With just two weeks left in the regular season, the two Wild Card races look like they’ll be the only source of drama down the stretch. Entering this week, the top team in the closest divisional race has an 87.8% chance to finish in first — that’s the most uncertain winner, according to our playoff odds.

This season, we’ve revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined since March. That’s why we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using 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 solution 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%). 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. Read the rest of this entry »

With three weeks left in the regular season, it looks like there’s just one true playoff chase remaining: the National League Wild Card race. That said, there’s the possibility that the American League Wild Card race could get a lot more interesting if the Twins keep faltering and any of the Tigers, Mariners, or Red Sox get hot. Still, at a time of year when fans are often obsessively scoreboard watching, the lack of tension is disappointing.

This season, we’ve revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined since March. That’s why we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using 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 solution 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 coinflip 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%). 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. Read the rest of this entry »

As we enter the final month of the season, there are a handful of clubs on the edge of the playoff picture whose play of late has made a few of the postseason races fairly exciting as the 2024 campaign winds down.

This season, we’ve revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined since March. That’s why we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using 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 solution 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 coinflip 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%). 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. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re very quickly approaching the final month of the season and no team has really pulled away from the pack. Still, the playoff races are pretty settled, with just a handful of teams remaining on the fringes. The division races should provide all the drama down the stretch.

This season, we’ve revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined since March. That’s why we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using 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 solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. Read the rest of this entry »

If it’s parity you’re looking for, consider this: 10 of the top 11 teams in these rankings are separated by just 4.5 games in the major league standings, and the odd team out has been the hottest ballclub in baseball over the last two weeks. While no team is currently on pace to win 100 games, the bunching in the standings should make for some very exciting playoff races down the stretch.

This season, we’ve revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined since March. That’s why we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using 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 solution 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%). 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 — I’ve taken some 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 »

With the trade deadline behind us, we’ve entered the dog days of summer as the contending teams vie for position in the playoff races ahead of the September stretch run.

This season, we’ve revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined since March. That’s why we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using 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 solution 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%). 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. Read the rest of this entry »

The trade deadline is just a day away and there have already been plenty of moves. The Rays’ sell-off has shaken up the market, and a number of the teams on the fringe of the playoff race could join Tampa Bay as sellers. Meanwhile, the playoff field in the National League hasn’t thinned out much, and the American League Wild Card race should be just as exciting down the stretch.

This season, we’ve revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined since March. That’s why we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using 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 solution 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 coinflip 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%). 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 — I’ve taken some 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.

…

The Dodgers started off the second half of the season with a sweep of the Red Sox and a series win against the Giants before dropping two of three to the Astros last weekend. Thanks to the struggles of the other teams around them in these rankings, that was good enough to leap to the top of the pile. The Dodgers haven’t made a big move ahead of this week’s trade deadline yet, but they did just activate Clayton Kershaw off the IL. Even though they’re slowly getting healthier, they could use some additional depth to help reinforce a thin roster.

The Phillies have stumbled out of the gate following the All-Star break, losing three straight series to the Pirates, Twins, and Guardians. They’re still well ahead of the Braves and Mets in the NL East and still possess the best record in baseball, but they’re looking for ways to improve their roster for the stretch run and the postseason. That led them to acquire Austin Hays from the Orioles and Carlos Estévez from the Angels last week, providing their outfield and bullpen with a little more depth.

The Guardians have have the best record in the AL, a feat they’ve accomplished with the youngest roster in the majors. They just won a big series against the Phillies, showing they can hang with the best teams in baseball with their current roster, but they’re on the hunt for a few key additions to solidify their place as one of the top teams in the majors. Their starting rotation looks particularly thin and they could probably use one more bat, but it’s unclear how much of their shopping list they’ll be able to check off as they hurtle towards the deadline.

The Orioles were aggressive in bringing in reinforcements for their pitching staff, adding Zach Eflin and Seranthony Domínguez in a pair of deals. With such a deep farm system, they have the prospects to continue adding if they feel the need. After stumbling into the All-Star break, they haven’t really turned things around in the week and a half since the layoff, losing five of nine games. They’ll be fine in the long run and will most likely secure a postseason berth, but the real question is if they can maintain their grip on the AL East without additional reinforcements.

