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.

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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.

May is just around the corner, which means that some of the early-season slumps and hot streaks we’ve seen around the league are starting to take on a bit more meaning. For a few struggling would-be contenders, drastic measures might be needed in order to turn things around.

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 »

When the Cubs signed Nico Hoerner to a six-year contract extension on Opening Day, they knew exactly what they were getting. You see, Hoerner has been remarkably consistent throughout his career; over his four full seasons in the majors, his wRC+ has had a peak of 109 and a low of 102, to go along with sterling defensive metrics. His seasonal WAR marks during that four-year span have ranged from 3.8 to 4.8. The only reason why this isn’t a five-season sample is because, in 2021, three separate IL stints curtailed his campaign to just 44 games. In those 44 games, though, he put up a 106 wRC+ and 1.6 WAR.

However, the Nico Hoerner that has showed up to play this year isn’t the same as before. He’s still playing excellent defense at an up-the-middle position, but he’s also rocking a .320/.393/.515 slash line (a 156 wRC+) with four home runs, meaning that in just 24 games, he’s already nearly halfway to his career high of 10, set back in 2022. Last week, he racked up nine hits, two home runs, and two stolen bases to earn NL Player of the Week honors. It’s still early in the season, but there are enough underlying changes in Hoerner’s performance that it’s worth digging into how he’s been able to power up this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Before we get into the power rankings proper, I wanted to highlight a new tool in the FanGraphs Lab: the Power Rankings Board. As you can guess, it’s a leaderboard showing Elo ratings, playoff odds, and Power Scores for every team. It includes a date filter, so you can look up the power rankings on any date over the last five years — our Elo rating data goes back to the start of 2022. There’s also a graph mode to help you visualize the ups and downs of your team throughout the season.

Inspired by the emoji on Ben Clemens’ Hot Streak tool, I’ve also included some emojis in this table to show which teams are on a hot or cold streak or are facing particularly tough or easy stretch of opponents.

I’ll be referencing this tool throughout the season. I hope you enjoy!

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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 throughout the season, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise will remain reactive to hot streaks or cold snaps.

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.

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The Dodgers have company in this top tier. The Braves just completed a weekend sweep of the Phillies and have already opened up a five-game lead in the NL East. After a slow-ish start, Austin Riley has started to heat up over these last few weeks; he blasted three home runs last week and has collected multiple hits in six of his last 11 games. After a couple of down seasons, the Atlanta offense looks a lot like the dominant 2023 group, and that’s thanks to some bounce-backs from Riley, Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II, and some surprise production from guys like Dominic Smith and Mauricio Dubón.

As for the Dodgers, they swept the Mets earlier in the week before losing two games in a row in Colorado over the weekend. The big concern is Edwin Díaz’s arm. He made his first appearance since April 10 on Sunday and allowed three runs to give away the lead in the eighth inning. His velocity was down a couple of ticks, and suddenly, the guy the Dodgers brought in to stabilize a shaky bullpen is himself facing some mounting issues.

Mason Miller picked up his league-leading eighth save on Sunday, though he only struck out two, pushing his FIP up a few points to -1.11. It was a return to form for Miller after he allowed just his second hit and second walk of the season in his appearance on Saturday — there was a man in scoring position against him before he shut the door! With so much elite pitching in the league these days, the idea of a reliever winning the Cy Young is farfetched, but Miller is quickly off to one of the strongest starts for a relief pitcher in history. His dominance is a big reason why the Padres are just a half-game behind the Dodgers in the NL West.

Aaron Judge isn’t leading the Yankees offense right now. That honor is currently held by Ben Rice, with his .338/.476/.800 (a 245 wRC+) slash line. He’s hit a home run in four straight games. Not to be out done, Judge cracked five homers last week, including four in a four-game series against the Angels — Mike Trout hit five of his own in that series — in a fantastic display of slugging. After a rough sweep in Tampa Bay to close out the previous week, the Yankees look like they’ve righted the ship with five wins in their last seven games.

Move aside AL East, the NL Central looks like the toughest division in baseball right now. All five teams in that division are above .500, and both the Cubs and Cardinals are riding five-game winning streaks.

