TOPS TWELVE TEAMS AT THE END OF AUGUST
1. San Francisco Giants
The
Giants are back on top, even as they lost a series (to the streaking Braves) for the first time since late July. They had won nine (!) series in a row before that, and the best way to describe what they’ve done is this: The Dodgers have gone 26-14 in the second half, and they’ve
lost a half-game in the standings. That’s how tight the top of the NL West is right now, and it’s why this has the potential to be an all-time pennant race.
The Giants, by month:
• April — 16-10 (.615 winning percentage)
• May — 18-10 (.643)
• June — 16-9 (.640)
• July — 15-10 (.600)
• August — 19-7 (.731)
In their worst month, they played at a 97-win pace. That is extremely hard to fake. It might be
impossible to fake. It’s not just that the Giants have been winning, but they’ve been one of the most consistent teams in recent baseball history.
2. Los Angeles Dodgers
Look, if you lose a series at home against the Rockies, you don’t deserve to keep the top spot in the rankings. This is true
in 2021. This will be true in 3021.
The Dodgers are still rolling, of course. Their series loss to the Rockies was their first one since late July, when they dropped two out of three against the Giants. They generally win series. That’s what they do.
And when they get down by five runs, they freak out.
Five runs! They put a position player on the mound when they were down by just five runs! How do they navigate this strange and uncomfortable environment in which the wins aren’t guaranteed?
Probably by winning a bunch more. They have Max Scherzer now. And Trea Turner. That seems like a big deal! The only question is if it’s enough to overtake the Giants, who are winning with the equivalent of an avocado, an ice pick and a snorkel.
3. Tampa Bay Rays
When a team is well on its way to a playoff berth, an always-fun exercise is to guess how its rotation will line up for the short playoff series. But, in the Rays case, as Ken Rosenthal aptly wrote: “Does it even matter?” The Rays hardly conform to the traditional norms of pitching now and they’re not about to start in the postseason, especially considering the strength of their bullpen, which ranks as the best in MLB, per ERA (3.11) and fWAR (7.0). You may not know any of their names now, but we have a feeling we’ll all become pretty familiar with them this October.
4. Houston Astros
No member of the Astros has been spared from the incessant booing they receive in baseball stadiums outside of Houston this season — not even guys who were traded there like a month ago. But, as much as the jeering is cathartic for fans, we are sorry to tell you that it also might be fueling this year’s Astros, who are on a mission to collect another title this October, this one untainted. And, with their eye on repeating what they did in 2017 — sans trash cans — the club brought back a fixture of that World Series team in Marwin Gonzalez. He’s not the same player he was four years ago, but used carefully,
he might be a useful piece during the team’s playoff run. And, finally, our Jake Kaplan can stop checking the Triple-A Sugarland lineup cards, because Alex Bregman is back.
5. Milwaukee Brewers
One of the handy-dandiest tools on the baseball-loving internet is Baseball-Reference’s Wins Above Average by Position. If you get into an internet knife fight about baseball statistics, you might find someone screaming about the “replacement” in Wins Above Replacement. They’re not wrong. The idea of a replacement player is helpful, but imperfect. Wins Above Average does a better job at putting a number on a player’s contributions to team-wide success.
And when you look at what the Brewers are doing according to this metric, you see how lopsided their roster is. Starting pitching through the roof, of course, but generally strong contributions all around. It’s a fine roster in so many places.
Except for first base. And center field. And third base. Did we mention center field?
There’s only so much they can do with the August waiver trade options eliminated. Rowdy Tellez was a reasonable solution for first, and Jace “OB” Peterson is a part of the solution at third. Either Lorenzo Cain or Jackie Bradley, Jr. start hitting, or they don’t. Christian Yelich doesn’t have to be an MVP, but he could sure do a little more.
That’s all that’s standing between the Brewers being a very good team and an elite team. Just a little extra offense. They have a chance to find it before October. They salvaged a win against the Twins on Sunday to make themselves feel better, but this isn’t the part of the season when “salvaged a win against the Twins” should make anyone feel better.
6. Chicago White Sox
It’s always eventful when the Cubs and White Sox meet in the city series, including Friday when beer vendors were back at Guaranteed Rate Field and, as Jon Greenberg put it, “The score wasn’t the only thing that was drunk.” That score, by the way, was 17-13 for the Sox, with the recently returned Yasmani Grandal accounting for eight RBI in the win. It was a game to remember for him and his return comes in the nick of time as the Sox try to get their offence in order as the playoffs approach. Also trying to get sorted before the playoffs is Dallas Keuchel, who is currently the weak link in the White Sox’s otherwise strong starting rotation. The benefit of the Sox’s substantial lead in the AL Central is instead of scrambling for wins or rotation options, they can use the time to try to get Keuchel —
and others — back on track.
