FanGraphs Power Rankings: May 11–17

Last week’s slate of games concluded with Rivalry Weekend, leading to some dramatic games between crosstown and cross-state foes, most notably between the New York teams and the Chicago clubs. Maybe those come-from-behind wins will spark the Mets and White Sox to greater things over the next few weeks.

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.

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The Braves won both of their series last week despite some offensive struggles (relatively speaking). Prior to an eight-run outburst on Sunday, Atlanta had produced just 14 runs across its previous five games and scored just 3.8 runs per game over the last two weeks. The one guy who hasn’t cooled off during this stretch is Drake Baldwin; he’s blasted six home runs over his last 15 games. While the lineup has slowed down a bit, the pitching staff has been absolutely dominant. The Braves haven’t allowed more than three runs in a single game since May 4 and have given up just 2.3 runs per game over the last two weeks.

Thanks to the Yankees’ recent woes, the Rays have opened up a three-game lead in the AL East. Tampa Bay is still massively outperforming both its Pythagorean record and its BaseRuns record — by five games on both accounts. Even so, the team hasn’t lost multiple games in a row since dropping three straight from April 19–21. Even if the Rays cool off this summer, all those wins in the bank ensure that they’ll be in the thick of what’s shaping up to be a weak AL playoff field.

What’s the best way to break out of a weeks-long slump? For the Dodgers, it was heading down I-5 for a three-game series in Anaheim this past weekend. Los Angeles (the NL version) had just split a four-game set with the Giants, scoring 3.5 runs per game during that series, a continuation of the offensive struggles that have marked this cold snap. Facing the abysmal Angels pitching staff, though, the Dodgers won the Freeway Series by a combined score of 31-3. After sitting as a batter for two straight games (he pitched on Wednesday and had a full day off on Thursday), Shohei Ohtani contributed six hits and drove in seven runs over the weekend.

All of a sudden, the Cubs have lost three series in a row after their second 10-game winning streak of the season was snapped last weekend. Chicago managed just five runs in its series against the Braves, but still escaped with a single win on Thursday. Then, facing the White Sox over the weekend, the Cubs lost two games despite scoring 21 runs in the three-game set.

Both the Brewers and Cardinals pulled within two games of the Cubs in the hotly contested NL Central last week. Milwaukee’s lineup is back to full strength now that Jackson Chourio and Christian Yelich are healthy; the team has gone 8-3 since activating Chourio off the IL two weeks ago. Meanwhile, the Cardinals were given a boost by a raucous crowd during their weekend series win over the Royals. The vibes are high in St. Louis, though the team is entering a critical portion of its schedule; the Cards will face each of their division rivals in turn over the next two weeks.

As soon as it looked like the Yankees were getting healthy, both Max Fried and José Caballero went down with injuries last week. The injuries appear to be relatively minor — the speedy shortstop should be back on the field later this week or next and Fried avoided any structural damage to his elbow. New York has really slow played Gerrit Cole’s rehab assignment — he’s scheduled to make one more minor league start this week before returning to the big leagues — and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the team take it easy with Fried’s injury, too.

The Phillies have very quickly put their ugly start to the season behind them, climbing over .500 for the first time since April 7. Kyle Schwarber has been on an absolute tear over the last two weeks; he’s blasted nine home runs in that time and now leads the majors with 20. The team is 15-4 under interim manager Don Mattingly and is back in the thick of the nascent NL playoff race. Of course, because Atlanta has played so well, Philadelphia still sits eight games back in the NL East.

José Ramírez homered on Sunday, his first since belting a pair on April 19. He’s compiled just a 114 wRC+ so far this season, his lowest mark since 2019. Including that homer, Ramírez tallied six hits over the weekend, so maybe he’s finally breaking out of his funk. Despite the struggles of their superstar, the Guardians are leading the AL Central thanks to their unheralded pitching staff. Parker Messick (2.35 ERA, 1.4 WAR) has been one of the best starters in the AL, and Erik Sabrowski (1.83, 0.8) has been the best reliever you’ve never heard of.

