Most teams hit the halfway mark in their seasons last week, and the standings are no closer to resolving themselves. It’s a wide open Wild Card field in both leagues, with surprise contenders like the Nationals and Marlins sticking around in the race.

Our power rankings use a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant ranking format that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds (specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%). The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. As the best and worst teams sort themselves out between now and October, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise remains reactive to hot streaks and cold snaps. If you’re looking for a visual representation of the ups and downs of your team throughout the season, look no further than the brand new Power Rankings Board in the FanGraphs Lab.

First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers with comments on a handful of clubs. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — there are times where I take editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula.

…

After beginning the week with a three-game sweep of the Rays, the Dodgers dropped two of three to the Orioles over the weekend. Still, with the Padres floundering, Los Angeles has opened up the largest division lead in baseball, at nine games. Thanks to an excellent starting rotation and a potent lineup, the Dodgers shouldn’t have any trouble locking up their 13th division title in the last 14 years.

In what could be a postseason preview, the Brewers and Braves met over the weekend, with Milwaukee avoiding a sweep with a big win on Sunday. The Brewers lost a game that Jacob Misiorowski started for the first time since May 13 and a game that Kyle Harrison started for the first time since April 11. With Brandon Woodruff on the verge of returning from the IL, this team could have a formidable trio anchoring the rotation down the stretch this season.

As for the Braves, their worst stretch of their season continued into last week, with their two losses to the Giants in a rain-shortened series dropping them to 1-6 in their previous seven games. Atlanta got things back on track with that big series win over the Brewers this past weekend. Drake Baldwin was activated off the IL last week, providing some needed reinforcements for the injury-depleted roster.

The Yankees have fared well since placing Aaron Judge on the IL at the beginning of the month. They’re 10-7 without him and have wrestled control over the AL East away from the Rays. Even so, New York scored only three runs across the final two games of its weekend series against the Reds, both losses. Ben Rice has done his best to make up for the missing Judge; he blasted three home runs last week.

The lopsided nature of the Phillies lineup was on full display over the weekend against the Mets. Bryce Harper hit for the cycle on Saturday and added three more hits and a home run on Sunday, while Kyle Schwarber hit four home runs, three of them on Saturday. On the season, the non-Harper/Schwarber hitters on the Phillies have combined for an ugly .226/.279/.353 slash line, a 73 wRC+. Impact position players have to be high on Philadelphia’s wish list as the trade deadline approaches next month.

The Rays’ early-season success in one-run games has quickly turned sour; they went 1-4 in one-run contests last week alone, and have gone 2-7 in those close games since the beginning of June. Elsewhere in the AL East, the Blue Jays have looked a lot stronger recently. Toronto swept the Red Sox last week before splitting a rain-shortened series against the Cubs over the weekend. George Springer collected seven hits and two home runs last week, and the team is planning on activating Shane Bieber off the IL on Monday.

Over in the AL Central, the Guardians and White Sox meet for a huge series this week in Chicago. These two rivals will play each other seven times over the next two weeks, a massive opportunity for either of them to take control of the division. After playing so well against the Braves and Dodgers a few weeks ago, Chicago stumbled against the Yankees and Tigers last week, losing five of six. Meanwhile, the Guardians limped along without both José Ramírez, who underwent surgery on Tuesday for a fractured hamate bone, and Chase DeLauter, who landed on the injured list on Wednesday with a right side rib fracture, going 2-4 against the Brewers and Astros last week.

The Mariners activated Cal Raleigh and J.P. Crawford off the IL last week — and Randy Arozarena shouldn’t be too far behind them. Even with that duo’s return, Seattle scored no more than three runs in any of its games last week, but still wound up with a 3-3 record thanks to some strong pitching. Logan Gilbert had a pair of brilliant starts, tossing 13 1/3 innings with 18 strikeouts and just two runs allowed. The Mariners have managed to barely stay ahead in the AL West over these last few weeks, but they are also one of just three teams in the AL with a positive run differential. Eventually, the offense should start to click now that it’s mostly healthy.

The Twins have gone 8-3 over their last 11 games and are suddenly in the mix in the very crowded AL Wild Card picture. Byron Buxton has been crushing the ball recently. He’s up to a .317/.368/.698 slash line in June (189 wRC+) with seven home runs, and on the season, he’s now one homer behind Yordan Alvarez for the AL lead. It’s not just Buxton either; the entire offense is humming along, scoring 6.9 runs per game during this stretch. I’m not sure Minnesota has the pitching to stick around in the playoff race, but it’s certainly been a promising season so soon after the team’s big sell-off last summer.

