We’re now two months into the season, and the differences between the haves and the have-nots are becoming a little clearer with each week. That’s especially true in the American League, where a four-game gap separates the Mariners and the Red Sox, the sixth and seventh teams in the league standings. Meanwhile, in the National League, a pretty sizable group of teams is chasing the last two Wild Card spots, with eight or nine teams potentially vying for those playoff berths as the season continues.

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 »

Several preseason favorites are sliding down these rankings as we barrel toward the third month of the season, while other clubs — most notably the Guardians — are continuing their surprisingly strong starts.

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.

All power rankings stats, including team records, are updated through Sunday’s games. The information included in the comments are current as of Tuesday morning. Read the rest of this entry »

The various division races are starting to shape up now that we’ve passed the quarter pole in the regular season. The Astros finally woke up from their early season slumber, reminding us that it’s still not too late for some of these disappointing teams to make a run into the playoff picture.

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 Yankees leapt to the top of these rankings with sweeps of the Twins and White Sox last week. They’ve now won seven straight and 13 of their last 15. Juan Soto and Aaron Judge are powering the offense as expected — along with a resurgent Giancarlo Stanton — but the most impressive part of this hot streak has been their pitching staff. During this stretch, New York has allowed just 2.4 runs per game and gave up a total of six runs last week. The entire starting rotation has stepped up in Gerrit Cole’s absence, with Clarke Schmidt and Luis Gil representing the two biggest surprises.

The Phillies stretched their division lead over the Braves to five games with a wild series win against the Mets and a sweep of the Nationals last week. It’s true Philadelphia has played the weakest schedule of any team thus far — it faced the Braves in the first series of the season and hasn’t met a team with a record over .500 since then — but the Phillies are banking enough wins now that it might not matter if they come back down to earth once the schedule toughens up.

While Elly De La Cruz may have stolen the spotlight on Thursday in Los Angeles, the Dodgers won the final three games of their series against the Reds to take the series and held De La Cruz hitless over the weekend. They own the largest division lead and best run differential in baseball.

Max Fried slipped up on Friday after a long stretch of dominant starts, allowing three runs on nine hits against the Padres. After a rainout on Saturday, the Braves lost a stinker on Sunday and are lined up for a doubleheader today. They can still be counted among the upper echelons in baseball, but it’s clear they’re not firing on all cylinders yet.

Both the Royals and Guardians swept their weekend series, though Cleveland’s wins against the Twins are much more impactful than the three wins Kansas City racked up against the A’s. The Guardians still lead the AL Central and knocked Minnesota down a notch, but the Royals are on pace for their second best season in franchise history if they can keep this up.

The Mariners went 3-3 against two of the other teams in this tier last week, which is pretty much what you’d expect from their solid but flawed roster. They still haven’t solved their run scoring issues and Julio Rodríguez’s power outage to start the season is starting to become a little concerning. Meanwhile, the Orioles are trying to keep up with the high-flying Yankees; Baltimore’s series win over Seattle certainly helps in that regard.

A lot of ups and downs in this tier last week. The Twins’ hot streak flamed out after they were swept by the Yankees and Guardians; the Cubs didn’t do much better, losing both of their series to the Braves and Pirates. On the other end of the spectrum, the Rays went 5-2 against the Red Sox and Blue Jays, banking two key series wins against some division rivals.

Here come the Astros. With two wins against the Brewers over the weekend, Houston has now won three series in a row and nine of its last 11 games. Alex Bregman’s bat has suddenly awoken as he raised his wRC+ from 58 to 87 over the last week. The Astros have a huge four-game series in Seattle looming in a week and they’ll hope to continue their momentum ahead of that showdown.

A bunch of the teams in this tier continued their early season struggles and have fallen even further behind in the playoff picture. The Giants and Tigers were the only two among these teams to win a series last week.

San Francisco emphatically swept the Rockies over the weekend, though that’s a small consolation considering the bad news it received about Jung Hoo Lee’s shoulder injury; the Giants’ center fielder will be out for the season after dislocating his shoulder last Sunday. Blake Snell is on the mend and should be activated off the IL soon, but there are still far too many role players sidelined currently, forcing the Giants to turn to their shallow depth. Thankfully, Luis Matos has made an immediate impact, collecting 16 RBIs and recording hits in five of the seven games since being recalled to cover for Lee.