Finishing off a series win against their old rivals on Sunday may be just the spark the Yankees need to turn their season around. They also traded for Jazz Chisholm Jr. on Saturday to give Aaron Judge and Juan Soto some support. Chisholm’s flexibility gives New York some options. He could play center, alleviating the need to play Judge at the most important position in the outfield, or he could play second or even third to cover one of the holes on the infield. No matter where he ends up playing, there’s still plenty of work to do to fill the other gaps in New York’s lineup. The Yanks haven’t shied away from being aggressive in the recent past and they probably shouldn’t this year either.

The Brewers might have avoided the worst-case scenario when Christian Yelich said that he was going to try and work through his latest back injury with rest and rehab rather than season-ending surgery. They aren’t out of the woods yet, as that route holds no guarantees, but there’s at least a chance that he could return sometime this summer to anchor their lineup. As for their trade deadline plans, it seems like they’re more likely to add around the margins to deepen their roster. Their latest move — adding Nick Mears to their bullpen — follows that plan exactly. They also activated Devin Williams off the IL yesterday, hopefully giving their already solid relief corps another boost.

The Padres have started off the second half of the season on a hot streak, winning seven of their nine games, including a gem of a no-hitter from Dylan Cease last week. With the Diamondbacks hot on their heels in the standings and a big series against the Dodgers starting on Tuesday, they’re in position to continue making trades if they can find the right suitors. They already added Jason Adam to their bullpen and appear to be in the market for even more pitching.

The Padres are feeling the pressure because the Diamondbacks have been almost as hot to start the second half. The Snakes are 14-8 in July and haven’t lost a series since late June. Ketel Marte and Christian Walker have been carrying most of the load, but there are signs that Corbin Carroll might be breaking out of his season-long funk; he’s got a pair of home runs since the All-Star break to go along with the pair he hit on July 13.

For a very brief moment, the Mets actually surpassed the Braves in the standings after a pair of wins against Atlanta on Thursday and Friday. With Kodai Senga making his season debut in the second victory, things were looking up for New York. A pair of losses and a season-ending calf injury to Senga later, and it’s back to square one. The Mets did acquire Jesse Winker from the Nationals on Sunday, but their position in the NL Wild Card race feels pretty precarious if they don’t continue adding talent to their roster.

Atlanta’s two victories on Saturday and Sunday against the Mets snapped a six-game losing streak. With both Ozzie Albies and Max Fried sidelined by pretty serious injuries last week, the Braves have been unable to shake the bad injury luck that has followed them throughout the season.

With the Yankees and Twins holding the top two Wild Card spots in the AL, it seems likely the final spot will end up going to one of the Royals, Red Sox, or Mariners — or maybe the Astros if Seattle somehow retakes the top spot in the AL West. None of those four teams are playing all that well right now: Kansas City lost both of its series last week, Boston has won just twice since the All-Star break, and while Seattle just swept the White Sox, it came on the heels of getting swept by the Angels.

The M’s have been one of the most aggressive teams heading into the trade deadline, acquiring Randy Arozarena and Yimi García, and they’re not done yet. They have two potential paths to the playoffs, giving them more opportunities to find a way into the postseason, and the strength of their rotation gives them a big incentive to try and really go for it this year. Meanwhile, the Royals and Red Sox have made just a few moves on the margins of their rosters so far: Boston welcomed back James Paxton and added Danny Jansen, while Kansas City acquired Michael Lorenzen to help cover innings down the stretch.

Even though the Rays are two games over .500 and just a game and a half behind the Mariners in the Wild Card race, they’re busy tearing down their roster. The optics may look a little weird, but the math checks out: The Rays had a very narrow path to the postseason, and with so few true sellers, they’ve been able restock their farm system with a number of high-value prospects without significantly damaging their outlook in 2025 or ‘26. They’ve already moved Arozarena, Isaac Paredes, Eflin, and Adam, and there are likely more moves coming.

The rest of the teams in this tier still have a small chance of making a miracle run into the playoffs, but they might be better served by focusing on next year and taking a page out of the Rays’ playbook. If any of these clubs decide to tear things down, the trade market could really open up. None of these teams have had that much success in the week and a half since the All-Star break, either; the Giants mopped the Rockies and the Blue Jays swept the Rangers over the weekend to bring their second half records to 6-5 and 5-4, respectively, while Texas and Detroit have both gone 5-5.

