Team Power Rankings!
1. San Francisco Giants
The Giants are in first place as of these Power Rankings. This is where they’ve been in the standings for 111 out of the last 112 days. They have had the best record in baseball for almost the entire time. It should not surprise you that they’re still at the top.
But it’s complicated.
They’re winning with unlikely comebacks and derring do, and when a surprise team does this, it’s only natural to be skeptical. They’ve been behind the Dodgers in Pythagorean W-L percentage almost as long as they’ve been in first place, so it’s at least defensible to put them second. And I have here in my hand a list of the three writers for
The Athletic who put the Giants in second. They are, in no particular order …
Look, it doesn’t matter. The Giants will be in the top spot until they’re out of first place, and their tenuous standing there has everything to do with how they play against the Padres for the rest of the season. Mop the floor with them? NL West champions. Give a penny, take a penny? Time to worry about Adam Wainwright, Luis Castillo or Blake Snell.
No pressure.
2. Los Angeles Dodgers
Lurking, always lurking. The Dodgers have already won 102 games in Pythagorean W-L land, which means they’re one of the unluckiest teams in baseball. They might somehow be even
better than their already gaudy record.
Just not in first place, either in the actual standings or these rankings. Not yet, at least. And with just 12 games left in this season, they’ll either need to play better than their .640 winning percentage or hope that the Giants play worse. Seems simple for a team that has the best rotation in the world, but baseball rarely is that simple.
If the Dodgers don’t win the division, it will be Cody Bellinger, in the library, with a marshmallow bat that did them in. The former MVP has fractured ribs now, but even when he was “healthy,” he was one of the worst regulars in baseball history. His performance against the Giants was one of the worst from any player against any team … ever.
But they still have a tremendous chance to win the division, if only because they’re one of the best baseball teams ever assembled.
3. Tampa Bay Rays
A lot of the buzz in the AL has been around the Yankees/Red Sox/Blue Jays triad jockeying for position in the wild-card race. But the reason there are only two spots available for those three teams is that the AL East pennant has been all but sealed up in a safe in Florida and it shouldn’t be too much longer before it’s soaked in champagne. The Rays have played a truly remarkable season. It might be even more impressive than last year, when they went to the World Series, not only because is it a 162-game season, but also because they traded their ace Blake Snell last offseason only to pluck another arm or two off the conveyor belt and plug them in to the well-oiled and weird machine that is the Tampa Bay Rays. They have the AL’s best record (third-best in baseball) and I can’t imagine betting against them in any round of the playoffs that isn’t a World Series return.
4. Milwaukee Brewers
The Brewers are 100 percent The Team You Don’t Want To Face in the Postseason. The Dodgers are the defending champs. The Rays have an equally impressive record, and they’re the defending AL champs. The Giants have the best record in baseball as of this writing. The Cardinals are adjacent to the dark arts, if not entirely invested.
Nuts to all of them. Nobody wants to face the Brewers.
Starting pitching? Up the wazoo. A bullpen that can shorten the game? They got that a-plenty. Their offense isn’t otherworldly, but it will play, even against the other postseason teams. For a team that didn’t spend a single day over .500 last season (a postseason first), that’s quite a transformation. And I’m not sure how to explain it, because their dominance seems so obvious from here. Maybe the Dodgers should have been more scared in the first round last year?
They’ll win the division, but they aren’t likely to contend for home-field advantage throughout the postseason, so they’ll spend the next two weeks thinking about October rotations and other stuff, like if Ryan Braun should have his number retired.
Not bad for a team that was under .500 in the middle of May.
5. Houston Astros
I really can’t get a read on the Astros’ postseason vibe. On paper, they have a better run differential than any AL team (trailing only the Dodgers for the MLB lead) but Zack Greinke has looked pedestrian of late, Jose Altuve is on pace for his second-worst batting average (not counting 2020’s 60-game aberration), and Michael Brantley’s knee hurts. Are they going to be good enough to overcome their likely first-round opponents, the White Sox?
I honestly can’t tell. It sounds weird to say that the White Sox have more star-power right now, but they very well might. That said, they’re still an inexperienced bunch, and postseason baseball has been de rigeur in Houston for a while now. It should make for an entertaining October.
6. Chicago White Sox
The White Sox could probably go ahead and coast for the rest of the season. They have the second-biggest division lead in the sport, and do we really think Cleveland has a miraculous whirlwind renaissance coming? I will give each of you $100 if that happens. The White Sox appear to at least partially agree, as they’re scaling back Carlos Rodón’s workload for the rest of the year.
OK, OK, that one makes sense, but otherwise, they’re likely to keep the foot on the gas
pedal. You don’t want to mess with a good thing, and — I mean, look around,
things are pretty good right now.
But don’t think just because the White Sox are good again that means you won’t get any more of James Fegan’s patented prospect pieces.
7. Toronto Blue Jays
How it was possible that the Blue Jays were so low in both the standings and the Power Rankings all year. The offense looked good, the pitching was fine, the run differential was up near the top of the league. Surely they should be a playoff team, right? I fearlessly predicted their recent hot streak they’ve been on. They haven’t lost a series in a month and are in the thick of the AL wild-card race. They have a lockdown closer, an AL MVP candidate, an AL Cy Young candidate and — especially if they can get Hyun Jin Ryu right — they’re going to be very dangerous in the postseason, no matter how chaotic it might be. That’s a fairly bold prediction. ;/
8. Boston Red Sox
Credit to the Red Sox; I spent the entire month of April doubting them, before doubting them all of May, only to switch to doubting them in June, which gave way to … look, I’ll be honest, the Red Sox will probably be giddily spraying each other right square in the goggles with MLB-branded Budweiser cans before I make the Alonzo Mourning face and admit that
maybe they were better than I thought. They’ll have to hold off the Yankees, Athletics and Mariners to do so, meaning this weekend’s home series against their hated rivals from the Bronx will be even more compelling theater than usual.