The Cubs’ up-and-down season has sort of calmed down over the last three weeks; they’re 8-9 in June, and their longest winning or losing streak has been three games during this stretch. Pete Crow-Armstrong has been on fire this month, running a gaudy .437/.481/.930 slash line (281 wRC+) with nine home runs. He’s done his best to lead the offense, but the pitching staff is still dealing with a bunch of injuries. Last week, Daniel Palencia hit the IL for the second time this season, though Matthew Boyd is on a rehab assignment now and on track to return soon.

The Diamondbacks have managed to hang around in the NL Wild Card race, but their season took a turn for the worse last week when they placed Michael Soroka, Ryne Nelson, and Jordan Lawlar on the IL. It’s unfortunate timing for Lawlar, who had just returned from a wrist injury a week ago, but losing the pitchers — Soroka to a left glute strain and Nelson to a right elbow strain — is of greater concern. Soroka’s absence is the biggest blow; he has been the team’s best pitcher and one of the lone bright spots in a starting rotation that has been shaky all season long. With Corbin Burnes suffering a setback in his rehab from Tommy John surgery that pushes his recovery timeline back a couple of months, it doesn’t seem like reinforcements are arriving anytime soon for this beleaguered pitching staff.

It was two steps back, one step forward for the Rangers last week. They got swept by the Twins before turning around to win their weekend series against the Padres. Wyatt Langford has been excellent since being activated off the IL on June 5, collecting 19 hits and five home runs in 15 games. Still, with Corey Seager sidelined again and Jack Leiter placed on the IL with an ankle issue last week, Texas is struggling to gain ground in the AL West standings.

The Mets finished May with a 16-12 record that helped them climb to seven games under .500. They haven’t been able to make any progress past that point in June, and a 2-4 week against the Reds and Phillies certainly didn’t help. Juan Soto is trying to carry the team on his back — he’s slashing .415/.529/.780 (258 wRC+) with four home runs over the last two weeks — but the rest of the roster isn’t giving him much support. Francisco Lindor is on the mend and should be activated off the IL sometime this week, but it feels like it’s already too little, too late.

These next three weeks have the potential to define the Tigers’ season. With a sweep of the White Sox over the weekend providing some momentum, they’re entering a critical part of their schedule; they’ll face the Yankees, Astros, and Yankees again, followed by the Rangers, Athletics, and Phillies before heading into the All-Star break. If they can emerge from this gauntlet with a positive record, they could gain some ground in both the AL Central and Wild Card standings. Any further stumbles during this stretch, and they’re probably looking at selling at the trade deadline.

Even after a series win against the Cardinals over the weekend, it might be time to start looking toward next year for the Royals. Bobby Witt Jr. sprained his MCL on Thursday, and while he hasn’t been placed on the IL yet, he sat out the team’s last two games. Losing the AL MVP frontrunner for any amount of time would be devastating. Salvador Perez has limped to a 58 wRC+ in his age-36 season, and Maikel Garcia has struggled to replicate his breakout from last year. You can’t count anyone out in such a mediocre AL playoff field, but the Royals desperately need to turn things around soon if they want to make a run.

The Angels placed Mike Trout on the IL last week with a hamstring injury. He had slowed down just a bit after his torrid start to the season, but he was still the beating heart of this ball club and enjoying a bit of a renaissance year. It was obvious to everyone except the Angels, but this organization desperately needs to turn toward the future. That’s why it was encouraging to see Denzer Guzman, the team’s sixth-ranked prospect entering the season, blast home runs in three straight games over the weekend. He probably won’t be a star, but any positive developments from the pipeline have to be taken as wins at this point.

We’re coming up on the halfway point of the season, and the playoff picture in both leagues is still as muddy as ever. That should make for an interesting trade deadline, with a bunch of teams seemingly on the cusp of making a run and only a few true sellers.

Our power rankings use a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant ranking format that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds. (Specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%.) The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. As the best and worst teams sort themselves out between now and October, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise remains reactive to hot streaks and cold snaps. If you’re looking for a visual representation of the ups and downs of your team throughout the season, look no further than the brand new Power Rankings Board in the FanGraphs Lab.

First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers with comments on a handful of clubs. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — there are times where I take editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula. Read the rest of this entry »

The best teams in baseball continue to separate themselves from the huge morass of mediocre clubs in the middle of the standings. That means the division races might not as exciting, but both Wild Card chases should more than make up for that.

Our power rankings use a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant ranking format that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds. (Specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%.) The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. As the best and worst teams sort themselves out between now and October, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise remains reactive to hot streaks and cold snaps. If you’re looking for a visual representation of the ups and downs of your team throughout the season, look no further than the brand new Power Rankings Board in the FanGraphs Lab.