7. New York Yankees
In baseball, it’s not simply about how you win, but it’s also about
when you win. For the first half, the Yankees were mostly treading water, but they’ve picked
a great time to start consistently winning and playing their perfect brand of baseball. The Bronx Bombers have been the best AL team in the second half and that’s helped them surge into the first wild-card spot. Meanwhile,
Joey Gallo has fit seamlessly into the New York aesthetic and — bonus! — has hit some timely home runs for his new team. Down the stretch, the Yankees look poised to fight it out with the Rays for first in the AL East, which is what we all expected — even if the Yankees took the scenic route to arrive at this particular junction.
8. Boston Red Sox
No one can say the Red Sox haven’t been interesting this season. They were the first-half darlings of the American League, surging to the best record in the AL East. They struggled in the second half, teetering on the precipice of a total collapse — but they’ve managed to weather some tough losses via their struggling bullpen to stay in it, hanging onto the second wild-card spot. With the help of some midseason additions, from Kyle Schwarber’s presence to Chris Sale’s dominance, the Red Sox just might have enough to sustain them for an October push. Boston is walking on a razor-thin edge, with a short-handed roster, but … well, we warned you: these Red Sox like to keep things interesting.
9. Atlanta Braves
It’s been a while since I’ve done a powers ranking. There was a vacation, a swap with a writer who couldn’t do his week and, look, the particulars don’t matter. It’s been a few weeks for me. And the last time I was here, the Braves were just another mediocre team, sinking in the summer morass.
They are most certainly not just another mediocre team now. It’s almost as if they’ve gotten
better without Ronald Acuña, Jr., even if that doesn’t make any sense. They had a rare two-day scheduled vacation that helped them reset and refresh, which allowed them to thump the Giants, who hadn’t lost a series in over a month. Jorge Soler has secretly been one of the best deadline acquisitions from every team, and if you don’t believe that, he’ll sic his dog on you.
Just kidding. The dog is a good dog. Still, check out what Soler is doing with his strikeout-to-walk ratio. The Braves didn’t just get him on a lark; they might have had an idea how to fix him, and now they’re reaping the benefits. They haven’t clinched the NL East yet, but they’re entering September in mighty fine position.
10. Oakland Athletics
Typically, our power rankers are on a four-week rotation, but because of some schedule swapping, I did my last rankings only two weeks ago. It was then that I wrote, “The question around the A’s now might not be can they secure a playoff spot, but rather, can they catch the Astros for first in the AL West?”
Uh, so …
now the question is actually: Will the A’s even make the postseason?
Oakland has gone 4-6 in their last 10 games and they’ve fallen 2 1/2 games back of the second wild-card spot. The bullpen has wavered, while their home crowds have shrunk for a variety of reasons, but playing uninspiring baseball is one of them. Even a team meeting didn’t change the tide. But, at least a visit from the injured Chris Bassitt seemed to lift the team’s spirits, which they channelled into two wins. And, they’ll need to keep channeling whatever good vibes they can if it means getting wins. If they want to stay in the race, they need to.
11. Cincinnati Reds
The best starting pitching in baseball by a bunch, depending on which stat you use. My first reaction to this was to lament those powerful, slugging Reds teams of the recent past that didn’t have enough starting pitching to make an impact. You know, those thumping Reds teams that outscored their opponents by dozens of runs all those years?
Except the last time the Reds had an adjusted OPS better than the league average was 2010, when
Joey Votto was in his mid-20s, Jay Bruce was a 23-year-old force of nature and
Drew Stubbs had a 103 OPS+. It’s been a while. Since then, the Reds have either been a rotation-first team or a bad team.
This has been their identity for a long time now. In the 2021 season, their pitching is carrying them, and while the division probably isn’t a realistic goal, they’re in postseason position. They are a more extreme version of the Brewers, although it’s worth noting that their typical lineup has a bunch of over-.700 OPS’s around the edges, with some .800 and .900 marks at the top. This might be a more complete team than they’re getting credit for.
They should probably be in the top 10, but we’ve all signed a contract to keep at least one fan base salty. The Giants and their fans were good for business for a while, but now it’s the Reds’ turn.
12. Toronto Blue Jays
The Blue Jays have two potential MVP candidates (Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Marcus Semien), a pitcher in line to receive Cy Young votes (Robbie Ray) and a rookie who is a dark horse candidate for AL Rookie of the Year (Alek Manoah). The team has a plus-114 run differential, the fourth-best in the AL, and their team OPS (.776) is behind only the Astros for the best in the majors. And, yet, the Blue Jays are in fourth place in the AL East, 5 1/2 games out of a playoff spot and FanGraphs gives them a 6.1 percent shot of making the postseason. Yeah, it’s been … a difficult season in Toronto to wrap one’s head around and that’s coming from the team’s beat writer.
Bum's on a roll with a 1.93 ERA over his L7 and now gets one of the bottom 2 offenses in baseball. I do think Brubaker has talent, but he's fell off a bit from his rookie season