The Cardinals, Pirates, Angels, and Marlins all showed some pluck last week, earning series wins over some high profile opponents. St. Louis won both of its series against the Angels and Red Sox and can’t be counted out of the NL playoff picture just yet; Pittsburgh took three of four from the Cubs over the weekend, a series highlighted by a dominant start from Paul Skenes; and the Marlins picked up series wins over the Tigers and Mets.

With Mike Trout sidelined for the foreseeable future, the Angels have had very few reasons for optimism recently. Thankfully, Jo Adell’s long-awaited breakout is something they can build upon. It’s not a franchise-altering development, but it’s a positive note for an organization that has desperately needed one this year.

After reaching .500 with a 20-4 win over the Marlins on May 4, the A’s have won exactly twice in the 15 games since then. Their nosedive has coincided with a particularly tough stretch in their schedule, with series against the Rangers, Mariners, Astros, and Royals bringing them back down to Earth. Mason Miller has gotten all of the attention as the standout on this roster, but there are a few other breakouts that could become valuable trade bait later on this summer.

The Rockies put together a nice little seven-game win streak with sweeps of the Rangers and Padres before getting swept by the Giants last weekend. Ezequiel Tovar has rewarded the organization’s trust in him with a fantastic start to the season. Nolan Jones should be activated off the IL this week and hopefully he can start pounding the ball again so that Colorado can properly play spoiler to the rest of the teams in the NL West.

There wasn’t much movement in the power rankings this week, as teams have sort of settled into their tiers now that we’re about a quarter of the way through the regular season.

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 »

There were a ton of fascinating matchups last week — Dodgers-Braves, Brewers-Cubs, and Orioles-Yankees — and the victors of those series set the tone for what could be very interesting playoff races over the next few months.

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 some of the 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.

All power rankings stats, including team records, are updated through Sunday’s games. The information included in the comments are current as of Tuesday morning. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re nearly a month through the season and there’s still a jumble of teams sitting around .500 who could wind up in the playoff picture with one hot streak. That’s exactly what happened with the Twins last week. Of course, the opposite is true, too, with the Rays learning that lesson while getting swept by the White Sox.

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 Braves continue to run roughshod over the rest of baseball, sweeping the Marlins and winning a dramatic weekend series against the Guardians. They’re doing it all despite slow starts from Ronald Acuña Jr. (111 wRC+), Austin Riley (95), and Matt Olson (101). They did just get Ozzie Albies back from his toe injury earlier than expected and Marcell Ozuna continues to power the offense.

The four teams in this tier have been playing some excellent baseball recently and are separating themselves from the morass of teams below them. The Guardians still have the best record in the AL despite losing two of three to the Braves, and the Phillies have won 13 of their last 15 games, including a sweep of the Padres over the weekend.

The Dodgers had their six-game win streak snapped Sunday, but their sweep of the Nationals and series win over the Blue Jays helped put their early-season struggles behind them. A trio of rookies — Andy Pages in the outfield and Landon Knack and Gavin Stone in the rotation — have helped sure up some of the roster’s question marks. Of course, it’s hard to be worried about Los Angeles when Mookie Betts and Shohei Ohtani are driving the offense with MVP caliber seasons.

The Yankees split a four-game series against the surprisingly tough A’s, but then beat up on the Brewers by scoring 30 runs on Saturday and Sunday. Aaron Judge, who had been slumping to start the season, homered twice this weekend and it looks like all the adjustments that Anthony Volpe has made have helped him take a big step forward this year. New York heads into this week with a huge four-game series against the Orioles on the docket.

The Orioles had a forgettable weekend, starting with the demotion of Jackson Holliday and ending with a series loss at home to the A’s that included two Craig Kimbrel meltdowns. Meanwhile, the Mariners’ starting rotation carried them to the top of the AL West; their starters have allowed just 20 runs over their last 16 games.

