FanGraphs Power Rankings: August 29 – September 4

With only a month left in the season, the tiers in these power rankings have mostly solidified. There are plenty of interesting storylines to follow as the season winds down, though, with plenty of playoff positions still up in the air.

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 expected win-loss record. The result is a power ranking, which is then presented in tiers below.

Note: All stats are through Sunday, September 4.

Last week, the Dodgers lost their first series since dropping two of three to the Nationals in late July. They also lost multiple games in a row — a losing streak of three! — for the first time since that series against Washington. And with their loss to the Giants on Monday night, the Dodgers have now lost four times in a six-game span. It’s not all bad news in Los Angeles; Clayton Kershaw returned from the IL last week, though Tony Gonsolin replaced him on the sidelines with a forearm strain. Still, they’re on pace to break their franchise win record and are within spitting distance of topping the major league record set by the Mariners in 2001.

The Astros don’t need much else to go right for them this year — they’re already comfortably the top seed in the American League and the favorite to make another World Series appearance out of the Junior Circuit — but they got a nice boost anyway from their top pitching prospect, Hunter Brown, who made his major league debut on Monday night and held the Rangers scoreless over six innings. With Justin Verlander still sidelined with a minor calf injury, Brown should get an opportunity to show what he’s made of as the Astros ease into the playoffs.

The Mets took care of business against the Dodgers early last week but dropped a series against the Nationals over the weekend; suddenly, the Braves are just a game back in the NL East. These two teams have been battling over the division lead all summer long, and New York has been able to hold their ground throughout. It’s a very real possibility that first place will be decided when these two teams meet up for three games in Atlanta during the last week of the regular season.

The Yankees’ recent and persistent woes can be summed up in one tweet from The Athletic’s Lindsey Adler:

Entering today, the Yankees as a team had the worst offense in the AL by wRC+ over the last 30 days. They hit .213/.289/.325 in that span, a 77 wRC+. In that same period, Aaron Judge hit .279/.446/.593, a 191 wRC+ (8th highest in MLB).

— Lindsey Adler (@lindseyadler) September 4, 2022

Aaron Judge hit his 54th home run yesterday and finally got a bit of support, too, as New York took game one of a big four-game series against the Twins. New York will need to find some new ways to score runs; Judge can only carry the team so far. What won’t help is losing Andrew Benintendi likely for the season after he suffered an injury to his hamate bone over the weekend. A series against the Rays this coming weekend looms large.

With an 8.5-game lead over Milwaukee and the fourth-best record in the National League, the Cardinals have nearly wrapped up the NL Central with a month left to play. They haven’t lost a series since dropping two of three in Colorado at the beginning of August, and their remaining schedule is weak. Paul Goldschmidt looks like a prime candidate to win the Double Triple Crown, and Albert Pujols is enjoying a final-season renaissance as he chases 700 career home runs.

The Mariners had a seven-game win streak snapped after losing to the White Sox on Monday afternoon, a day after an extra-innings affair in Cleveland that was interrupted by a four-hour rain delay. That win against the Guardians finished off a perfect six-game Midwest road trip and was Seattle’s sixth victory against Cleveland in the last two weeks. After their series against Chicago, the Mariners host the Braves and Padres, then wrap up their season with 20 straight games against teams with losing records. The end of the postseason drought is in sight.

The Rays and Blue Jays would love to have such a soft schedule to end their seasons, but both teams will be fighting tooth and nail for position in the Wild Card race. The only team with a losing record Tampa Bay and Toronto will each face (save the Red Sox, currently two games under .500) is Texas; the rest of their month is filled with contenders. Both teams still have a slim chance of overtaking the Yankees in their division, but they’re also fighting off the continued ascent of the Orioles. With such a packed schedule filled with head-to-head matchups, the playoff seeding in the American League is probably going to go down to the wire.

The Padres would also love to have a softer schedule in September. They just lost another series to the Dodgers last weekend, then dropped a game to the surprisingly good Diamondbacks on Labor Day. They’ll face the Dodgers again this weekend then spend what’s left of the season facing contenders or upstart spoilers like Arizona. San Diego has got the talent in place and a two-game advantage over the Brewers in the NL Wild Card race, but the stretch run will not be a cake walk.

The Phillies took a beating on their six-game West Coast road trip last week, giving up double-digit runs three times. Zack Wheeler’s health is up in the air, and Nick Castellanos was just put on the IL with an oblique injury. Their schedule eases up a bit this week, but seven games against the Braves in a few weeks will be a major test.

The Brewers had trouble beating that same Arizona team that gave the Phillies fits last week, losing three of four to the Diamondbacks over the weekend. Milwaukee got back on track with a win against the Rockies in Colorado on Monday, but the team’s issues are many and don’t seem to be close to being resolved. If the Brewers do make it to the playoffs, it will likely be because the Phillies or Padres collapsed rather than because they made a strong push up the standings.

On August 24, the Guardians swept a short two-game series against the Padres and were sitting four games up in the AL Central. They’ve won just twice since then and all of a sudden are ahead of the Twins by just a single game, with the White Sox two games back. Chicago, missing Tony La Russa due to ongoing health issues, suddenly came alive as soon as Miguel Cairo stepped in as acting manager. The Sox won four straight last week, Dylan Cease came one out away from throwing a no-hitter on Saturday, and a big series in Seattle started off with a win behind a vintage start from Lance Lynn. Meanwhile, the Twins could field an extremely competitive roster with the players on their IL; they’re being forced to patch everything together at the exact wrong moment in the season.

The Orioles called up another one of their top prospects last week, and Gunnar Henderson responded by blasting a home run in his first major league game. Our playoff odds severely underestimate them, but the O’s continue to find ways to defy the math. They’ll be sure to make the stretch run pretty miserable for the rest of the teams in the AL East.

As far as spoilers go, the Diamondbacks are doing a phenomenal job so far. Over their last ten games, they’ve swept the White Sox and won back-to-back series against the Phillies and Brewers. Their schedule is filled with games against teams vying for playoff position, too; six against the Padres, eight against the Dodgers, three against Milwaukee, and two against the Astros. Zac Gallen extended his scoreless inning streak to 41.1 innings, and the team called up top prospect Corbin Carroll last week. It’s too late to make a run this year, but Arizona is positioning itself very well for a much more exciting future, possibly as soon as next year.

The Pirates have won just twice in their last 14 games and just four times in their last 22 matches. That’s some pretty depressing baseball in Pittsburgh. At least fans there can witness Oneil Cruz break Statcast on a seemingly nightly basis. He hasn’t found much consistency at the plate yet, but when he does make contact, the ball screams off his bat. He’s obviously still a work in progress, but the raw talent and prodigious tools make him a must-watch player even in his unfinished form.

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