The Cubs were the surprising winners of the Isaac Paredes sweepstakes, though they gave up a good amount to get him. Even though Paredes has the longer track record and Chicago seemed exasperated by Christopher Morel’s defensive miscues, it’s not immediately clear that the Cubs actually improved their roster with Paredes and they had to part with two prospects to boot. It’s an interesting move — it’s almost certainly one made with an eye towards the future, even though it looks and smells like a move that a buyer would make.

The Athletics have gone 14-8 in July, tied for the best record in baseball this month. Thanks to some scheduling weirdness, eight of those wins have come against the Angels. It also seems like Oakland won’t be a big seller at the deadline; Mason Miller hurt himself in the training room last week, and the A’s have indicated they might want to hold onto Brent Rooker too. They’ve got a bunch of secondary pieces they could part with, but those won’t really move the needle all that much.

Earlier this year, the White Sox lost 14 games in a row, breaking a franchise record. They’re now in the midst of their second 14-game losing streak, with a chance to break that franchise record for the second time in just a few months. They’ve won exactly 25% of their games and are back on pace to set the modern record for losses in a single season. Plus, their roster is about to get a lot worse as they ship out all their veterans ahead of the deadline.

The Mariners have suffered through a pretty terrible stretch over the last five or so weeks. After blowing a 10-game lead in the AL West during a 24-game span — the quickest that any team has ever surrendered such a large divisional lead — they enter play Friday a game behind the first-place Astros and 3.5 games out of the final AL Wild Card spot. Over their last 30 games, they’ve gone 10-20 and have scored a measly 3.4 runs per game while their pitching staff has allowed the fewest runs in the American League. Things got worse earlier this week, when they were swept by the Angels and lost both Julio Rodríguez and J.P. Crawford to injuries. Rodríguez sprained his right ankle and there is no timetable for his return; Crawford, who fractured his right pinky, is expected to miss 4-6 weeks. Even before those two core pieces of the beleaguered lineup landed on the injured list, Seattle desperately needed an infusion of talent onto their roster.

With that need exacerbated by those two injuries, the M’s wasted very little time making their first addition ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline: On Thursday night, they acquired outfielder Randy Arozarena from the Rays. In exchange, Tampa Bay received minor league outfielder Aidan Smith (40 FV), right-handed pitcher Brody Hopkins (45+ FV), and a player to be named later. Dan Szymborski put together a hypothetical version of this trade just a few days ago and nailed all the broad strokes: The Mariners got the offensive upgrade they needed and the Rays got some really interesting prospects that they can now sculpt.

The former AL Rookie of the Year and All-Star got off to a agonizingly slow start to the season; through the first month of play, he was slashing .143/.220/.241 with three home runs, a strikeout rate just a hair below 30%, and a 37 wRC+. He started to pull himself out of his slump in May (104 wRC+) but was still underperforming. Since June 1, though, he’s been one of the hottest hitters in the league, putting together a .284/.397/.507 slash line with seven home runs and a 161 wRC+ across 179 plate appearances.

As Jay Jaffe noted back in April when he checked in on Arozarena’s woes, and then again during his replacement level killers series last week, “Rays hitting coach Chad Mottola had expressed the belief that Arozarena’s desire to use the whole field more often, in an effort to make himself an even better hitter, may have backfired.”

That change in approach might be related to his diminished contact rate early in the season, particularly on pitches in the strike zone.

His rebound in June and July aligns pretty clearly with his ability to put the bat on the ball when pitchers leave their pitches over the plate. And thankfully, almost all of his other plate discipline metrics are either improved or within range of his established norms.

He’s still making excellent swing decisions at the plate — his SEAGER is in the 84th percentile among all batters this year — and his batted ball metrics are as solid as ever. That two-month funk to start the season is dragging his overall offensive line way down, but make no mistake, it certainly appears as though Arozarena has put those struggles behind him.