To everyone’s surprise, the White Sox are two games over .500! They swept the Royals last week and then won a dramatic Crosstown Classic against the Cubs over the weekend. This is the first time they’ve been more than a game over .500 since September 22, 2022. Two unlikely heroes made the difference in Sunday’s walk-off win in extra innings. The game was tied in the eighth inning when light-hitting center fielder Tristan Peters hit his career first home run to put the team ahead by three. After the Cubs tied the game in the ninth inning and scored once in the top of the 10th, struggling catcher Edgar Quero smacked his first home run of the season, a two-run blast in the bottom of the frame, to give the Sox the victory.

It seems like no one wants to win the AL West this year. No team has really pulled ahead in the division; the A’s are technically in front with a .500 record, but the Rangers and Mariners are just a couple games behind. Seattle just hasn’t found its footing this year, even though it started out as the preseason favorite. The Mariners beat up on the Astros last week — Seattle is 7-1 against Houston and 15-25 against every other opponent this year — and then were swept by the Padres over the weekend. While the pitching staff has been solid, things have gone from bad to worse for the lineup. Cal Raleigh landed on the IL with an oblique strain on Thursday and Brendan Donovan joined him on Sunday after reaggravating the groin injury that had previously sidelined him for about three weeks earlier this season. In response, the team promoted top prospect Colt Emerson on Sunday with the hope that he can provide a spark for the beleaguered offense.

Meanwhile, the Athletics and Rangers haven’t been immune to their own injury issues. A’s shortstop Jacob Wilson was placed on the IL on Monday with a significant shoulder injury, and the Rangers held shortstop Corey Seager out of all three games this past weekend with a back issue. Seager had been mired in a season-long slump — he’s limped to an 80 wRC+ — which partially explains why Texas has scored the third-fewest runs in baseball. The A’s have had fewer offensive woes — Nick Kurtz and Shea Langeliers have been a potent duo atop the lineup — but the pitching staff still hasn’t been able to figure out Sutter Health Park. The team has allowed 6.0 runs per game at home and just 3.3 runs per game on the road.

Don’t call it a comeback. The Mets shocked the Yankees in the rubber match of the Subway Series on Sunday, tying it in the ninth inning when Tyrone Taylor demolished a hanging curveball from David Bednar for a three-run homer, and then walking it off on a Carson Benge fielder’s choice in the 10th. It was the first time in 96 tries that the Mets had won a game when trailing after eight innings. That win put a cap on a 10-5 stretch that began on May 1. Despite the positive results, the team couldn’t avoid another pitfall last week. Clay Holmes fractured his tibia on Friday and will be sidelined for a significant amount of the season. It’s just another hurdle for the ballclub to overcome.

The White Sox weren’t the only team to pass a significant rebuilding milestone last week. The Nationals battled back to .500 on Saturday, which makes this the latest in a season that Washington has been at .500 since July 2021. Daylen Lile recorded 10 hits and knocked four home runs last week to power what has been one of the most potent lineups in baseball. With a pair of double-digit outbursts last week, the Nats now lead all of baseball in run scored.

The Royals quickly squandered the momentum they had built up a few weeks ago. Entering last week, Kansas City had gone 7-3 against the Mariners, Guardians, and Tigers — three of their main competitors in the AL playoff race — but all that progress was undermined by a sweep at the hands of the red hot White Sox and a series loss against the Cardinals. Bobby Witt Jr. is doing everything he can to carry the team on his own; he’s produced a 195 wRC+ in May and is leading all of baseball with 3.0 WAR.

The Tigers have won just twice over their last 12 games after being swept by the Mets and losing a series to the Blue Jays last week. Besides the rough results, Detroit actually received some welcome news on the health front: Casey Mize was activated off the IL and spun a brilliant six-inning start on Saturday. And if everything goes right with Tarik Skubal’s experimental elbow surgery, he could rejoin the club a lot sooner than expected. That sliver of hope will be put to the test as the Tigers host the Guardians for four games this week. It’s too early to consider this series a must-win for Detroit, but avoiding a series loss would go a long way toward securing the team’s place in the AL Central race this summer.

What a miserable weekend in Anaheim for Angels fans. Shohei Ohtani got his groove back in his old stomping grounds, reminding the home crowd what the Halos have been missing since he left for the Dodgers. Mike Trout, who had been so fun to watch earlier in the season, is suddenly mired in a slump over the last few weeks; he has just an 81 wRC+ in May and went hitless over the weekend. Los Angeles (the AL version) is on track to lose 100 games for the first time in franchise history and even the fun bits of the season are starting to slip away.