The Cubs looked great in their dominant sweep of the Astros before faltering against the Red Sox, getting blown out 17-0 on Saturday and losing a heartbreaker in the ninth on Sunday night. The Brewers didn’t fare much better, splitting a four-game series with the Pirates before getting trounced by the Yankees. Still, these two teams — and the generally good play of the rest of the teams in the division — have made the NL Central one of the more compelling storylines to start the season. Chicago is hanging around despite missing Cody Bellinger, Seiya Suzuki, and a handful of pitchers, all suffering from a variety of maladies. Milwaukee has had plenty of injury issues too, and it’s enjoying a surprising breakout from Brice Turang, but its pitching staff is running pretty thin — allowing 30 runs across the last two days is evidence enough of that. These two teams will face off this weekend in a three-games series that could set the tone for how this rivalry will shape up this year.

All the teams in this huge tier are hovering around .500, sitting on the knife’s edge between competing and retooling for next year. A hot streak or a cold snap could propel them one way or the other very quickly.

The Twins are a perfect example of how quickly a team’s fortunes can change. They’ve won seven straight and have now climbed a game over .500. They’re still pretty far behind the Guardians and Royals for the division lead, but they’re now firmly in the conversation after being left in the dust over the first three weeks of the season. It helps that they faced the White Sox and Angels and have another series against the South Siders lined up this week. If they can take this momentum and start winning games against tougher opposition, they could make the AL Central race a lot more interesting.

The Royals and Tigers, who both sit above Minnesota in the AL Central standings, just battled it out over the weekend, with Detroit emerging victorious in two of the three games. It’s the pitching that’s been the most impressive for the Tigers and Royals, though they’re both struggling to score runs with any consistency. For Detroit, Riley Greene is its only young hitter producing with any consistency right now; Kerry Carpenter started strong but fell off last week, and the club is still waiting for Spencer Torkelson and Colt Keith to wake up.

The Cardinals won both of their series last week, giving them a bit of life after a sluggish start to the season. They still seem to be missing that devil magic that made them such consistent winners for most of the last two decades. They demoted Jordan Walker to Triple-A last week and their offense is last in the NL in scoring. At least their pitching staff, the focus of all their offseason energy, is much improved, with Sonny Gray continuing to look like a frontline ace.

Four of the teams in this tier had serious designs on competing for a playoff spot this year, and then there’s the Pirates, who have seriously cooled off after their hot start. The Padres have won just three of their last 11 games, and the Diamondbacks have been only slightly better than that.

The Rays had a pretty terrible week, losing two of three to the Tigers and then getting swept by the White Sox of all teams. It’s pretty easy to diagnose what’s wrong with their roster: They’ve allowed the third most runs in the AL and Randy Arozarena (47 wRC+) and Yandy Díaz (86) aren’t driving the offense right now. No amount of depth will help when the best players on your roster aren’t producing.

The Astros managed to take both games of the Mexico City series against the Rockies, but their path out of their early-season hole won’t get any easier this week; they’ve got a homestand against the league-leading Guardians and division-leading Mariners on the docket. Like Tampa Bay, Houston’s pitching staff has been a mess so far, with Ronel Blanco representing the only bright spot. Meanwhile, the Astros have one of the best offenses in the league; the problem is they’re not turning that production into scoring right now. There’s a dangerous ballclub in here somewhere that’s just waiting to strike, but Houston is running the risk of waiting too long.

If you remove the seven games the A’s played against the Guardians earlier this season, in which they went 1-6, their record against all of their other opponents would be 11-11. That’s much better than anyone could have expected, and they just split a series against the Yankees in the Bronx and won a series against the Orioles in Baltimore.

The Nationals are also outperforming expectations right now; they won series against the Dodgers and Astros a couple of weeks ago and are in line to sweep the Marlins in four games if they can win Monday night. CJ Abrams has continued his breakout from last year and is looking like the core piece for Washington to build around.

The White Sox doubled their win total on the season last weekend with their three-game sweep of the Rays. Eloy Jiménez and Andrew Benintendi sparked the offense while Erick Fedde led the pitching staff. Even the worst teams in history have to win 50-60 games in a season, so it’s not that surprising that three of those wins came in a row. Still, this roster is among the worst in franchise history and there’s very little hope on the horizon.