First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers with comments on a handful of clubs. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — there are times where I take editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula. Read the rest of this entry »

As the calendar turns to June, the playoff picture is tight in both leagues. There are 11 teams in the NL with records over .500, which should make for an exciting Wild Card race this summer. The AL is nearly as competitive, though for the opposite reason, as more than half of the clubs in the junior circuit have losing records.

Our power rankings use a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant ranking format that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds. (Specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%.) The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. As the best and worst teams sort themselves out between now and October, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise remains reactive to hot streaks and cold snaps. If you’re looking for a visual representation of the ups and downs of your team throughout the season, look no further than the brand new Power Rankings Board in the FanGraphs Lab.

First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers with comments on a handful of clubs. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — there are times where I take editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula. Read the rest of this entry »

A long time ago, Keibert Ruiz was one of the top catching prospects in baseball. He was so highly regarded that he was a significant piece of the Nationals’ return in the Max Scherzer and Trea Turner trade with the Dodgers in 2021. After a solid first full season in Washington the following year, he signed an eight-year extension worth $50 million in March 2023. Unfortunately, that’s when the bottom fell out. Over the last three years, Ruiz has been the worst qualified position player in baseball, “accumulating” -1.9 WAR.

When the Nationals acquired Harry Ford in a trade with the Mariners this offseason, it was fair to wonder if Ruiz’s days as the team’s primary backstop were numbered. He had been a disaster both at the plate and behind it. His 79 wRC+ over the last three years was a hair higher than Patrick Bailey’s 76 mark, but instead of offsetting that offensive futility with elite defense, Ruiz was the worst defensive catcher in baseball. It’s shocking, then, to see that he has so completely turned things around this year; he’s already accrued 0.8 WAR and has been the 11th-most valuable catcher in baseball in just 34 games.

Let’s tackle the most surprising development first: All of a sudden, Ruiz is providing positive value behind the plate. Among the 53 catchers who caught at least 1,000 innings over the last three years, Ruiz was the second-worst framer, the second worst at throwing out base stealers, and the sixth-worst blocker. This year, he’s added two runs via framing and has been a slightly above-average blocker. His throwing hasn’t improved all that much according to Statcast, but he also hasn’t been challenged very often, so that area of defense hasn’t really affected his overall defensive value.

Last year, Ruiz suffered two concussions within a few weeks of each other. The first came on June 23, when an errant foul ball hit him in the head while he was sitting in the dugout. The second came just a week and a half later — and just two days after he had been activated off the 7-day concussion IL — when a foul tip struck him in the mask. He attempted to return to play in September, but he was shut down from his rehab assignment after his concussion symptoms returned. In an effort to reduce his risk behind the plate, the Nationals had Ruiz adjust his stance so that he’s now crouching lower to the ground:

In the picture above, you can see that at the pitcher’s release, Ruiz’s back isn’t as upright and his head is a little lower to the ground. The team thought that a lower stance would allow more foul tips to fly over his head instead of into his mask. That might have been the intended goal of the new position, but the effect on Ruiz’s ability to receive pitches has transformed his defensive metrics. If we look at Statcast’s detailed framing data, over the last three years, Ruiz had really struggled to receive both low pitches and pitches to his right:

It’s reasonable to think that sitting lower in his stance has helped him to frame those low pitches much more effectively. What’s even more surprising is that the right-hand side of the plate is now his strongest framing zone. In addition to benefiting his receiving, a lower crouch has probably helped him block errant pitches that he might not have been able to get to previously.

Going from being one of the worst defensive catchers in baseball to an above-average one is a tremendous improvement on its own, but Ruiz has also taken a step forward as a hitter. Ruiz got off to a familiar slow start at the plate this year; though May 6, he was running a .182/.203/.303 slash line, with a hugely disappointing 37 wRC+. As Spencer Nusbaum of The Athletic reported on Thursday, Ruiz met with the Nationals coaching staff on May 7 to build a plan for improvement. That same day, he smacked a pair of doubles and a home run. Over his last 11 games, he’s collected 16 hits, seven doubles, and three home runs, raising his season line to .262/.277/.486 (109 wRC+). The plan seems to have worked.

Two things keyed this offensive outburst. First, Ruiz is being more selective when it comes to which pitches to swing at, and second, he’s swinging to do damage when he gets a good pitch to hit. Here’s how manager Blake Butera put it in an interview with Jessica Camerato of MLB.com:

“That’s the one thing with Keibert is, he can cover a lot of pitches but he can also hit the ball really hard. And it’s really hard to hit pitches hard when you’re swinging at everything and just making contact. So one thing we put on him was, shrink the zone a little bit, trust your hand-eye coordination, even if that means taking some borderline pitches that are strikes. Wait until you get a good pitch to hit. Then he’s doing the work from there.”

