FanGraphs Power Rankings: May 29–June 4

With the calendar flipped to June, there’s a new team on top of these power rankings.

A reminder for how these rankings are calculated: first, we take the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), their pitching (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by starter and reliever IP share), and their defense (RAA) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric. 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.

The Rangers powered through a 5–1 week and won their fifth straight series by dropping 30 runs on the Mariners over the weekend. They have the best run differential in baseball and have set a new franchise mark for best record through the first 58 games of a season. Corey Seager and Marcus Semien, their two big acquisitions a year ago, are producing at elite levels again, and they’re supported by a lineup that has few holes in it. They’ve had all this success despite getting just six starts from Jacob deGrom, their big acquisition this offseason, thus far.

In a matchup of two of the best teams in the National League, the Braves wound up taking two of three from the Diamondbacks in Arizona in a dramatic weekend series full of twists and turns. That was a nice bounce-back after losing two of three to the A’s earlier in the week, giving Oakland its first series win of the season. While there are still plenty of questions about Atlanta’s pitching staff, their offense continues to power their success; Ronald Acuña Jr. is the current favorite to win the NL MVP, and Matt Olson, Austin Riley, and Sean Murphy are a fantastic supporting cast.

The Blue Jays took two of three from the Brewers last week and then swept the Mets in New York over the weekend. That puts their season back on track after a slow start in the hyper-competitive AL East through the first two months of the season. They’re still fourth in the division, but they’re inching closer to the Yankees in the Wild Card standings. Their schedule remains pretty tough with series against the Astros, Twins, Orioles, and Rangers on deck before things start to ease up a bit.

The Dodgers enter this week tied for first in the NL West with the upstart Diamondbacks. Though they wound up losing to the Yankees on Sunday, dropping the weekend series in the process, Bobby Miller’s six shutout frames with seven strikeouts against New York was a highlight. He’s been incredibly impressive over his first three starts in the majors and looks like one of the solutions to Los Angeles’ many pitching problems. On offense, the team is being led by the metronomic Freddie Freeman and super-duper utility-man Mookie Betts, who blasted multiple home runs in back-to-back games last week.

Just as soon as they activated Giancarlo Stanton and Josh Donaldson off the Injured List, the Yankees are awaiting test results to see if they’ll have to place Aaron Judge and Nestor Cortes on the shelf. The latter’s shoulder injury will likely cause him to miss a couple of weeks, but the former’s toe injury — he hurt it making a sensational grab through the bullpen gate on Saturday — is a bit more up in the air. New York can ill afford to lose its captain for any amount of time; when Judge was on the IL earlier in the season with a hip issue, the Yankees went 4–6, losing series to the Rangers and Rays.

The Mariners came crashing down last week after ending the month of May on a high note, getting crushed by the Yankees at home and then getting walloped in Texas by the Rangers; in all, they were outscored 50–16 in six games. The M’s have gone 19–10 against teams under .500 this year, but they have an inverse record against teams above .500, a dichotomy that was exposed these last two weeks. They still have time to turn things around, especially if Julio Rodríguez is back on course, but their inconsistent offense is stifling their progress.

The Padres were in the news last week as the first casualty of the Diamond Sports bankruptcy proceedings. On the field, they haven’t been making headlines like everyone expected. They’ve been a bit better recently, winning seven of their last 13 games after a particularly ugly stretch in the middle of May. Fernando Tatis Jr. looks like he’s heating up, and Manny Machado was just activated off the IL, but they can’t find any consistency on offense despite all the big names in the lineup.

The Brewers are barely holding off a resurgent Pirates ballclub in the NL Central, leading the division by half a game thanks to three straight wins against the Reds over the weekend. Their injury issues have gotten to the point where they’ve called on Julio Teheran and Jon Singleton to cover for absent players; the latter appeared in a game for the first time since 2015 over the weekend. Meanwhile, the Pirates won their fifth straight game on Sunday, beating the Giants and sweeping the Cardinals last week.

One step forward, one step back for the Mets. They swept the Phillies early last week in a hard fought series in New York but were swept by the Blue Jays over the weekend. Their roster is about as healthy as it’s been all season, and they have a catching longjam on the horizon. Thankfully, their top prospect and current full-time catcher Francisco Álvarez has been one of the few bright spots this year. The Mets have a huge three-game series against the Braves this week, a real test to see if they turn their season around.

The Tigers wrapped up the month of May with a 16–11 record, pushing them within striking distance of the AL Central lead. Unfortunately, two of the players leading their charge up the standings were lost to injury last week; Eduardo Rodriguez suffered a finger injury that could cost him multiple months of the season, and Riley Greene was shelved with a stress fracture in his left fibula. They have reinforcements on the horizon, though: Tarik Skubal and Matt Manning both are on the verge of starting rehab assignments. And Spencer Torkelson has looked a lot more comfortable at the plate, posting a 117 wRC+ since the beginning of May.

While the Athletics’ historic ineptitude is getting most of the attention, the Royals are on a similar, if not as dramatic, path. They’re on pace to lose 113 games this year, which would be a franchise record. They’ve failed to build on the clutch of prospects they graduated last year and look as lost as ever during this long rebuilding cycle.

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