He’ll immediately slot into the middle of the Mariners lineup as their regular left fielder and will give them a potent bat to help protect Rodríguez whenever he returns while providing dynamic run production himself. Perhaps more importantly for Seattle, Arozarena won’t reach free agency until 2027; he’s making $8.1 million this season, his second year of arbitration. The organization has developed a mostly homegrown rotation that has emerged as one of the best in the majors, but over the last few years, the Mariners have been reluctant to use free agency to improve their lineup. That makes it imperative for the front office to be aggressive on the trade market to acquire impact batters who can help the Mariners not just this season but throughout this competitive window, before their group of pitchers either breaks down or becomes too expensive to keep together. Arozarena boosts this lineup now and in the future.

For the Rays, this trade comes at an interesting time. They’re actually only a half game behind the M’s in the AL Wild Card standings and their pitching staff is getting a lot healthier. Shane Baz just came back from his Tommy John rehab earlier this month, Jeffrey Springs should be returning to the majors within a week or so, and Drew Rasmussen isn’t that far behind Springs. Tampa Bay has been hovering on the edge of the AL playoff picture for nearly the entire season, but a late-season surge wouldn’t have been out of the question. By moving Arozarena at this point in the season, the Rays have indicated that they’re more interested in ensuring they’re set up well for the future than in hoping for a long-shot playoff run over the next few months.

The timing also says a lot about what they think of the prospects they’re getting in this deal. Arozarena’s escalating salary now that he’s in the middle of his arbitration seasons had made him an obvious trade candidate this year, but the Rays could have waited until the offseason to move him if they didn’t like the players they were getting in return. That they acted now indicates they liked this package enough to pounce on it five days before the trade deadline. On the very fresh Mariners prospect list that Eric Longenhagen recently put together, Hopkins was ranked seventh and Smith 21st.

In a Seattle organization that is notorious for helping pitchers develop into the best versions of themselves, Longenhagen called Hopkins the most exciting pitching prospect in the system. He’s a converted outfielder who was selected in the sixth round of last year’s amateur draft and is still very new to pitching. He’s got a low-slot release with some deception in his mechanics, and that arm slot creates a ton of ride and life on his mid-90s heater and gives him a wipeout slider that flashes plus. He still needs to develop a third pitch to flesh out his repertoire to reach his ceiling as a mid-rotation starter, but even if he doesn’t, he appears to have a pretty nice floor as a two-pitch high-leverage reliever. He’s already 22 years old, which makes him pretty old for Single-A, where the Mariners had placed him in their organization, but as he gains development time as a pitcher, he should move quickly up the ladder.

As for Smith, he was Seattle’s fourth-round pick in last year’s draft and has hit very well in his brief professional career. A prep selection out of Texas, he’s an athletic outfielder with plenty of speed to stick in center field. He was slashing .284/.402/.470 at Single-A Modesto, and it looks like he had made the necessary adjustments to his swing to improve his feel for contact. He’s a ways away from the majors, but his physical projection and successful start to his minor league career were both intriguing enough for Tampa Bay to take a chance on him.

Even with Arozarena in the fold, the Mariners should not be done adding to their roster. Their offensive issues are too deep to be solved by one player. Even after moving Hopkins and Smith, Seattle has enough highly regarded prospects available to move for another big splash. They’ve been linked to Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. over the last few days — both would be significant upgrades to the black holes the Mariners are running out at second and first base this year. Given the Mariners’ place in the standings and the state of their roster and farm system, this move for Arozarena should not preclude them from continuing to improve their offense over the next few days.

Over the past week, some of baseball’s top teams stumbled their way into the All-Star break while a chunk of fringe contenders ended the first half with encouraging results.

This season, we’ve revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined since March. That’s why we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using 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 solution 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 coinflip 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%.) 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 — I’ve taken some 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.

…

The Phillies began the final week of the first half on the highest of notes — they swept the Dodgers behind a pitching staff that held the mighty Los Angeles offense to just five runs across the three-game series. Unfortunately, Philadelphia followed up that triumph with a series loss to the lowly A’s that included an 18-3 blowout on Sunday. Zack Wheeler was scratched from his scheduled start with a minor back injury and Ranger Suárez is also dealing with back tightness. Their ailments will keep both starters from pitching in the All-Star Game, though they’re expected to recover in time to make their next scheduled starts. Regardless of how the week ended, the Phillies carry baseball’s best record into the break and are a cut above the rest of the contenders.