Throughout his career, Ruiz has displayed excellent bat-to-ball skills and a fantastic ability to cover the entire plate; it’s the reason his career strikeout rate is just 11.1%. But his aggressiveness and propensity to put the ball in play is also why his career walk rate is just 4.7%. With a new selective approach in mind, Ruiz has cut his overall swing rate to 47.5%, a five point drop from where it’s been in the recent past. He’s given up nearly all of those swings on pitches located in the zone; his chase rate is essentially unchanged, but his zone swing rate is down nearly 10 points.

Despite that increased selectivity, he’s still making contact just as often, only now that contact has a little more oomph behind it. Ruiz has significantly improved his contact quality, and most of the improvement has come as a right-handed hitter. Throughout his career, he’s run a neutral platoon split as a switch-hitter, but his underlying batted ball metrics were significantly worse from the right side despite the results indicating otherwise:

This year, Ruiz is doing a ton more damage against left-handed pitching. He’s increased his bat speed from the right side by more than two ticks and has seen huge improvements in every meaningful batted ball metric. He’s also seen a jump in batted ball quality from the left side, albeit a smaller one. That growth appears to stem from his intent at the plate. He’s seeking good pitches to hit and is looking to drive them in the air to the pull side. His pull rate is all the way up to 67.4%, the largest increase of any batter this year, and he’s elevating his contact a lot more often as well. The results over the last few weeks speak for themselves.

For now, Ruiz is still splitting time behind the plate with Drew Millas. He has started a little over half of the Nationals’ games this season and just 11 of the 20 games since the fateful meeting that set him on this course. Millas was a well-regarded catching prospect in his own right not too long ago, but he hasn’t exactly impressed during parts of four seasons in the big leagues. He’s currently running a 41 wRC+ with adequate defense behind the plate. And Ford isn’t knocking on the door of the big leagues, either; the young catcher has mustered just a 74 wRC+ in Triple-A this year. If Ruiz continues bashing the ball and is able to keep up the good work defensively, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him reclaim his role as the team’s everyday catcher in short order.

With their plan for improvement in place, the Nationals have to be thrilled to see such positive results so quickly from Ruiz. I’m sure there will be bumps in the future — we’re talking about just 43 plate appearances since he made these changes to his approach — but with the support of the coaching staff, Ruiz appears to have been set on a path to success.

We’re a third of the way through the regular season, which is when the standings start to matter and win-loss records start to become more predictive of summer results. That’s an exciting prospect for the league’s surprise contenders, if a frightening one for some of the playoff hopefuls that are struggling to make headway in the standings.

Our power rankings use a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant ranking format that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds. (Specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%.) The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. As the best and worst teams sort themselves out between now and October, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise remains reactive to hot streaks and cold snaps. If you’re looking for a visual representation of the ups and downs of your team throughout the season, look no further than the brand new Power Rankings Board in the FanGraphs Lab.

First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers with comments on a handful of clubs. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — there are times where I take editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula.

All power rankings stats, including team records, are updated through Sunday’s games. The rest of the information below is current as of Tuesday morning.

…

The Braves lost consecutive games for just the third time this season this past weekend, dropping two straight to the Nationals in a surprisingly hard-fought series. Despite that small hiccup, Atlanta is completely in control of the NL East; the team has an 8 1/2 game lead over Washington and is showing no signs of slowing down.

The Rays wound up splitting their rain-shortened series against the Yankees over the weekend after Aaron Judge blasted a walk-off home run on Sunday. That loss snapped a five-game win streak, though Tampa Bay is still 3 1/2 games ahead of New York in the AL East. The team’s offense has been humming along, sitting in the top five in baseball in batting average and on-base percentage, though they’re just 28th in home runs and isolated power. The entire package has been solid — a 104 wRC+ puts them eighth in the majors — but there’s a pretty clear path to improving the lineup as the Rays start planning how to approach the trade deadline.

The Dodgers won four of six against the Padres and Brewers last week, successfully completing a gauntlet against some of the best teams in the National League. Shohei Ohtani had collected hits in eight straight games since his short reset at the plate a few weeks ago; he was held hitless on Sunday, but has compiled a 235 wRC+ over his last 10 games. Teoscar Hernández is also heating up; he’s collected 18 hits and three home runs over the last two weeks. Of course, one of the biggest reasons the Dodgers have enjoyed so much recent success is a bullpen that just had a 38-inning scoreless streak snapped Monday night.

