FanGraphs Power Rankings: June 7–13

After last week’s games, we’re around 40% of the way through the season. The halfway mark is quickly approaching, with the All-Star game soon after that. The form of the playoff races is slowly taking shape. And with few exceptions, too many of the teams on the bubble of contention just aren’t making any headway in the standings. There’s still plenty of season left to play, but the trade deadline decision-making point for many of these teams is coming sooner rather than later.

A quick refresher: my approach takes the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), and their starting rotation and bullpen (50%/50% FIP- and RA9-) — and combines them to create an overall team quality metric. I add in a factor for “luck” — adjusting based on a team’s expected win-loss record — to produce a power ranking.

Despite neither team moving at all in the rankings, this tier saw the biggest changes this week. Both the White Sox and the Rays continued to pull away from the rest of the field in the American League, with each team losing just once last week. These two powerhouses are set to play three games in Chicago, which should be a fantastic preview of a potential AL Championship Series.

Chicago and Tampa Bay have scored the exact same number of runs this season but the White Sox have a decided advantage when it comes to their starting rotation. If the season ended today, their starters would have the third lowest park- and league-adjusted ERA of any team since the mound was lowered in 1969. And all this despite some significant struggles on the part of their staff ace, Lucas Giolito. They’ve thrived despite some extremely unfortunate injuries — Nick Madrigal is the latest victim — because they’ve built the best run prevention unit in the American League.

The NL West continues to be the most intriguing division in baseball. The Giants are barely holding on to the division lead after the Dodgers won five of their six games last week. San Francisco and Los Angeles are playing the dregs of the league; both teams beat up on the Rangers last week and have series against the Diamondbacks and Phillies on the docket for this week. The Dodgers have notably been dealing with injury issues throughout the season — Max Muncy is the latest player to be sidelined — but the Giants have quietly racked up a laundry list of injured players, too. Evan Longoria’s shoulder injury is their most recent malady but they’ve now lost nearly as many total days to injury as the Dodgers.

Meanwhile, the Padres have taken a significant dip in the standings. They played seven games against both the Cubs and Mets over the last two weeks and ended up winning just four of them. They scored just 2.5 runs per game over that stretch and have now fallen a game behind in the NL Wild Card race. Most of their injury issues have plagued their pitching staff, so their lack of offensive firepower is another problem altogether. Trent Grisham was activated from the Injured List over the weekend and Tommy Pham has finally come alive after an ice cold start to the season, but two of their veteran stalwarts, Eric Hosmer and Wil Myers, have been totally disappointing this year, with neither having been able to maintain the offensive resurgence they enjoyed last season.

Fresh off sweeping the Yankees last weekend, the Red Sox took one of the biggest tumbles down the rankings this week. They were crushed in the first two games of their series against the Astros and only managed to avoid a sweep by winning a wild 12-8 slugfest. They scraped together a walk-off win against the Blue Jays on Friday but were outscored 25-6 in their other two games over the weekend; the 18-4 drubbing on Sunday included eight home runs by the Blue Jays.

The Brewers and Cubs have spent the last week essentially tied for the NL Central lead and they’ve put some serious distance between themselves and the third-place Reds. Milwaukee has won 14 of their last 16 games and just completed a three-game sweep of the Pirates; the Cubs haven’t been quite as good over the same span, winning just 11 of their last 16. These two teams have a big matchup in two weeks. Between then and now, the Cubs have a decidedly tougher schedule: they face the Mets, Marlins, Cleveland, and Dodgers while the Brewers get to beat up on the Reds, Rockies (twice), and Diamondbacks.

After struggling through a rough stretch against the Astros and White Sox, the Blue Jays have to feel encouraged after crushing the Red Sox in Boston over the weekend. Their lineup, led by the suddenly god-like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., is good enough to stand toe-to-toe with any other team in the majors, and they should be getting reinforcements soon in the form of George Springer. Their pitching staff is another story. Robbie Ray has been phenomenal since he decided to start pounding the strike zone with his fastball, and Alek Manoah has looked promising in his three major league starts, but the rest of their staff is barely holding it together.

The Angels had the biggest jump up the rankings this week after they swept both the Royals and Diamondbacks last week. They’re over .500 for the first time since May 1. Mike Trout is still a couple weeks away from returning but Anthony Rendon and Justin Upton’s bats have come alive recently and Shohei Ohtani is putting together an extremely compelling case for winning the AL MVP. Their schedule is extremely tough over these next few weeks, with Oakland, San Francisco, Tampa Bay, and New York on the docket before Trout returns. With the A’s and Astros playing so well right now, and the AL Wild Card filled with competition, this hot streak is probably too little, too late for the Angels.

The Reds also made a big jump after sweeping the Rockies at home over the weekend. They lost their series against the Brewers before that and have a date in Milwaukee to start this week. They’ve managed to stick around in the NL Central race with a potent offense led by Jesse Winker and Nick Castellanos and a solid, if inconsistent, starting rotation. Their bullpen has been their big weakness this year, and their best reliever Tejay Antone was just sidelined with a forearm issue.

With the Angels rising up and the Mariners and Twins falling, this mini-tier is filled with a new trio of disappointments. The Cardinals’ woes continued after they were swept in Chicago over the weekend. Those three losses pushed them under .500 for the first time since late April; they’re now six games back in the NL Central. It’s tough to see a path forward for St. Louis, especially with Jack Flaherty sidelined for a significant chunk of the summer. They’ve enjoyed promising seasons from Tyler O’Neill and Dylan Carlson, giving them nice building blocks for next year, but there are just too many holes to patch elsewhere on their roster.

Ke’Bryan Hayes came off the IL 10 days ago and he’s collected a hit in every game since being activated. It’s a small consolation for the Pirates, who have lost seven straight. And to make matters worse, Hayes had a home run overturned after he missed first base on Tuesday. After suffering the indignity of Will Craig’s wild ride, the Pirates just can’t catch a break.

Not to be outdone by Pittsburgh, the Diamondbacks have lost 10 straight after getting swept by the A’s and Angels last week. On May 1, they were a game over .500 and two games back in the NL West. Amazingly, they’ve won just six games since then. They haven’t won a game on the road since Madison Bumgarner threw his “no-hitter” against the Braves in Atlanta. It’s been a remarkable stretch of futility for the Diamondbacks and it’s not going to get any easier. They have the Giants, Dodgers, Brewers, and Padres on the docket over the next two weeks. They already have a 13-game losing streak on the books this season; this current losing streak could easily stretch long past that early mark.

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