FanGraphs Power Rankings: June 1–7

The best teams in baseball continue to separate themselves from the huge morass of mediocre clubs in the middle of the standings. That means the division races might not as exciting, but both Wild Card chases should more than make up for that.

Our power rankings use a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant ranking format 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%.) The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. As the best and worst teams sort themselves out between now and October, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise remains reactive to hot streaks and cold snaps. If you’re looking for a visual representation of the ups and downs of your team throughout the season, look no further than the brand new Power Rankings Board in the FanGraphs Lab.

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 — there are times where I take 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 continued rolling last week, going a combined 5-1 against the Blue Jays and Pirates. Mauricio Dubón blasted home runs in three straight games, and that’s the sort of good fortune that has been emblematic of Atlanta’s season this year. The Braves getting strong contributions from role players up and down their lineup alongside the phenomenal production of Matt Olson, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Michael Harris II. It’s a big reason why Atlanta has produced a 110 wRC+, third best in baseball and a big improvement over the 101 the offense posted last year.

A 13-5 drubbing at the hands of the Angels on Sunday left the Dodgers with a sour taste to finish the week. They won the first two games against the Halos, but after splitting their previous series, a four-game set with the Diamondbacks, they had to settle for a 4-3 week. Shohei Ohtani collected 12 hits last week to go along with another scoreless outing on the mound, and Roki Sasaki turned in the best start of his MLB career on Friday, holding the Angels scoreless over seven innings with 10 strikeouts.

Jacob Misiorowski has been grabbing all the headlines (he tossed another seven strong innings last week), but let’s not forget about the Brewers’ other superstars. Brice Turang had been mired in a slump heading into last week — he was hitting just .170 over his previous 15 games — before breaking out in a big way with 11 hits, including a pair of home runs on Saturday. Jackson Chourio contributed 11 hits of his own and raised his wRC+ this season to a career-high 134. Milwaukee scored 61 total runs across seven games last week, and that includes Wednesday’s shutout loss to the Giants.

Well, the Yankees finally figured out what was bothering Aaron Judge. Unfortunately, it’s a stress fracture in a rib on his right side, an injury that will sideline him for a significant amount of the season. The lineup has been bolstered by the huge leap forward from Ben Rice, but missing Judge will put a strain on a depleted outfield group in New York. Thankfully, the pitching staff is strong enough, and the rest of the AL playoff field weak enough, that the Yankees probably aren’t in any danger of missing out on the postseason as a result of Judge’s injury.

The Phillies continued their ascent up the standings last week, sweeping the Padres and taking two of three from the White Sox. Cristopher Sánchez had his historic scoreless streak snapped at 50 2/3 innings last week when he allowed a single run in the seventh inning in his start against the Padres. He went more than an entire month between allowing runs. Interim manager Don Mattingly is now 26-11 since taking over for Rob Thomson on April 28, though Philadelphia has gained just a single game on Atlanta in the NL East standings during that stretch.

The Rays kept sliding last week, getting swept by the lowly Tigers and then losing a series to the Marlins. They’ve now fallen into a tie with the Yankees atop the AL East, and that big buffer they had built up in the middle of May has now completely evaporated. The pitching staff that had been the backbone of the team’s early-season success has allowed 6.7 runs per game over the last two weeks.

The Guardians acquitted themselves well against the Yankees last week, winning two of three before dropping a series against the Rangers over the weekend. José Ramírez recorded seven hits, three doubles, and a home run in New York. Despite that strong showing, his wRC+ is still sitting at a relatively disappointing 115, though he added three steals to his ledger last week and is now tied for the major league lead with 23.

The Mariners dropped their series against the Tigers after Andrés Muñoz blew the save opportunity in the ninth inning on Sunday. It was his fifth blown save of the season and drove his ERA up to 5.40. It was a frustrating way to end the week, though Seattle still sits on top of the AL West standings with the second-best run differential in the AL.