We’re a little more than 10% of the way through the regular season and some of the hottest teams to start the year have cooled off. It’s far too early to pass any judgment on any of the starts just yet; there’s still plenty of games to play.

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 dozen of them. 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 »

What’s gotten into the Central divisions? Often an afterthought behind the big market clubs on either coast, it’s the Central teams in both leagues that are providing the most surprising starts, and most entertaining baseball, so far this season.

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 »

It’s been an eventful start to the regular season and not all of it good. A rash of injuries to some of the game’s biggest stars has marred the first week and half of play, and a number of teams now have to face the rest of the spring and summer without some of their best players. The conversation around these injuries, particularly those to pitchers, and their root causes has drowned out a lot of the exciting action we’re seeing on the field.

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 now defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution, one 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 the 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 Braves’ strong start has been overshadowed by the news about Spencer Strider’s elbow. After experiencing discomfort on Friday, the right-hander underwent an MRI over the weekend that revealed damage to his UCL; he was placed on the 15-day IL. A course of treatment has yet to be determined, and there’s no specific timeline for his return, but Atlanta should be prepared to play on without him for the foreseeable future. Thankfully, the Braves offense is already firing on all cylinders; they’ve scored nine runs or more in half of their games so far and had a couple of dramatic come-from-behind wins against the Diamondbacks this past weekend.

The Yankees started off the season with a four-game sweep of the Astros in Houston and a pair of series wins against the Diamondbacks and Blue Jays. Juan Soto was sensational during that opening series, and the powerful bats of Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton have provided plenty of pop behind him. So far, the Yankees haven’t missed Gerrit Cole. Luis Gil has done a commendable job filling in for their injured ace, striking out more than a third of the batters he’s faced in two solid starts.

The Astros have gotten off to a pretty lousy start. Their vaunted bullpen has blown leads in half of their games played so far and their offense is still in startup mode. Luckily, they’ve had a few brilliant moments sprinkled in through their misery. In their three wins this season, they’ve allowed a total of four hits, including a no-hitter spun by Ronel Blanco, who followed that performance with another 5.2 innings of no-hit ball on Sunday night.

No matter how good their offense is, the Rangers were always going to face a tough uphill battle during the first half of the season while they waited for their injured starting pitchers to return. At least they’ve gotten off to a hot start, with a pair of series wins over the Cubs and Rays. Unfortunately, they’ll have to keep things going without Josh Jung in the lineup; he broke his wrist a week ago and could be out until the All-Star break. With their two rookie outfielders, Wyatt Langford and Evan Carter, still getting up to speed this season, Texas’ margin for error in the competitive American League West is even slimmer now.

The Guardians have also seen their excellent start to the season marred by terrible injury news. After making two brilliant starts, Shane Bieber tore his UCL and will undergo Tommy John surgery, forcing him to miss the rest of the season. After graduating three of their top pitching prospects to the majors last year, there isn’t really an in-house option ready to step into Bieber’s shoes. The Guardians will have to make do as they try and keep their momentum going in a wide open AL Central race.

It’s hard to argue with the Pirates’ 8-2 start, especially when it was capped off by a pair of walk-off wins against the Orioles this weekend. Their youngsters are having fun, their veterans are producing, and things are looking up in Pittsburgh. And even if the good times come to an end in the near future, the exciting debut of Jared Jones is another reason for optimism. Along with Paul Skenes, Jones should give the Pirates two fantastic starters to anchor their rotation.

The Twins have gotten off to a rough start, one made all the worse by the injury to Royce Lewis on Opening Day. Their lineup just hasn’t been able to hit consistently — Lewis hit one of their three home runs on the season — with Carlos Correa essentially the only batter enjoying any kind of sustained success thus far. That’s a good sign for their star shortstop, but he’ll need help from the rest of the lineup soon.

Likewise, the Rays have struggled in the early going, though it’s their pitching staff that bears the brunt of the blame. The Rays have the third-worst team ERA in the majors thus far, though series against the Rangers and the Rockies in Colorado didn’t help in that regard.

