MLB Team Power Rankings Update: The Rockies Just Keep Winning
Teams Ranked 10th to 1st
While Aaron Judge continues hitting home runs for the New York Yankees and the Houston Astros are running away with baseball's best record, neither of them sit atop our power rankings. That honor goes to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who were just 14-13 as recently at May 2nd.
| Rank | Team | nERD | Record | Playoff Odds | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | St. Louis Cardinals | 0.46 | 24-24 | 60.5% | -3 |
| 9 | Boston Red Sox | 0.50 | 27-23 | 75.3% | +3 |
| 8 | Oakland Athletics | 0.54 | 22-28 | 8.4% | +1 |
| 7 | Cleveland Indians | 0.65 | 26-23 | 84.8% | +3 |
| 6 | Tampa Bay Rays | 0.88 | 28-26 | 34.7% | -1 |
| 5 | Washington Nationals | 0.90 | 31-20 | 95.2% | +1 |
| 4 | Arizona Diamondbacks | 1.00 | 31-22 | 63.2% | 0 |
| 3 | New York Yankees | 1.56 | 29-19 | 79.1% | -2 |
| 2 | Houston Astros | 1.59 | 36-16 | 99.6% | +1 |
| 1 | Los Angeles Dodgers | 1.69 | 32-20 | 96.9% | +1 |
Biggest Rise: Boston Red Sox
A strong showing from the Boston Red Sox this week has catapulted them back into our top 10, and they get the added luxury of having David Price once again occupying a spot in their starting rotation. After a couple months of being patient, they'll finally get a chance to see what their pitching staff looks like with both Chris Sale and him leading the way.
While their offense as a whole was basically average this week (they posted a team wRC+ of 102), the rotation sure looked pretty good -- their 1.5 fWAR was behind only the Yankees and Washington Nationals. They earned that 2.72 team ERA when looking at their 2.73 team FIP, but it's interesting to note that they paired one of the lowest ground-ball rates (36.8%) with one of the lowest home-run-to-fly-ball ratios (5.8%).
Biggest Drop: St. Louis Cardinals
The 2017 season has already been quite a roller coaster for the St. Louis Cardinals, don't you think?
They went from a 4-9 record on April 18th to a 21-15 record less than a month later, before ending back right at .500 entering action on Tuesday.
While the starting rotation has been performing well recently, the offense has done the complete opposite -- their team wRC+ of 62 is the third-worst mark in baseball over the past week. Randal Grichuk felt the brunt of those struggles by getting sent down to Single-A to work on his pitch recognition, but Dexter Fowler has to get himself going.
St. Louis' big free-agent acquisition from this past winter is hitting .212/.322/.420 with a .313 wOBA and 92 wRC+ through 186 plate appearances this season, and he's struggled to respective marks of .233/.281/.300, .258 and 57 over the past week.