Entering the final weekend of the first half, the Orioles had a chance to pull further ahead of the sputtering Yankees in the AL East standings. Sure, Baltimore had just been swept by the Cubs, but it still held a two-game lead in the division ahead of its three-game series against New York at Camden Yards. Instead, the O’s barely avoided suffering another sweep, which would have dropped them to second place. Down to their final out after Craig Kimbrel had coughed up the lead in the top of the inning, the Orioles scored three unearned runs on a costly error, by Gold Glove shortstop Anthony Volpe, and a misplayed fly ball, by Alex Verdugo, to beat New York in walk-off fashion. It was a terrible loss for the Yankees during an especially brutal month of games; their 8-18 record since June 15 is the worst mark in the majors. And yet, for as awful as they’ve played, the Yankees finished the first half just a game behind the Orioles. The AL East race is going to be quite the treat down the stretch.

Baltimore wasn’t the only AL division leader to limp into the All-Star break. The Guardians lost both of their series last week and are now just 4.5 games ahead of the Twins in the AL Central.

In a pretty big battle for the final AL Wild Card spot last weekend, the Red Sox emerged triumphant in two of their three games against the Royals. Rafael Devers has been on fire this month, but he’s getting a lot of help from Jarren Duran and a surprising breakout from Connor Wong. Boston finished the first half as one of the hottest teams in baseball, winning 18 of its final 25 games entering the break. That 18-7 record since June 15 is the best in the majors across that span. That said, the Sox have a pretty formidable schedule ahead of them; they’ll open the second half with nine of their next 10 series against teams in the middle of the playoff hunt.

The Braves went 4-3 last week, winning a weekend series against the Padres to tighten their grip on the top NL Wild Card spot.

After being swept by the Phillies, the Dodgers traveled to Detroit and were walked off twice in their weekend series with the Tigers. On Saturday, the bullpen squandered a five-run lead in the ninth before losing the game in the 10th. Then on Sunday, a pair of errors by pitcher Yohan Ramírez on back-to-back sacrifice bunts allowed the winning run to score. That loss dropped Los Angeles to 5-10 over its last 15 games, the second-worst record in the National League since June 28. Yet, despite the recent woes, the Dodgers still hold a seven-game lead in the NL West.

The Astros, Brewers, and Twins all wobbled their way into the All-Star break; Houston lost a series to the Rangers, Milwaukee salvaged a single win against the Nationals on Sunday, and Minnesota got tripped up against the Giants.

The Mets won five in a row last week before that streak was snapped on Sunday. Still, those wins carried them into the final Wild Card spot, a game ahead of the Diamondbacks and Padres. Francisco Lindor is once again proving just how much he deserves to be an All-Star despite not being selected to the roster in any of his four seasons with the Mets. Since the beginning of June, Lindor has posted a 155 wRC+, and overall, he’s slashing .253/.329/.454; among NL shortstops, he is tied for first in home runs (17), fourth in wRC+ (125), and second in WAR (4.2). Brandon Nimmo has been even better during this prolonged stretch (172 wRC+), and he won’t be joining the festivities in Texas either.

With a pair of doubleheaders, the Cardinals wound up playing six games in five days last week. They lost both games Wednesday against the intrastate-rival Royals and split their four-game series with the suddenly hot Cubs over the weekend. Despite those lackluster results, St. Louis pulled within 4.5 games of the NL Central lead because of the Brewers’ recent struggles.

After showing some signs of life with 8-3 and 11-0 victories early last week, the Mariners fell back to their familiar, frustrating inconsistencies with three straight one-run losses against the Angels to close the first half. Less than a month ago, on June 18, Seattle held a 10-game lead in the AL West. Now, the M’s enter the break barely clinging to a one-game advantage over the second-place Astros.

The Royals may have lost their series to the Red Sox over the weekend, but they were one of the early movers in the trade market, acquiring Hunter Harvey from the Nationals on Saturday to bolster their bullpen. The relief corps has been a particularly glaring weak spot for Kansas City, but more importantly, the deal signals that the organization is looking to aggressively buy before the deadline in an attempt to take advantage of this surprisingly successful season.

