FanGraphs Power Rankings: July 29–August 4

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.

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.

…

Bringing in Jazz Chisholm Jr. seemed to give the Yankees some new life last week. He blasted four home runs in his first three games in pinstripes and has played admirable defense at third base, a completely new position for him. Even with the infusion of good vibes and a bit of offense from elsewhere in the lineup, Aaron Judge and Juan Soto still run the show, and they’re producing at a historic rate. New York enters this week tied with the Orioles atop the AL East. This division race should be tightly contested through the end of the season.

In a battle between the other top two teams in the American League, the Guardians and Orioles fought to a standstill last weekend, each winning two games in a four-game set. There was plenty of offense from both teams and not that much pitching. Cleveland’s big move at the trade deadline was the acquisition of Lane Thomas to provide some necessary help in the outfield . More surprising was the risk the Guardians took in acquiring injured starter Alex Cobb to reinforce their starting rotation. Cobb, who has missed the first four-plus months of the season recovering from offseason hip surgery, is scheduled to make his Guardians debut this week, but his return to a big league mound comes with plenty of uncertainty. The Guardians will have to hope that their offense and bullpen can continue to carry the load because despite the addition of Cobb, the rotation still looks like a weakness.

As for Baltimore, the big news last week was the return of Jackson Holliday from the minors and the debut of Coby Mayo. Holliday hit his first two home runs of his career to help jolt the Orioles out of their July swoon. Unfortunately, Mayo made his debut because All-Star Jordan Westburg fractured his right hand and is questionable to return this season. Mayo certainly has the prospect pedigree, but the task ahead of him isn’t exactly an easy one. He’ll need to prove himself in the bigs during a tense playoff race while replacing one of the team’s most productive players this season. So far, in his three major league games, he is 0-for-9 with two walks and five strikeouts.

The Dodgers and Padres were the two teams who made the biggest splashes on the day of the trade deadline. Los Angeles acquired Jack Flaherty to bolster its injury-depleted rotation, and San Diego reinforced its bullpen by adding the top lefty reliever on the market, Tanner Scott. That night, the two NL West rivals also began a short two-game set, and the Padres walked away with a pair of victories. Over the last two weeks, the Friars have cut the Dodgers’ NL West lead down to 4.5 games. Los Angeles still ranks in our top tier, but San Diego’s window of opportunity in the division race is starting to swing open.

As the Padres have pulled within striking distance of the Dodgers, the Diamondbacks have also snuck back into the playoff picture with a phenomenal stretch of games dating back to the beginning of July. Arizona’s slow start to the season masked a team that actually might be better than the club that made it to the World Series last year. The Diamondbacks weren’t super active before the trade deadline compared to the two teams ahead of them in the NL West, but the moves they did make — acquiring Josh Bell to reinforce the lineup following an unfortunate injury to Christian Walker and a couple of relievers to boost their bullpen — were savvy. The Snakes have a pretty tough test this week with back-to-back series against the Guardians and Phillies.

The Twins had a very quiet deadline, making a single trade to give them a bit of depth in their bullpen. However, they didn’t really have any glaring needs to address. Royce Lewis is healthy again and continues to rake, and Carlos Correa, who is rehabbing from a bout with plantar fasciitis, shouldn’t be far behind. Their pitching staff has been solid and their lineup is scoring plenty of runs, which has helped them close the gap in the AL Central to just 4.5 games. Minnesota and Cleveland match up this weekend in a huge four-game series, one that could go a long way toward dictating the shape of this division race down the stretch.

The Phillies’ free fall continued last week as they were swept by the Yankees and lost two of three to the Mariners. They’ve gone 21-25 since returning from London on June 11, the fourth worst record in the NL during that span. Bryce Harper is in the middle of the worst slump of his career and the starting rotation just hasn’t been nearly as dominant as it was over the first three months of the season. Philadelphia is still the favorite to claim the top seed in the NL, but the team’s path forward looks a little more difficult than it did a month ago.

The Royals went 6-1 last week to expand their lead to 2.5 games over the Red Sox for the final playoff berth in the AL Wild Card standings, and they’ll have a chance to widen that gap some more with a three-game series at home against Boston to begin this week. Following their surprising success over the first four months of the season, the Royals were buyers at the trade deadline, bringing in a handful of pitchers to provide some depth to an overworked staff. It does feel like Kansas City will go as far as Bobby Witt Jr. and its starting rotation will carry it. The superstar shortstop is coming off a ridiculous July, when he had a hit in all but one game during the month. That works out to an absolutely bonkers .489/.520/.833 slash line across his 100 July plate appearances — good for a 269 wRC+.