The Mariners have already used a position player to pitch twice if that gives you any indication of how their season has started. It feels like they’re pretty lucky to be 4-6. As a team, they’re striking out at the second-highest rate in the majors, while their ISO is the second lowest. That’s a bad combination, and they’ll need their lineup to wake up soon if they want to keep pace in the AL West.

The Padres wound up losing a dramatic three-game set against the Giants over the weekend thanks to two bullpen meltdowns. Dylan Cease has been great in his first two starts for San Diego and Yu Darvish has been solid, but the rest of the pitching staff looks a little shaky. The lineup looks good, however, with plenty of contributions from both their stars and role players. Fernando Tatis Jr. seems to have put his injury issues behind him and looks like he’s back on the ascendant path he was on a few years ago.

The starting rotation with the second-best park- and league-adjusted ERA and FIP in baseball is none other than the Royals. (Let’s also pause here for a moment and recognize just how good the Red Sox pitching staff has been so far.) Cole Ragans looks like an ace, Brady Singer has spun two brilliant starts, and Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha, signed as free agents this offseason, have looked good as well. After losing their first two series by razor thin margins, the Royals swept the White Sox in four games over the weekend.

The Marlins finally got into the win column on Sunday, snapping an 0-9 skid to start the season. Of course, they’re more worried about the health of Eury Pérez; he’s slated to undergo Tommy John surgery and will be sidelined for the season. It’s a brutal blow to a pitching staff that was already missing Sandy Alcantara and two other starters, Edward Cabrera and Braxton Garrett. With reports that manager Skip Schumaker is now a lame duck after his contract option for 2025 was voided this offseason, it’s pretty apparent that this season is already considered lost by the brass in Miami.

Another shoe finally dropped in the ongoing relocation saga in Oakland. While there hasn’t been much progress towards constructing a new stadium in Las Vegas, the Athletics announced that this will be the final year they’ll call Oakland home. The team will be moving to Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park, currently the home of the San Francisco Giants’ Triple-A affiliate, for the next three years (or possibly longer if their new stadium isn’t finished in time). It’s an ugly end to the franchise’s long and storied tenure in the East Bay.

Welcome back baseball! This offseason was excruciatingly slow, but we’ve finally made it to Opening Day.

This year, we’re introducing a complete revamp of how these power rankings work. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team 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 during the season. Instead, 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 still being 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 based on both their outlook for this season and the long-term state of their organizations. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — for example: The Reds, Tigers, and Pirates are ahead of the Angels in the rankings, but the Angels are grouped with the Red Sox in the fifth tier while the aforementioned trio is among the up-and-coming clubs in Tier 6 — but generally, the ordering is consistent. (Note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coinflip odds that are used in the ranking formula).

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The Braves haven’t budged from the top of these rankings thanks to their deep and talented roster. They made it through spring training without any major injury scares, and even added a bit of depth to their outfield by reuniting with Adam Duvall just in case Jarred Kelenic doesn’t pan out. Chris Sale has looked healthy and strong this spring, and Spencer Strider added an exciting new pitch to his already dominant repertoire. This team is ready to compete from day one and anything less than a championship at the end of the season will be a disappointment.

The betting scandal involving Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara will dominate the headlines surrounding the Dodgers until it is resolved. That will overshadow a team that has a bit more volatility than you’d expect from a roster that’s projected to win 93 games. Mookie Betts’ unexpected move to shortstop could have some disastrous effects on the defense on the left side of the infield, and the injury question marks in the starting rotation won’t be answered anytime soon. Still, if the two-game opening series in Korea showed us anything, it’s that this offense is capable of covering all manner of woes.

The Astros head into the season with a handful of pitching injuries to navigate. Justin Verlander’s shoulder issue delayed his ramp up this spring and José Urquidy is out with an ominous-sounding forearm strain. It sounds like Verlander’s injury isn’t that serious, and the midseason recoveries of Lance McCullers Jr. and Luis Garcia should provide some reinforcements later on, which is why Houston’s preseason projection wasn’t affected all that much. With Yordan Alvarez, Jose Altuve, and Alex Bregman, among others, the Astros still boast a potent offense, and they bolstered their bullpen with the addition of Josh Hader. Once again, Houston is the team to beat in the American League.