The Diamondbacks had an encouraging finish to their mostly disappointing first half, splitting their series with the Braves early last week and then winning two of three against the Blue Jays over the weekend. With Friday night’s win, Arizona went above .500 for the first time since early April; at 49-48, the D-backs are tied with the Padres in the NL Wild Card standings, just a game behind the Mets for the final playoff berth. Meanwhile, San Diego won just once last week and lost its grip on a playoff spot in the process. The good news is that Xander Bogaerts was activated off the IL on Friday and hopefully can provide a boost to the Friars down the stretch.

The Pirates won a big series against the Brewers last week before sweeping the White Sox over the weekend. Those five wins pushed Pittsburgh’s record back to .500 for the first time since April, and the team sits just a game and a half back in the NL Wild Card race. Of course, the most exciting member of the Pirates is rookie right-hander Paul Skenes, who was selected to start for the NL in Tuesday’s All-Star Game. His sheer dominance just might keep the Pirates in the playoff picture for at least another few weeks and force the organization to make some difficult decisions about whether it wants to push for the postseason or stay the course and continue its rebuild for yet another year.

These six teams have been hanging around the margins of the playoff picture for most of the season, and all of them finished off the first half with some really encouraging results.

The Rays scrambled back to .500 with critical series wins against the Yankees and Guardians last week, though because Boston has been so hot recently, Tampa Bay and the rest of these AL fringe teams still have long odds to make a run at a Wild Card berth. For the Rangers, that possibly means selling off a few of their expendable players at the trade deadline. Texas managed to win its weekend series against the Astros, but the path to the playoffs for the defending champs is crowded and might be too tough to follow. The Tigers took three of four from the Guardians and two of three against the Dodgers last week, but Detroit faces an even longer and more difficult road than the other AL clubs in this tier.

For the Cubs, Giants, and Reds, there’s still plenty of hope that they can make a run over the next few months. Both Cincinnati and Chicago went 5-2 last week to pull within striking distance of the final NL Wild Card spot; the Reds are three games out, while the Cubs are 3.5 back. San Francisco didn’t have as good of a week as those other two teams, but Blake Snell turned in a brilliant start after being activated off the IL on Sunday. Still, of this trio of NL fringe contenders, the Giants have the best odds to make the playoffs.

The Blue Jays haven’t committed to selling or standing pat yet, but their series loss to the Diamondbacks over the weekend didn’t do much to encourage them to try and stick in the playoff race. The decision to trade away some of their best players could significantly alter the fortunes of their franchise, but it seems more likely that they’ll just retool a bit and try to come back competitive next year.

Despite flirting with the NL Wild Card race a month ago, the Nationals announced their intention to sell at the deadline when they traded reliever Hunter Harvey to the Royals on Saturday. That’s wise, because in a seller’s market, Washington has a handful of players who would be very enticing acquisitions for contending clubs. Yes, selling is a bummer, but considering the development of young talents such as James Wood and CJ Abrams, it might not be too long before the Nats are deadline buyers once again.

The A’s added another gigantic offensive outburst to their ledger this year with an 18-3 drubbing of the Phillies on Sunday. They scored 19 against the Orioles just a few weeks ago and 20 against the Marlins on May 4. Of course, that means they’ve scored just 3.5 runs per game in the other 95 they’ve played so far. Still, there are some positive signs from their offense, including Brent Rooker’s continued breakout and a red hot Lawrence Butler.

With his home run on Sunday, Brenton Doyle has already blasted eight dingers in July, and he’s looking more and more like a core player the Rockies can build around. His defensive prowess has already made him one of the more valuable center fielders in the game, but now he’s hitting and hitting for power, giving Colorado an all-around talent at a premium position. That should give Rockies fans some hope as they suffer through yet another disappointing season.

These next few weeks should go a long way towards separating the wheat from the chaff in the postseason race. For the teams on the fringe of the playoff picture, a timely hot streak could convince them to upgrade at the trade deadline, while a cold snap could push them into seller mode. With the All-Star break looming, it’s time for some serious introspection as teams gear up for the stretch run.

This season, we’ve revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined since March. That’s why we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using 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 solution 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 coinflip 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%). 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. Read the rest of this entry »