Chicago’s injury woes continued last week, as the team placed closer Daniel Palencia on the IL with a strained oblique. No matter. The offense carried the load in a series win against the Phillies and a sweep of the Mets. The lineup scored double-digit runs in three straight games and completed a come-from-behind extra-innings victory on Sunday. The guys leading the offense? Nico Hoerner (159 wRC+) and Carson Kelly (160), just like the Cubs drew it up.

With a strong performance last week, the Reds pulled into sole possession of first place in the Central, though it certainly looks like they’re a little out over their skis with a -8 run differential. They’ve banked so many wins in spite of their underlying metrics because they’re already 6-0 in one-run games. To wit, Cincinnati’s bullpen has the best ERA in baseball, at 2.31, with Emilio Pagán, Tony Santillan, and Graham Ashcraft forming a potent, if unheralded, trio of high-leverage arms.

The Tigers were the latest team to sign one of their top prospects to a massive contract, agreeing to an eight-year, $150 million deal with Kevin McGonigle on Wednesday. He’s been one of the best hitters on a Detroit team that had been scuffling to start the season. Things turned around last week, though, when the Tigers rattled off six straight wins by sweeping the Marlins and Royals, and then won two of three against the Red Sox over the weekend in a series that concludes on Monday. With the second-best run differential in the AL, Detroit is now just a half-game behind the Guardians in the Central.

Parker Messick came within three outs of securing the year’s first no-hitter on Thursday. Along with Gavin Williams, the Guardians have two phenomenal starters leading their rotation; Messick is fourth in baseball with a 1.05 ERA, and Williams is 13th with a 2.12 ERA. On the other side of the ball, José Ramírez is finally heating up at the plate; he launched two home runs on Sunday, his third and fourth of the week, and he’s collected multiple hits in six of his last 11 games.

The Brewers bounced back from a rough stretch to win both of their series last week. Despite a 12-9 record, they’re currently tied with the Cubs for last place in the NL Central, owing to the aforementioned strength of that division. For those of you wondering if Brice Turang could repeat last year’s power breakout in 2026, he’s done so emphatically through the first month of the season. He’s taken another step forward with his contact quality and is currently slugging .571 with a 180 wRC+.

The Twins have slipped back to .500 after getting swept by the Reds last weekend. Minnesota is getting some excellent production from a couple of young starters acquired last July; Taj Bradley has allowed just five total runs across his five phenomenal starts, and Mick Abel has tossed two scoreless outings in a row, including a seven-inning, 10-strikeout gem last Tuesday against the Red Sox. With Pablo López out for the season, finding two mid-rotation starters from the pile of players brought into the organization during last summer’s sell-off would be a huge positive development for the franchise.

Who needs Jackson Holliday when you’ve got Jeremiah Jackson holding down the fort at second base? The Orioles utility infielder has done an admirable job filling in for Holliday while the young phenom rehabs from his hamate surgery. Jackson collected nine hits last week and blasted four home runs — and he took his first walk of the season on Sunday! At this rate, Baltimore will have to find a spot to play him when Holliday wraps up his rehab assignment, which could be as soon as next week.

The five clubs in this tier are really testing whether or not Dan Szymborski was right to say that pennants can be lost in April. The woes of the Mets have overshadowed the Phillies’ rough start to the season. With the worst run differential in baseball, Philadelphia is fourth in the NL East and just 1 1/2 games ahead of the floundering Mets. Phillies pitchers have been hit pretty hard, and the offense has been really slow to get going. Zack Wheeler is on track to be activated off the IL this weekend, and the hope is that he can stabilize the shaky starting rotation.

Things have quickly spiraled out of control for the Mets. They lost their 11th game in a row on Sunday, and it’s easy to see why: They’ve been shut out three times, scored four or more runs just twice, and totaled just 19 runs during this losing streak. Jared Young, one of the only hitters who was producing, was placed on the IL last Monday with a torn meniscus, and Jorge Polanco joined him later in the week. Mercifully, Juan Soto is expected to return from his calf injury sometime this week, and the Mets desperately need him to provide a spark for the offense.