The Braves are trying to rekindle the magic of 2021 by bringing back Jorge Soler, Eddie Rosario, and Luke Jackson to support their beleaguered roster, though this time, those players might not be enough. Max Fried returned from his forearm injury on Sunday and didn’t look quite right, and Reynaldo López is dealing with a forearm injury of his own. And those are just the two latest woes for Atlanta, which has already lost too many core players to injuries this season.

The Mets didn’t go all-in at the trade deadline, instead opting to make a number of moves on the margins to solidify the depth on their roster. Their biggest acquisition was Jesse Winker, but they also added a ton of relievers. They’ve played their way into the NL playoff picture thanks to contributions from guys already on their roster. Established stars Francisco Lindor, who has a 155 wRC+ since June 1, and Pete Alonso, who’s bashed 11 home runs and put up a 131 wRC+ in that same span, have stepped up to lead the charge, but the Mets have also benefitted from the breakout performance of 24-year-old slugger Mark Vientos and the resurgence of veteran infielder Jose Iglesias, also known as the chart-topping musical artist Candelita.

The price the Astros paid for Yusei Kikuchi looked like an overpay upon first glance, but he turned in a brilliant start in his first outing with them on Friday. Otherwise, though, it was a rough week for Houston, which fell out of first place in the AL West following a 2-4 skid.

The Mariners slipped back into the AL West division lead thanks to a series win over the Phillies last weekend. Over their last nine games — which happens to coincide with their acquisition of Randy Arozarena — they’ve scored 6.3 runs per game. That’s encouraging, because for almost the entire season, Seattle has struggled to provide enough run support for its excellent pitching staff. Arozarena and fellow newcomer Justin Turner, plus the impending return of Julio Rodríguez from his ankle injury, could be exactly what the Mariners need to take control of their division.

The Cardinals definitely improved their roster last week when they traded for Erick Fedde and Tommy Pham, but those two still might not be enough to push St. Louis into the playoffs. The Cards followed up their dominant series victory over the Rangers with a crushing four-game series loss to the Cubs over the weekend. St. Louis enters this week three games back in the Wild Card race.

The Pirates were also cautious buyers at the trade deadline, bringing in a couple of role-playing hitters for their light lineup. Pittsburgh won its series against the Astros before a couple of bullpen meltdowns handed two games to the Diamondbacks over the weekend. Looking ahead, the Pirates play the Padres six times over the next 10 days, with a series against the Dodgers sandwiched between the two series with San Diego. If Pittsburgh wants to prove it belongs in the playoff race, these nine games are a big opportunity.

After dealing Randy Arozarena and Isaac Paredes, the Rays had a comparatively quiet couple of days leading up to the trade deadline. Instead of tearing everything down to the studs, those two big moves were enough to restock their farm system, and the additions of Christopher Morel and Dylan Carlson give them some major league talent to bolster their roster next year. And because they’ve got plenty of talent left on their roster, they’re in prime position to be spoilers in the AL playoff race, even if they don’t snag a Wild Card spot. Last weekend, they played that part perfectly, winning two of three from the Astros to bounce Houston from first place in the AL West.

The Rangers tried to walk the tightrope between reinforcing their roster to make a long-shot playoff run and retooling in the face of a highly disappointing season. Their plan for this season had always been to try and tread water until their pitching returned healthy, but unfortunately, things have gone sideways for the defending champs. Max Scherzer is out again with a shoulder injury, Jacob deGrom still hasn’t started a minor league rehab assignment, and Tyler Mahle is just now set to make his season debut this week. On top of it all, outside of a four-game sweep of the White Sox, Texas hasn’t won a series since before the All-Star break. The Rangers will have to wade through the gauntlet of the Astros, Yankees, Red Sox, and Twins over the next two weeks to show they can maintain a glimmer of that quickly fading hope.

The Rockies opted to ignore the sellers market at the trade deadline and held onto nearly all of their players. I’m sure there’s some master plan they’re working toward, because this is a totally rational organization, right? At least Colorado has Ezequiel Tovar, Brenton Doyle, and Ryan McMahon to build around as a young-ish core. Maybe the Rockies are hoping for a Royals-esque surprise season next year. All they’re missing is a generational talent like Witt Jr.

The White Sox lost their 20th game in a row on Sunday, putting them a loss away from tying the American League record of 21 straight losses, set by the 1988 Orioles, and three shy from tying the 1961 Phillies for the longest losing streak since the founding of the AL in 1901. Beyond all the futility on the field, the South Siders didn’t exactly have the best trade deadline either. They didn’t really improve their farm system all that much in the deals they did make, and they chose to hold onto Garrett Crochet and Luis Robert Jr. even though it was a clear seller’s market. The Sox could and should trade those two players during the offseason, but it certainly seems like the organization missed a huge opportunity to jumpstart its rebuild.