This group of teams is mostly the same cast of characters since we last checked in around the league, with the exception of one club that went on a late-season selling spree prior to the waiver trade deadline.
| Rank | Team | nERD | Record | Playoff Odds | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 | San Francisco Giants | -0.97 | 57-89 | 0.0% | 0 |
| 29 | Philadelphia Phillies | -0.76 | 54-89 | 0.0% | -1 |
| 28 | Chicago White Sox | -0.68 | 56-86 | 0.0% | 0 |
| 27 | Detroit Tigers | -0.57 | 60-83 | 0.0% | -8 |
| 26 | Pittsburgh Pirates | -0.52 | 68-77 | 0.0% | 1 |
| 25 | Colorado Rockies | -0.47 | 79-65 | 77.1% | -2 |
| 24 | Kansas City Royals | -0.46 | 71-72 | 4.6% | 0 |
| 23 | San Diego Padres | -0.43 | 63-78 | 0.0% | +3 |
| 22 | Atlanta Braves | -0.40 | 64-78 | 0.0% | +2 |
| 21 | Toronto Blue Jays | -0.36 | 67-77 | 0.1% | +1 |
Biggest Rise: San Diego Padres
Although this year hasn't exactly been fun for the San Diego Padres, they can take solace in the fact that they have outperformed expectations, per our metrics. Prior to Opening Day, we pinned them for baseball's worst nERD at -0.63, but they've played better than that with just under 20 games left to go.
One young hurler that San Diego can get excited about moving forward is Dinelson Lamet. He's posted a 4.32 ERA through 98 innings of work, but his 3.89 SIERA paints a better picture. And while walks have been an issue for the hard-throwing right-hander (10.9% walk rate), his 29.7% strikeout rate and 12.1% swinging-strike serve as a perfect building block toward next season.
Biggest Drop: Detroit Tigers
With so few games left in the regular season, teams rarely make monumental rises or falls in the power rankings because the sample size is so large up to this point. That's makes what the Detroit Tigers did over these past two weeks even more impressive (maybe impressive isn't the right word). They experienced the biggest movement of the week, and we can point toward a couple of waiver-wire deals that helped accelerate it.
Our last look at the power rankings happened on August 29th, just a couple days before they shipped Justin Upton to the Los Angeles Angels and Justin Verlander to the Houston Astros. It's clear that the Tigers are in for a long rebuild, and while Michael Fulmer should be a central piece of that process, he'll miss the rest of the year himself because of elbow surgery.
Basically, what we're trying to say here is that after a few frustrating months of baseball, it will likely get worse before the year is through for Detroit.