The season hasn’t even started and the Yankees are already in a precarious spot. An elbow ailment likely will force Gerrit Cole to miss the first couple of months of the season, exposing the lack of depth in New York’s starting rotation. Pair that with Aaron Judge’s mysterious abdominal discomfort — as well as a few other spring knocks to DJ LeMahieu and Anthony Rizzo — and the injury issues that sank the team last season have already started to rear its ugly head. Even with Juan Soto poised to contribute in his contract year, the Yankees feel like they’re sitting on a knife’s edge. They’re not facing the worst-case scenario yet, but it won’t take much to get them to that point if anything else goes wrong.

If you look at all the individual projections on the Rays roster, you probably won’t walk away that impressed. But they’re simply better than any other team at seemingly maximizing the production of every single player in the organization. That’s how they’re projected to win 86 games despite heading into the season a little light on pitching after trading away Tyler Glasnow and following the injuries of Shane McClanahan, Jeffrey Springs, Drew Rasmussen, and Taj Bradley. Could it all collapse this year? It’s possible, but their track record speaks for itself.

The fear that the Mariners could squander Julio Rodríguez’s youth and one of the best starting rotations in the game is ever present. It got a little more real after the team announced Bryan Woo would start the season on the IL with a minor elbow issue. Seattle will also have to overcome a few injuries to some of its best relievers early in the season. That said, the Mariners look more talented than they have the past couple of years — on paper, anyway. There’s plenty of risk present in the lineup, so they’ll have to lean heavily on their elite run prevention unit and their homegrown superstar to carry them through a long season.

After a quiet offseason, the Twins are still the favorites to defend their AL Central crown. Despite that healthy lead in the projections, it doesn’t feel like their path to the playoffs will be as smooth as it was last year. They’re already facing some injuries in their pitching staff, with Jhoan Duran’s oblique the most concerning of the bunch. Health was always going to determine how successful they would be this year, and thankfully, Carlos Correa, Royce Lewis, and Byron Buxton all emerged from spring training ready for Opening Day.

The expectations for the Orioles are sky high after their surprising rise to the top of the American League last season. We’ll have to wait a little bit before watching Jackson Holliday, who ranks no. 1 on our Top 100 Prospects list, make his debut, but their roster is packed with young talent and should be plenty entertaining until he arrives. Baltimore was smart to trade for ace Corbin Burnes, because even with him, there are some questions about whether this starting rotation is deep enough. Even if the O’s can’t recapture last year’s magic, they should be right in the middle of the playoff picture this season.

Why fix what isn’t broken? After back-to-back NLCS appearances, the Phillies seemed content to simply stick with what’s worked. They’ve eliminated the Braves from the postseason each of the last two years, so even if they’re unable to chase down Atlanta for a division title during the regular season, they’re confident they’ll be able to make a deep run in October.

The Cardinals’ depth will be tested early this season as they’re already missing Sonny Gray, Lars Nootbaar, Tommy Edman, and Dylan Carlson because of injuries. Their lineup should be able to weather those temporary absences but there’s a lot less wiggle room in the starting rotation. Thankfully, it sounds like Gray will be able to make his first start of the season within a week or two.

The Diamondbacks capped off an encouraging offseason with the last-minute signing of Jordan Montgomery. That addition, along with fellow newcomer Eduardo Rodriguez, elevates their starting rotation into elite company among the game’s best (though Rodriguez will begin the season on the IL with a lat strain). With MVP candidate Corbin Carroll leading the offense, Arizona looks poised to follow up its surprising World Series appearance with another competitive season.

The Blue Jays have a lot riding on the shoulders of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. If he’s able to rebound after a down year in 2023, Toronto should be just fine. If not, well, the Blue Jays didn’t bring in much outside help this offseason to support him. They’re also banged up in their bullpen following elbow injuries to Jordan Romano and Erik Swanson. Extended absences for the two high-leverage relievers would further reduce the slim margin for error that Toronto already has in an extremely competitive AL playoff picture.

