FanGraphs Power Rankings: April 25-May 1

Another week of the 2022 season is in the books and there’s been some significant movement in the power rankings. We’re still at the point where a hot or cold week can really change the outlook for a team, but we’re also starting to see some clubs separate themselves from the pack — for good or for ill.

A reminder for how these rankings are calculated: first, we take the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), and their starting rotation and bullpen (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by IP share) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric. New for this year, I’ve opted to include defense as a component, though it’s weighted less heavily than offense and pitching. Some element of team defense is captured by RA9-, but now that FanGraphs has Statcast’s OAA/RAA available on our leaderboards, I’ve chosen to include that as the defensive component for each team. I also add in a factor for “luck,” adjusting a team’s win percentage based on their expected win-loss record. The result is a power ranking that is then presented in tiers below.

It’s a good time to be a baseball fan in New York. Both the Yankees and Mets have been playing fantastic baseball to start the season and both teams lead their respective divisions after a month of play. The Yanks rattled off a nine-game win streak with sweeps of the Guardians, Orioles, and the Royals. It took a little while for their bats to wake up earlier in the season, but they scored 7.4 runs per game during this stretch, including four games with double digit run totals. Unsurprisingly, it’s been their sluggers who have led the way. Anthony Rizzo’s nine home runs lead all of baseball, with a three dinger day on Tuesday and another on Friday padding his total. Not to be outdone, Aaron Judge blasted five homers last week, including two on Sunday.

The Mets are the only team in the majors to have won every single series they’ve played so far; they took two of three from both the Cardinals and the Phillies last week. Tylor Megill and four relievers combined for the first no-hitter of the 2022 season on Friday, though some might quibble over whether a combined no-no has the same shine as a solo effort. Their lineup looks as deep and potent as expected after all their offseason additions, and their starting rotation has been among the best in the majors even without Jacob deGrom. They’ve got a tough slate of games this week, with four at home against the Braves and four more in Philadelphia.

After slipping a bit against the Orioles last weekend, the Angels swept the Guardians in four games and took two of three against the White Sox over the weekend. One of the guys leading the charge? Taylor Ward (of course). He collected 13 hits last week, including four home runs, and drove in 11. His slash line is all the way up to .400/.507/.764 (271 wRC+). Having a competent supporting cast for their star trio of Mike Trout (who is looking as dangerous as ever), Shohei Ohtani, and Anthony Rendon is a nice luxury to have.

The Giants have been beset by injuries and absences, with an outbreak of COVID running through their clubhouse. They’ve had to cobble together lineups with a host of minor league call-ups. They just lost a three-game series against the Nationals at home over the weekend during which they allowed 28 runs. This week, they’ll head to Los Angeles in their first meeting with the Dodgers this season. With rosters contracting today, the Giants are in a precarious position until some of their regulars return from the IL.

Before they were shutout by the Cubs on Sunday, the Brewers had put together a five-game win streak that pushed them to the top of the NL Central standings. Apparently, playing the Pirates and Cubs was all they needed to get their slumbering offense to wake up. Prior to this week, they had scored 3.4 runs per game and their wRC+ sat at just 78; they scored 40 runs in seven games last week and pushed their wRC+ up to 92. And they’ll be welcoming Luis Urías back from the IL soon, too.

Speaking of teams who have been offensively challenged in recent seasons, the Marlins lineup has been a surprising strength early this year. The man driving their early success has been Jazz Chisholm Jr. He’s currently hitting .310/.354/.672 on the season with the seventh highest ISO in baseball. And after a slow start with his new team, Jorge Soler also appears to be heating up; he blasted two 450 foot home runs over the weekend. Before losing to the Mariners on Sunday afternoon, Miami had strung together a seven-game win streak.

The Twins continued to rocket up the standings with a hot streak of their own. They’ve won nine of their last 10, including two walk-off wins and one of the most bizarre endings to a game you’ll ever see. Byron Buxton has continued to crush everything in sight — his 469 foot blast earned Minnesota the first of those two walk-offs last Sunday — and the team is getting solid contributions up and down the lineup. After a bit of a clunker on Opening Day, Joe Ryan has been lights out, winning his last three starts while allowing just a single run during this stretch. With the White Sox really struggling in the early going, the Twins have raced out to be the early division favorites.

