It didn't really matter where you looked over the past few weeks -- the Houston Astros have been labeled the best team in baseball for quite some time now, except for here. They've been a top-five club, according to our metrics, since April 18th, but they've had a hard time jumping over both the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers.
That's all in the past, you guys. Well, it is for now, at least.
Houston entered this season with what appeared to be an incredibly deep lineup with guys like Carlos Correa, George Springer, Jose Altuve leading the way, while pairing them with offseason acquisitions such as Carlos Beltran, Brian McCann, and Josh Reddick. The biggest question was how the starting rotation would perform, and it's been quite good.
Their 4.9 fWAR as a unit ranks within the top-10 rotations in baseball this year, and they're being led by Dallas Keuchel and Lance McCullers, who each sport an ERAs under 2.71, FIPs under 3.01 and have a combined record of 15-1.
They own a commanding 14-game lead in the American League West, are the only team in baseball with current odds of reaching the playoffs at 100%, and are on pace to make some history.
The Astros (42-16) are the first team with at least 42 wins in their first 58 games since the 2001 Mariners.
— Jake Kaplan (@jakemkaplan) June 6, 2017
Just as a reminder, the 2001 Seattle Mariners won 116 games that year, which is a record. So, yeah, the Astros are off to a good start.
Who else has seen their stock rise or fall over the last week?
Unlike some other power rankings around the interwebs, ours here at numberFire aren't influenced by hype or the latest narratives. We put faith into our algorithms and use nERD to see which team is the best, which is a metric that represents runs scored above or below a league-average team per game.
Our rankings will include each team's nERD, their current record and playoff odds, along with how much their spot has changed over the past seven days.