When they signed Blake Snell 10 days ago, the Giants finally made the big splash to put a cap on an active offseason. Before adding Snell, San Francisco also added third baseman Matt Chapman, center fielder Jung Hoo Lee, slugger Jorge Soler, righty Jordan Hicks, and catcher Tom Murphy. The Giants spent more than $325 million on free agents this offseason, the second highest total in baseball behind the Dodgers. All those moves put them solidly in the mix in the competitive NL Wild Card race.

Unsatisfied with a step-back season after trading away Juan Soto earlier in the offseason, the Padres did an about-face and landed Dylan Cease from the White Sox two weeks ago. That stabilizes a rotation that was in flux throughout the offseason and provides some more high-level talent for the roster. Is San Diego better off now than it was with Soto in the mix? The projections see it all as a wash, though the Padres still have a critical lack of depth across their roster. In that sense, they’re essentially in the same position as they were last year: They have a ton of talent but very little room for error.

The Cubs finally addressed the Cody Bellinger-sized hole in their lineup by simply re-signing the man himself. And with Shota Imanaga looking impressive during spring training, there’s some cautious optimism surrounding this ballclub. Chicago has essentially pulled even with the Cardinals in what should be a competitive race for the NL Central, and if the Cubs fall short in the division, they could sneak into the playoffs via a wild card berth.

The Rangers are betting they can hit well enough to stick around in the AL playoff picture until Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, and Tyler Mahle are healthy to reinforce their starting rotation. There’s plenty of risk involved, but that’s not necessarily a bad bet. Corey Seager and Josh Jung have progressed enough from their spring injuries and will be ready for Opening Day, and Texas should also enjoy full seasons from its pair of highly regarded rookies Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford, our no. 2-ranked prospect. Even so, as things stand, the Rangers’ potent offense might not be enough to carry them to the playoffs.

The worst-case scenario for the Marlins appears to already be in full swing. They were already going to miss Sandy Alcantara for the entire season after his Tommy John surgery, and now Eury Pérez, Braxton Garrett, and Edward Cabrera are all on the IL to start the season with various injuries. Max Meyer, their second ranked prospect, should be able to step in to fill some of the gap, and Miami is also having lefty A.J. Puk, who to this point has pitched exclusively out of the bullpen in the majors, handle a starter’s workload. Suddenly, the clear strength of this roster doesn’t look so strong.

Like the Marlins, the Brewers’ starting rotation, once a clear strength, is looking a little diminished this season, after they traded Corbin Burnes and lost Brandon Woodruff to injury. On top of that, Devin Williams, their best reliever, is expected to miss the first half of the season with a back injury. All eyes will be on young Jackson Chourio to see if he can quickly acclimate to the big leagues after turning 20 years old just a few weeks ago. Milwaukee will be competing in the wide open NL Central, so anything is possible, but it certainly seems like this season is being treated as a stepping stone to the team’s next competitive window.

After a couple of big splashy offseasons, the Mets were fairly quiet, making some targeted additions to their depleted pitching staff and opportunistically signing DH J.D. Martinez a week ago. There’s enough talent in the lineup for them to make a surprise run at the NL Wild Card if the health of the pitching staff holds up, but that feels like a longshot at this point. The reality is that this is an evaluation year for new president of baseball operations David Stearns as he begins to put his stamp on the organization.

It was just a couple of years ago that the Guardians won the division with the youngest roster in the majors. With the core of that team still around, Cleveland hopes that a few more prospect graduations will help push it back to the top of the AL Central after falling short of the postseason last season. There’s still too little power in this lineup — sending Kyle Manzardo to the minors to start the season isn’t helping in that arena — which makes the Guardians a little too reliant on their batted ball results swinging their way. That’s a volatile blueprint for building an offense, and the projections reflect that reality.

The two teams in this tier feel a little lost, stuck in that limbo of not yet rebuilding but not being good enough to compete this year. Boston’s chances of making some noise in the AL Wild Card race took a hit when Lucas Giolito was lost for the season with an elbow injury. The Red Sox signed Brayan Bello to an aspirational six-year extension, and they’re hoping the early returns are promising. They’re also expecting the adjustments Nick Pivetta made late last year carry over, and maybe Tanner Houck and Kutter Crawford take a step forward. That’s a lot riding on a bunch of hypotheticals. Boston won’t be bad, but it doesn’t seem to be good enough where it counts, either.