In a series that flipped the NL Central standings, the Brewers swept the Cubs last week. Jacob Misiorowski and Kyle Harrison combined for 13 scoreless innings and 19 strikeouts in that series, as Milwaukee’s pitching staff held Chicago to just five total runs. Misiorowski has been particularly impressive in May; he allowed his first run of the month in his start on Monday and has collected 49 strikeouts in 31.1 innings. Even though they couldn’t overcome the Dodgers this past weekend, the Brew Crew took the first game of a huge series against the Cardinals on Monday.

The Guardians have gone streaking up the standings. They’ve won four straight series, compiling an excellent 11-3 record over the last two weeks; the Nationals scored 10 runs against Cleveland on Monday, just the second time the Guardians have allowed more than four runs in a single game during this stretch. With the Tigers and Royals in danger of falling out of the American League playoff picture entirely, it really does seem like the AL Central is Cleveland’s to lose.

The Yankees welcomed Gerrit Cole back last week and he looked great in his return; he held the Rays scoreless over six innings, allowing just two hits while striking out two. New York ended up splitting that series against Tampa Bay, which means the team hasn’t won a series since taking two of three from the Rangers in the first week of May. Aaron Judge has run a 92 wRC+ during this slide; his walk-off home run on Sunday was his first homer since May 10.

The Diamondbacks have very quickly turned their season around. Including their win on Monday, Arizona has gone 12-4 over their last 16 games and are suddenly in the thick of the NL Wild Card race. Ketel Marte has been on fire during this stretch. Seven of his last nine games have been multi-hit affairs, and he’s collected 24 hits and three home runs over the last two weeks, good for a 241 wRC+. Not to be out done, Corbin Carroll is in the midst of a 13-game hit streak, with 21 total hits, two homers, and a 261 wRC+.

The Cardinals went 2-3 against the Pirates and Reds last week, and will wrap up a tour of their NL Central foes with series against the Brewers and Cubs this week. For now, the Red Birds are in second place in the division and holding onto a Wild Card spot, but they lost the first game of their series in Milwaukee on Monday and need to turn things around against the division’s leaders.

It was a nightmare of a week for the Cubs. Including their loss on Monday, they’ve now lost nine straight and 13 of their last 15. The team has been shut out four times, and has scored three or more runs in just five games during this cold snap. With three more games in Pittsburgh and a weekend series in St. Louis coming up, Chicago is slumping at exactly the wrong time. The NL Central has been the most interesting division in baseball so far this season, and it seems like the standings could look a lot different by the end of this week.

The Phillies had some of their forward momentum derailed last week, losing consecutive series to the Reds and Guardians. Jacob Misiorowski’s run in May has been dazzling, but Cristopher Sánchez has been almost as good; he hasn’t allowed a single run this month and has struck out 36 batters in 32 innings. With Zack Wheeler back in the fold and Jesús Luzardo earning results more in line with his peripherals, the Phillies rotation finally looks like a strength after a rough first month of the season.

After a pretty rough finish to their April, the Twins have mostly stabilized in May. They’ve won four of their last five series, going 10-5 over their last 15 games. But even with the positive results, Minnesota’s roster has been in a state of flux. Ryan Jeffers fractured his hamate bone last week, and the team has demoted both Royce Lewis and Matt Wallner to Triple-A amidst their ongoing struggles. Thankfully, Byron Buxton is healthy and leading the offense; after a bit of a slow start, he’s posted a 188 wRC+ in May with eight home runs.

The Blue Jays starting rotation is being stretched to the breaking point. With Shane Bieber, Max Scherzer, José Berríos, and Cody Ponce all already sidelined, Dylan Cease joined them on the IL on Monday with a mild hamstring strain. It’s not as significant as losing Berríos to Tommy John surgery, but it does thin a rotation that was already struggling to cover innings. Thankfully, the team managed to avoid another major blow on Sunday. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was pulled from the game after being hit on the elbow by a pitch, but he doesn’t seem to have suffered any lasting damage and should return to the lineup early this week.

The Reds are still trying to rebound from their eight-game losing streak to start the month of May. They’ve gone 8-6 since stopping that slide, but that hasn’t been good enough to keep pace in a competitive NL Central. Still, even if they’re not as good as their incredibly hot start made it seem, a bunch of the key pieces in their core have taken big steps forward this year. Elly De La Cruz is leading the offense with a 143 wRC+, and Chase Burns has been brilliant on the mound. It wouldn’t be surprising to see those two lead the Reds on an exciting playoff chase this summer — and remember, Hunter Greene is on the mend and expected to return around the All-Star break.