The Cardinals activated Lars Nootbaar off the IL on Friday, and he proceeded to help the team sweep the Reds over the weekend. He notched a pair of hits in his first game back in the majors and then clubbed a go-ahead home run in the eighth inning on Saturday. St. Louis hasn’t been able to keep up with the Brewers in the NL Central, but the team has continued to fare well in the NL Wild Card race. The Cards are two games up on the Cubs and 2.5 games ahead of the Pirates, though their -2 run differential doesn’t inspire much confidence that they’ll be able to maintain that gap over their division rivals.

The Blue Jays have managed to tread water well enough despite all the injuries that have decimated their roster this season. They’re only half a game back in the AL Wild Card race, and they’re about to get a bunch of reinforcements off the IL. Dylan Cease, Max Scherzer, and Alejandro Kirk are all scheduled to be activated this week, providing a huge boost to the team. That’s all well and good, but Toronto’s real concern has been the disappearance of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s power; he hasn’t hit a home run since May 17, and he has just three homers total this season.

The Rangers have shown a bit of life recently. After sweeping the Royals the previous weekend, they won both of their series last week, going 4-2 against the Cardinals and Guardians. Their lineup was bolstered by the return of Corey Seager and Wyatt Langford from their respective injuries. With a roster that’s at nearly full strength and a wide open AL playoff field, Texas is poised to make some noise this summer.

The Cubs continued to spiral last week, dropping series against the Athletics and Giants. I suppose it’s a bit of a consolation that the margins were razor thin. Their only two wins were both walk-off affairs, and two of their four losses occurred in extra innings. Then again, Chicago also allowed 18 runs in a blowout on Friday. Pete Crow-Armstrong did his best to carry the team; he tallied 11 hits and four home runs last week and now leads the NL with 3.0 WAR.

Like the Blue Jays, the Orioles have mostly treaded water to start the season while managing injuries to key players. Those two division rivals were tied in the standings heading into their series against each other this past weekend. Despite winning the first game of the matchup on Friday, 13-3, Baltimore wound up dropping the final two games of the set. Adley Rutschman had four hits, two doubles, and a home run in that blowout victory. After really struggling over the past two years, his wRC+ is all the way up to 132 this season.

The Marlins’ starting rotation has been quickly depleted by injuries. Eury Pérez and Janson Junk hit the IL a few weeks ago, and top prospect Robby Snelling was lost to Tommy John surgery after making just one start in the big leagues. The breakout of Max Meyer is all the more important within that context; he tossed another gem last week, holding the potent Nationals lineup to just a single run in seven innings while striking out seven.

All of a sudden, the Reds have fallen below .500. After being swept by the Cardinals over the weekend, they’ve lost eight of their last 10 games and have gone 11-22 since the beginning of May. To make matters worse, Cincinnati placed Elly De La Cruz on the IL last Monday with a hamstring strain. There was a bit of good news regarding Hunter Greene’s health — he could make his return to the majors before the All-Star break — but it might be too little, too late if the Reds can’t turn things around quickly. Without their star shortstop, that’ll be a tall task.

Don’t count the Tigers out yet. They finally broke out of their slide last week, sweeping the Rays and winning their weekend series against the Mariners. Spurred by the returns of Kerry Carpenter and Gleyber Torres from injury, Detroit scored 37 runs last week. That’s exactly as many runs as the Tigers had scored over their previous 15 games. And shockingly, they might actually get Tarik Skubal back a little more than a month after his elbow surgery to remove bone spurs; he tossed five innings in a rehab start on Sunday. If everything checks out, he could be back in the big leagues this upcoming weekend.

Angels lefty Reid Detmers dueled Roki Sasaki and the Dodgers to a scoreless standstill in his start on Friday, going six innings while allowing just four baserunners and striking out six. While the Halos ultimately lost the game in the ninth inning, Detmers’ excellence has been one of the few bright spots for the team this year. Remember when Jo Adell robbed three home runs in a single game earlier this year? He had a ball bounce off his head over the fence on Tuesday — the play was originally ruled a home run but was changed to a four-base error upon appeal. That’s kind of how this season’s gone for the Angels: sparse bright spots intermixed with a bunch of ineptitude.