The same could be said for the Angels. With Shohei Ohtani out of the picture, the Angels decided to invest heavily in their … relief corps? There were so many other areas on their roster they could have bolstered that their commitment to spending on so many relievers was a bit comical. Of course, the success of their season will hinge on whether Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon, and Taylor Ward are healthy and contributing. But even if they are, and the lineup is scoring runs, the pitching staff is weak enough that it probably won’t matter.

The infield logjam the Reds were expected to have has suddenly disappeared after Noelvi Marte was suspended for PEDs and Matt McLain underwent shoulder surgery. While the playing time picture is a little more clear without so many players needing to get at-bats, I’m sure the Reds would rather navigate that headache than have two of their most promising youngsters sidelined for months. The rest of the roster has a number of health issues as well — TJ Friedl, Nick Lodolo, and Brandon Williamson are all starting the year on the IL — which makes Cincinnati’s ascendancy a little less likely.

The Tigers’ starting rotation was the talk of spring training. Tarik Skubal looks like a legitimate Cy Young candidate, a number of their pitchers have added velocity to their fastballs, and Jackson Jobe’s mouth-watering stuff has a lot of people asking how soon he’ll make his major league debut. An elite rotation would give Detroit a solid foundation, but the development of its offense appears to be lagging behind. Spencer Torkelson, Riley Greene, and Kerry Carpenter still need to prove they can produce over an entire season, and the supporting cast is still merely OK.

After missing almost all of last season with an ankle injury, Oneil Cruz looked fantastic during spring training, and his return has given the Pirates some much needed optimism as they head into the season. There’s a universe where Cruz leads the offense, pitching prospects Paul Skenes and Jared Jones solidify the starting rotation, and Pittsburgh makes some noise in the race for the NL Central. The reality is that the Bucs are probably a season or two from truly making the leap, but there’s clear forward momentum for the franchise for the first time in a long time.

There’s plenty of hype surrounding Cole Ragans after his tremendous late season run last year, and Maikel Garcia is getting in on the excitement too after a strong showing in Winter Ball and spring training. Developing some additional high-end talent to support franchise cornerstone Bobby Witt Jr. is a critical piece of the puzzle for the Royals. There isn’t much coming through the minor league system, though, so they’ll need to get creative to try and speed up this rebuild.

The seemingly never-ending relocation saga will loom large over the A’s this season, and their play on the field won’t provide much, if any, relief. A few youngsters are worth watching to see if they can develop into franchise mainstays, but by the time this team ends up in Las Vegas (if that ever comes to pass), the likelihood they’re still in the organization is pretty slim.

After trading away Dylan Cease, Luis Robert Jr. remains the lone piece that could bring back a sizable haul of prospects to jumpstart the White Sox rebuild. He’s young enough and under team control for long enough that it’s possible they’d want to hold onto him as a bridge to the next competitive window. His contract situation is favorable enough that he’d fetch plenty of prospects if ever they do decide to trade him.

The Nationals have filled their roster with veteran bounce-back candidates to surround the few youngsters who have already made their major league debuts. It’s not a bad idea to see if Jesse Winker, Joey Gallo, Eddie Rosario, and Nick Senzel can rediscover their swings so that Washington can flip them at the trade deadline. And the show that top prospect James Wood put on this spring gives the Nats a promising glimpse into their future, even if that’s still a year or two away.

After a very quiet offseason, the Rockies finally woke up and signed Ezequiel Tovar to a long-term extension earlier this week. It doesn’t raise the talent level of the roster, which is projected to be among the worst in the majors, but it’s a solid move to lock up a promising piece of their infield. Tovar isn’t the second coming of Troy Tulowitzki, but he’s one of the best defenders in baseball and his bat still has some room to grow. Beyond that, Colorado is hoping for a healthy season from Kris Bryant and for Nolan Jones to hold onto the gains he enjoyed last year.