It looked like the Red Sox had a bit of momentum on their side after sweeping the Royals last week, but they were swept at home by the Twins this past weekend and fell back into the cellar of the AL East. It’s hard to keep pace with the powerhouses in the division when key players like Garrett Crochet and Roman Anthony have been sidelined with injuries. At least Willson Contreras is doing his best to carry the lineup; he collected 11 hits, two triples (!), and two home runs last week.

The Marlins couldn’t do much against the Braves last week, dropping three of four to the NL East leaders, but Miami bounced back by sweeping the Mets over the weekend. It’s been good to see Sandy Alcantara mostly back to his old self, but the most encouraging development on the pitching staff has been the breakout of Max Meyer. After dealing with injuries for the majority of the last few years, he’s posted a 2.52 ERA and a 2.98 FIP in 11 starts this season.

The collapse of the Tigers has been swift. They managed to snap an eight-game losing streak with a win in the second game of a double-header on Sunday, but it was just their third win in 19 games since placing Tarik Skubal on the IL on May 4. Things have gotten so bad in Detroit that Skubal trade rumors have started back up. He’s making an extremely quick recovery from his elbow surgery, and there’s reason to believe he’ll be back on the mound sometime in June. That would give the team about a month or so to really decide if they’re making a run for the playoffs or if they’d be better off trading Skubal and resetting the roster for next year.

Since the Rockies swept the Mets back on April 24–26, they’ve won just seven times in 26 games. That sweep had Colorado sniffing .500, but the team is now 15 games under. Mickey Moniak, the guy who had been leading the offense, was placed on the IL last week with a sprained ankle, and while that isn’t as serious as the elbow strain suffered by Chase Dollander a few weeks ago, the two brightest spots on the Rockies roster are now sidelined.

Last week’s slate of games concluded with Rivalry Weekend, leading to some dramatic games between crosstown and cross-state foes, most notably between the New York teams and the Chicago clubs. Maybe those come-from-behind wins will spark the Mets and White Sox to greater things over the next few weeks.

Our power rankings use a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant ranking format that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds. (Specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%.) The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. As the best and worst teams sort themselves out between now and October, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise remains reactive to hot streaks and cold snaps. If you’re looking for a visual representation of the ups and downs of your team throughout the season, look no further than the brand new Power Rankings Board in the FanGraphs Lab.

First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers with comments on a handful of clubs. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — there are times where I take editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula. Read the rest of this entry »

The current standings between the two leagues are quite lopsided entering the second full week of May. Just three teams in the American League have winning records, while all five clubs in the NL Central are above .500. Then again, that division, which was not supposed to be all that strong entering the season, is doing a lot to prop up the National League as a whole; seven of the remaining 10 teams in the Senior Circuit have losing records.

Our power rankings use a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant ranking format that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds. (Specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%.) The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. As the best and worst teams sort themselves out between now and October, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise remains reactive to hot streaks and cold snaps. If you’re looking for a visual representation of the ups and downs of your team throughout the season, look no further than the brand new Power Rankings Board in the FanGraphs Lab.

First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers with comments on a handful of clubs. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — there are times where I take editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula. Read the rest of this entry »

The Marlins have accumulated the fifth-most WAR of any team from their catchers this year. Their backstops have a collective 133 wRC+ at the position, third highest in baseball. This has been one of the team’s biggest strengths to start this season, so it was a bit of a surprise to see Miami make a pretty significant change at the position earlier this week. On Monday, the Marlins optioned Agustín Ramírez to Triple-A, calling up top catching prospect Joe Mack to take his place on the big league roster. The reason why they felt comfortable making this swap has been the standout play of Liam Hicks, the much less-heralded catcher also in his second big league season.

As Miami’s top overall prospect a year ago, Ramírez spent nearly the entire season in the majors. He put up a .231/.287/.413 slash line (91 wRC+) in 136 games as a rookie. Despite the nearly league-average batting line, he accumulated exactly 0.0 WAR because of some pretty atrocious defensive numbers. Per Statcast, he had the second-lowest Fielding Run Value of any catcher with at least 500 innings at the position. He was actually a slightly above-average pitch framer, but his throwing and blocking grades were the worst in baseball.

Through a month of play this year, Ramírez’s bat hasn’t really taken a step forward; his 86 wRC+ is a hair below what he accomplished last season, though the shape of his production looks a little different. His walk rate is nearly four points higher than it was in 2025, but his power output has cratered thanks to a six-point drop in barrel rate. The defense hasn’t improved either, and so the Marlins sent him back to Triple-A to work on his skills behind the plate. Here’s how manager Clayton McCullough put it on Monday:

“It got to the point where it is performance and felt like, especially on the defensive side of things, that while he put in a lot of good work this offseason and had seen some glimpse of things getting better, that part of his game needs to continue to improve to be able to catch up here for us.”

