot of teams hovering around that 88-90 win mark. This created a massive logjam for the Wild Card. In the AL, the Mariners missed out by one game. In the NL, the Brewers missed out because of a historic slide. It was a year where every single "bad" loss in April actually came back to haunt teams in September.
What Most People Get Wrong About 2014
A common misconception is that the Giants were a dominant force all year. They weren't. They actually struggled significantly in June and July. If you looked at the standings on July 4th, you might have picked the Dodgers to sweep the floor with everyone.
The Royals were the same way. They were 48-50 in late July. They were under .500! Their presence in the final standings as a playoff team is a testament to one of the hottest second-half runs in recent memory. They went 41-23 to close out the season.
How to use this data for historical analysis
If you are researching baseball history or looking for trends, 2014 is the "Control Group" for the modern era. It was the last year before the Statcast era really took over and changed how we value players.
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- Focus on the Bullpen: Look at how the Royals used their relievers despite a mediocre starting rotation.
- Defensive Runs Saved (DRS): This was the year DRS became a mainstream stat for determining why teams like the Orioles overperformed their Pythagorean win-loss record.
- The Decline of the "Big Spender": The Red Sox and Yankees combined for zero playoff wins in 2014. It signaled a shift toward homegrown talent and smart scouting over massive free-agent splashes.
To really understand the 2014 MLB baseball standings, you have to look past the numbers and see the shift in philosophy. Teams were realizing that you didn't need 100 wins to win a World Series; you just needed to be healthy and have a lockdown bullpen by the time October rolled around.
Actionable Next Steps:
Check out the Baseball-Reference "Pythagorean Won-Loss" records for 2014. You will see that the Oakland A's actually "should" have won 99 games based on their run differential, making them the unluckiest team in the standings. Comparing actual wins to expected wins is the best way to see which managers were actually pulling the strings effectively and which teams just got lucky bounces.