With a healthy (I mean, you know, for now) Chris Sale back on the mound, their destiny is in their own hands.
9. New York Yankees
How are we feeling, Yankees fans?
[horn blares in my ear as a stream of obscenities barrels me over into the street] Ahhhh, New York. Take heart, though. Their next three games are against a rebuilding
Rangers team who are going to finish with roughly 100 losses this year. If the Yankees can use this time to gobble up a few wins and get their confidence steadied, their destiny is in their own hands, as they play the following six games against teams they need to leapfrog to get into the postseason. Stressful? Sure. But what isn’t stressful in this city?
10. Oakland Athletics
It should be noted that the A's are very much in the wild-card race right now, sitting just two games behind the Jays for the second spot. But check out
this series of recent headlines. September in Oakland has felt a lot like one step back, then a guttural screaming lurch forward on buckling knees, accompanied by a chorus of Marge Simpson worried groans from anyone with the guts to watch it transpire. The good news: Chris Bassitt — he of the 12-4 record and 3.22 ERA — is expected to return Thursday. He’s been out since Aug. 17, when he was hit in the face with a line drive, requiring surgery to repair fractures in his face.
I thought I was being hyperbolic with that “guttural screaming lurch forward” line earlier, but it’s honestly not far off.
11. Atlanta Braves
The Braves salvaged the final game in
their three-game series against the Giants after losing an impossibly bananas opener, and their once-surprising, once-robust divisional lead has become a little shaky. They were up 5.5 games as of Aug. 27, but they’re down to two games now.
But even though they’ve won just four out of their last 10 games, the NL East is the NL East, and they’ve lost just a half game in the standings. They still have a bullpen to sort out, but even if you can’t just ignore the first half of the season, they’re still in an enviable position. They have a much clearer path to a division title than the Dodgers, or the Giants, for that matter. They just have to take care of the Diamondbacks and Padres on the road, then handle the
Phillies and
Mets at home.
Which shouldn’t be a problem.
Unless it is.
12. St. Louis Cardinals
As John Mozeliak blew the dust off the sacred tome, he paused and took a breath. There was no reason for the book to feel warm, but it did, and then it felt like a burning coal melting his flesh. He wanted to drop it, screaming, and run to anywhere that wasn’t there, but the Call for Ritual had been placed, and the rituals were going to be finished.
After farting around for much of the season, the Cardinals needed to engage Cardinals Devil Magic, and so they did.
Musial help us all.
The Cards have won eight straight after sweeping the Padres, a nominal competitor, and they’re leading the chase for the second wild card. They would play against the Dodgers, who still twitch and convulse at the mere mention of Matt Adams’ name, or the Giants, who will forever twitch and convulse when Nolan Arenado
or Paul Goldschmidt are mentioned.
They’re doing it with green outfielders like Tyler O’Neill and Dylan Carlson, but let’s be honest here. They’re doing it with the sacred (and cursed) tome.
Brock help us all.
13. Seattle Mariners
On the last Power Rankings, I implied that another late-season shipwreck might be just around the corner. Since then, the Mariners are a somewhat-perplexing 12-9. That’s not perplexing because it’s a winning record, but because they’ve done things like sweep a two-game series against the A’s and battle the Astros to a draw over two series, but drop two out of three to the Diamondbacks (a series loss to the Red Sox was also pretty big.)
Their playoff odds are pretty long with so few games left, especially since they don’t play the Red Sox, Yankees or Blue Jays again, and will need a bit of help. They can control one thing, though: They play Oakland seven times in their next 10 games.
If they can pull off an upset, maybe it’s time to recognize that this is a new generation of Mariners, who don’t pull the football back just as their fans draw back their foot.
14. Cincinnati Reds
I have no idea what to make of the Reds. I touted them early on and they made me look silly. Then they started winning and wouldn’t stop, which made me look silly for abandoning them. Now they’re scuffling when they absolutely can’t afford to, and nobody is winning. Except for the other teams about 70 percent of the time.
Boy, the Reds could be sitting pretty right now.
Still, they play baseball, which means they’ll be worth watching, whether it’s for the human interest stories or because they can win a nonsense one-game playoff and win more nonsense postseason series because their starting pitching is strong enough.
Fear the Reds. But also wonder what in the heck they’re doing.
15. Philadelphia Phillies
Bryce Harper is doing everything he can. The Phillies are a couple back with 12 to play, which isn’t insurmountable. They’re talented enough, and the Braves are vincible enough.
But you see a game like Sunday’s, their nationally televised bout against the Mets. Kyle Gibson, the personification of a quality start, made a quality start. A lineup filled with .700-something OPSs and an MVP frontrunner couldn’t score a lot of runs. Nothing about the team was offensive. Nothing about them was compelling. Is this purgatory?
Just like most of the teams in this weirdo middle tier, the Phillies are a single hot month away from all of us retconning our opinions to explain why they had it in them all along. Over the last week, the Phillies showed everyone how hot they could get, blitzing the Cubs and winning a series against the Mets. Their remaining schedule includes three games against contenders (a road series in Atlanta) and nine games against horrible-to-merely-awful teams.
All they have to do is beat the bad teams.
....................................and suddenly the Pads are gone from the top 15 first time all year