The Astros earned a couple of hard-fought wins against the Rockies last week, but were subsequently swept by the Cardinals over the weekend. With a pitching staff absolutely ravaged by injuries, Spencer Arrighetti’s six-inning start on Wednesday had to have been a breath of fresh air. It was just the second time in 13 games that an Astros starter has completed six innings. Yordan Alvarez is doing everything in his power to carry the team on his back; he’s collected 14 hits over his last 10 games, including six home runs, but given the pitching woes, his production hasn’t been enough.

I’m not sure if the Angels are good or not, but they’ve certainly been entertaining to watch. The slugfest between Trout and Judge in New York was a bit surreal to watch — two future Hall of Famers matching each other home run for home run, one looking to get back to his previous level of production and the other securely in his prime. And there was Oswald Peraza getting some measure of revenge against his former team; he collected five hits and two home runs in that series. Peraza’s performance has been a pleasant surprise this year; he’s sporting a 147 wRC+ so far.

The Rockies have looked like a competent ball club from time to time this year. That’s more than could be said for them last year. Some clutch hitting earned them two wins against the Dodgers last weekend, and they have a shot at a series win in the final game of the four-game wraparound series on Monday. The most surprising performance has come from Antonio Senzatela; he allowed his first run of the season on Sunday. With a 32.7% strikeout rate and a 1.39 FIP, he has been fantastic in his reinvention as a reliever this year. And it’s not just Senzatela. Colorado’s relief corps ranks third in the majors in park- and league-adjusted ERA (69).

Over the last week and a half, the Blue Jays have placed Alejandro Kirk, Addison Barger, and George Springer on the IL with maladies of varying severity. With Anthony Santander already out for the season after undergoing shoulder surgery in February, that’s four players from the starting lineup who have been sidelined just a few weeks into the season. No matter how well constructed the roster is, that amount of talent missing would strain the depth of any team in baseball. To alleviate some of that stress, the Blue Jays acquired infielder Lenyn Sosa from the White Sox on Monday. Chicago received minor league outfielder Jordan Rich and a player to be named later or cash considerations.

In 2025, Sosa led the White Sox in home runs and hit for a 100 wRC+. It was a career-best season for the utility infielder, driven by a slight uptick in bat speed and a corresponding improvement in contact quality. He set career highs in average exit velocity, EV90, maximum exit velocity, pulled AIR%, hard-hit rate, and barrel rate.

Despite the louder and more potent contact off the bat, the limiting factor in Sosa’s profile at the plate is a hyper-aggressive approach. His 3.3% walk rate was the second lowest among all qualified batters last year. He swings aggressively early and often and has good enough bat-to-ball skills that he can put the ball in play before getting too deep in the count. Just 4.8% of the pitches he saw last year came in three-ball counts, the 10th-lowest rate among all 419 batters who saw at least 500 pitches. Because his production is so dependent on batted balls, he can be pretty streaky. To wit, he’s collected just eight hits in 34 plate appearances this year and has yet to draw a walk. (He went 1-for-1 in his Blue Jays debut on Tuesday.) Read the rest of this entry »

It seems like every team is dealing with serious injuries to start the season. Maybe that’s why there isn’t much daylight in the standings yet. Every team has won at least six games so far, with most clubs huddled right around .500.

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 throughout the season, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise will remain reactive to hot streaks or cold snaps.

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 »

We’re less than two weeks into the regular season, which means we have less than a dozen games for each team to overanalyze. Even though we should hold off on jumping to any conclusions about an individual’s performance during the first week and half, the wins and losses at the team level count the same as they do in September. Logic tells us that it’s too early to get too worried about a slow start, but as Dan Szymborski wrote on Friday, “Yes, Pennants Can Be Lost in April.”

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 throughout the season, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise will remain reactive to hot streaks or cold snaps.

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.

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Opening Day is upon us! Yesterday, I laid out what the best- and worst-case scenarios looked like for the 12 teams projected to finish under .500 in 2026. Today, we turn our attention to the teams in the league who are forecast for a .500 or better record, the ones we expect to be vying for playoff position all season long.

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. For these Opening Day rankings, I’ve pulled the Depth Charts projections and calculated an implied Elo ranking for each team. First up are the full rankings presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams we’re covering today into tiers, with comments on each club. The delta column in the table below shows the change in ranking from the pre-spring training run of the power rankings in February.

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