Read the rest of this entry »

It seems like almost every team in baseball is dealing with some sort of injury crisis right now. Of course, key players are bound to get hurt during the long marathon of the regular season, yet these injuries are still having a considerable impact on both the standings and our evaluations of the affected clubs.

Our power rankings use a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant ranking format that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds. (Specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%.) The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. As the best and worst teams sort themselves out between now and October, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise remains reactive to hot streaks and cold snaps. If you’re looking for a visual representation of the ups and downs of your team throughout the season, look no further than the brand new Power Rankings Board in the FanGraphs Lab.

First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers with comments on a handful of clubs. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — there are times where I take editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula.

…

With a sweep of the Rockies over the weekend, the Braves continued their rampage through the competition. They haven’t lost a series all season long despite facing some significant injury hurdles. Speaking of, Ronald Acuña Jr. was placed on the IL on Sunday with a minor hamstring injury. Thankfully, Sean Murphy and Raisel Iglesias are both on the mend and should be activated off the IL sometime this week.

Aaron Judge and Ben Rice each hit three home runs last week as the Yankees kept setting the pace in the American League. They’ve lost just twice over their last 15 games, and with two key rotation pieces due back from injury soon, it’s possible that they’re about to get even better. Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón could rejoin the team this weekend or early next week to bolster a starting staff that already leads the majors in 4.9 WAR by nearly an entire win. One notable player who won’t be returning to the big league roster is Anthony Volpe, who just completed a rehab assignment after undergoing offseason shoulder surgery. The Yankees activated him on Sunday and immediately optioned him to Triple-A. It’s a pretty big vote of confidence in José Caballero and a pointed message to Volpe to work toward earning his way back to the majors.

All of a sudden, the Dodgers’ bats have gone cold. They scored just 16 runs in their six games last week as they went 2-4 against the Marlins and Cardinals. Their offensive struggles actually go back to mid-April; over their last 13 games, they’ve scored 4.2 runs per game, with two 12-run outbursts skewing things a bit. In their 11 other games since April 21, they’ve scored just 2.7 runs per game. Thankfully, the Los Angeles pitching staff has been pretty dominant; the team has allowed the fewest runs in baseball. I’m sure the Dodgers will break out of this funk sooner or later, but until then, things will continue to be pretty tight atop the NL West.

After completing a sweep of the Giants over the weekend, the Rays have now won nine of their last 10 games and 16 of their last 21. They’re just 1.5 games behind the Yankees in the AL East, and at 21-12, they boast the second-best record in the AL. Yandy Díaz (158 wRC+) and Junior Caminero (133) have enjoyed strong starts to the season, and the starting rotation has the third-lowest ERA- in baseball. This hot streak has helped the Rays bank a bunch of wins, but they might be out over their skis a bit. Their run differential is just +7, and they’ve outperformed both their Pythagorean and BaseRuns records by three games. Driving this unexpected surge is Tampa Bay’s performance in close games; the team has a 7-1 record in one-run games despite a bullpen that ranks just 21st in ERA-. With all that in mind, the Rays are entering a pretty important stretch that could prove whether they are legitimate contenders, as 19 of their next 22 games come against division rivals.

Like the Rays, both the Padres and Cardinals have outperformed their Pythagorean and BaseRuns records by three games. San Diego seems to be getting by thanks to its lockdown bullpen, though you have to wonder what’s going on with Fernando Tatis Jr. He still hasn’t hit a home run this season, with March/April marking the first homerless month of his career. As for St. Louis, the most encouraging part of the season so far has been the progress of its young hitters. Both Jordan Walker and Alec Burleson collected 11 hits and two home runs apiece last week, and JJ Wetherholt is leading all NL rookies in WAR.

The biggest paper tiger of them all has been the Reds. They’ve outperformed their Pythagorean and Base Runs records by a whopping six games. Their three blowout losses last week didn’t help their run differential either. Nick Lodolo is set to be activated off the IL this Friday, which should give the starting rotation a bit of a boost. After getting swept by the Pirates over the weekend, Cincinnati heads to Chicago for a huge four-game divisional battle against the Cubs, beginning Monday night.

The Tigers and A’s treaded water last week, both going 3-3. That was good enough to stay atop their respective divisions, though neither team is really pulling away from the pack. As for the Pirates, they bounced back after a rough four-game sweep at the hands of the Cardinals by sweeping the Reds this past weekend. The NL Central has continued to be the toughest division in baseball; Pittsburgh is tied for last place despite being three games over .500.