After Alec Bohm told us that “I f—ing hate this place” on April 11 (Bohm apologized and was met with a standing ovation the next night), the Phillies lost nine of their next 12 games. They managed to get their season back on track with a four-game sweep of the Rockies last week before running into the Mets over the weekend. Before allowing 10 runs to score on Sunday night, they had allowed fewer than five runs in eight of their last nine games. And although Bryce Harper has been relegated to DH duty due to an injured throwing elbow, the Phillies haven’t suffered many of the same defensive lapses that led to Bohm’s original frustration all those weeks ago.

The Braves welcomed back superstar outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. on Thursday, though he wasn’t able to turn their mediocre start around on his own. They won their first series of the season against the Cubs but traveled to Texas and dropped two of three to the Rangers over the weekend. Atlanta endured a similarly slow start last year before really turning things on later in the summer. Getting Acuña back is a big deal and there are other positive signs on the roster, including the big breakout of Kyle Wright. They haven’t put all the pieces together just yet, but they’ve got too much talent to wallow around .500 for long.

These three teams feel impossible to evaluate right now. Each of them racked up impressive wins to start the season, outperforming their low expectations, and each of them has posted really mixed results since. The Cubs have won just three of their last 12 games and were just outscored 20-4 in Milwaukee over the weekend. The Rockies were swept in Philadelphia in four games but then turned around and swept the hapless Reds at home, scoring 24 runs in three games. The A’s were just swept at home by the Guardians (who were themselves coming off a four-game sweep at the hands of the Angels) over the weekend. These clubs will probably filter their way down the rankings as the season goes on, but they’ve played well enough to separate themselves from the rest of the teams at the bottom so far.

This wasn’t the start the Red Sox envisioned for their season. They haven’t won a series since taking two of three from the Tigers during the first week of play and just lost back-to-back series against the Blue Jays and Orioles. Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers are hitting just fine, but newcomer Trevor Story is really struggling and the bottom third of their order is a complete black hole right now. They currently have the third worst offense in the majors and have scored just 3.5 runs per game, though it’s hard to believe they’ll stay this bad with all the talent on their roster.

Meanwhile, things haven’t gotten much better for the White Sox after losing four of six last week, though they did end their streak of games with an error at nine. Like Boston, their offense has been slow to come alive this season. Andrew Vaughn’s breakout in his second season has been encouraging and Yoán Moncada should be returning from his spring injury soon, so there’s hope on the horizon there. But it’s been their pitching staff that’s actually the biggest concern. After leading the American League with the best starting rotation and one of the best bullpens last year, they’ve taken a big step back in 2022. Missing Lance Lynn hurts and Dallas Keuchel looks far too hittable, but there really isn’t one glaring issue to point to.

The Diamondbacks started the season with just three wins in their first 11 games, leading some to start to wonder if their roster really was as bad as their 52-110 record indicated last year. They’ve come alive a bit since, with an impressive series win against the Dodgers and a four-game split against the Cardinals last week. They’ve had plenty of trouble scoring runs consistently, so it’s been their pitching staff that’s carried them to their recent success. Merrill Kelly has been extremely impressive with a bit of extra velocity on his fastball, Zac Gallen has been healthy and productive, and even Madison Bumgarner has been getting positive results.

When the Nationals scored 14 runs on Friday in San Francisco, it broke a stretch of play where they hadn’t scored more than three runs in nine straight games. They dropped another 11 on the Giants on Sunday for good measure. Their biggest problem is a pitching staff that has been cobbled together with whatever spare parts they could find in their organization. They’ve allowed the second most runs in the majors, and their starting rotation has been particularly hard hit. Josiah Gray has been the lone bright spot on the pitching side of things.

Lastly, I’ll sum up the state of the Reds with this tweet:

The Reds are 3-19 and have a minus-65 run differential to begin this season.

The 2003 Tigers opened 3-19 and had a minus-63 run differential.

The 1962 Mets opened 5-17 and had a minus-49 run differential.

Yes, the Reds start is worse than the two worst teams since integration.

— Kyle Glaser (@KyleAGlaser) May 2, 2022

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