The Brewers are the other team at the bottom of the Central, though they have the best run differential in the division. There’s a lot happening on the injury front in Milwaukee. Brandon Woodruff hit the IL with shoulder inflammation last week, and on Friday, Jacob Misiorowski had to depart his start early — he was in the middle of a no-hitter — with a hamstring issue. Thankfully, it sounds like neither issue is very serious. The Brewers should also soon benefit from the return of two key offensive contributors. First baseman Andrew Vaughn is set to be activated off the IL on Monday, and outfielder Jackson Chourio shouldn’t be too far behind, even after he suffered a minor setback when he fouled a ball off his foot on Saturday. Fresh off series wins against the Diamondbacks and Nationals, the Brewers have two tests ahead of them with series against the Cardinals and Yankees this week.

There’s a big group of AL teams hovering around .500 in this tier. Both the Mariners and Rangers went 2-4 last week, sliding another game back in the thoroughly mediocre AL West. The Guardians went 3-3 against the Rays and A’s last week, managing to keep pace with the Tigers in the AL Central. The big news in Cleveland was the promotion of Travis Bazzana on Tuesday; he collected his first big league hit on Saturday and added two more on Sunday. As for the Blue Jays, they went 4-3 last week and are slowly climbing out of their early-season hole. Kazuma Okamoto led the way over the weekend, blasting four home runs in three games against the Twins.

The Phillies became the second team in as many weeks to fire their manager, dismissing Rob Thompson on Tuesday. It’s unclear whether midseason firings truly provide a wake-up call for teams, or if the struggling teams just see some positive regression, but regardless of the cause here, the Phillies started winning under interim manager Don Mattingly. They swept the cratering Giants and then won two of their first three games in a four-game wraparound series against the Marlins. Those four wins last week equaled what Philadelphia had earned across the previous three weeks combined. It’s small progress for a team that’s still hoping to make some noise in the NL Wild Card race this summer.

The Royals got off to a strong start in May, sweeping the Mariners this past weekend. Their star trio of Bobby Witt Jr. (108 wRC+), Maikel Garcia (107), and Vinnie Pasquantino (72) has underperformed at the plate this season, though there have been some signs of life recently. Pasquantino collected five hits and a home run in that series in Seattle, and Garcia had eight hits — five for extra bases — last week. Meanwhile, after catching fire for most of the second half of April, Witt cooled off some last week. Kansas City faces a pretty critical stretch this week, with the Guardians and Tigers coming to town for series that could shuffle up the AL Central standings.

As if things couldn’t get worse for the Red Sox, they placed Garrett Crochet on the IL with shoulder inflammation last week. It doesn’t seem like a serious issue, but the team now has six starters currently out hurt, a group that doesn’t include Ranger Suarez, who exited his start on Sunday in the fifth inning with hamstring tightness. It sounds like Suarez should be fine, but Boston cannot afford to lose anyone else to injury right now.

The White Sox had a five-game winning streak snapped on Sunday, a surge that helped them clamber to within a few games of .500. In fact, they’ve won 10 of their last 15 games, and suddenly look fairly competent as a ballclub. Munetaka Murakami continues to blast home runs, and Colson Montgomery is trying to match him homer for homer. The bigger storyline during this stretch has been the pitching staff. Chicago has allowed just 3.9 runs per game over its last 15 games, with the unheralded Davis Martin leading the way. He’s given up just one run in each of his last three starts.

The Giants just endured a week from hell. They were swept by both the Phillies and Rays, got shutout twice, lost both legs of a doubleheader on Thursday in walk-off fashion, and suffered another walk-off loss on Sunday for good measure. They managed to score just nine runs in six games and did not hit a home run on this road trip. Things are getting ugly in San Francisco, though there are some positives to cling to: Landen Roupp has taken a big step forward (or to the side) on the mound, and Luis Arraez has played surprisingly good defense at second base. Still, a shake-up is desperately needed to get this team back on track. To that end, the Giants are promoting prospects Bryce Eldridge and Jesus Rodriguez on Monday to hopefully jumpstart the offense.

Two more Mets hit the IL last week: Luis Robert Jr. and Ronny Mauricio, bringing the team total to 12. New York did manage to win its series against the hapless Angels over the weekend. The Astros also won their weekend series against the Red Sox, capping things off with an extra-innings win on Sunday. Neither series win should be seen as a triumph, but it’s definitely forward progress for the two beleaguered teams.

Remember when the Angels were playing really entertaining baseball, going toe to toe with the Yankees? They’ve lost 12 of their last 15 games since that series in New York and have fallen all the way to the bottom of the AL standings. To make matters worse, Yusei Kikuchi and Logan O’Hoppe were placed on the IL last week. It’s not all bad: Mike Trout (a 168 wRC+) and Jorge Soler (120) continue to mash, but the supporting cast for those two sluggers has been severely lacking.