FanGraphs Power Rankings: September 15–21

The final week of the regular season is upon us, and the playoff picture in both leagues is far from settled. It should be a fun week of baseball as everything sorts itself out before the postseason begins.

Last year, we revamped our power rankings 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%). The weighted Elo ranks are then displayed as “Power Score” in the tables below. 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 — 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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With a three-game lead over the Phillies for the top seed in the NL, the Brewers have almost wrapped up all they can accomplish during the regular season with just six games left to play. Of greater concern is the “mild” lat strain suffered by Brandon Woodruff during a regular bullpen session on Saturday. It’s serious enough to keep him from pitching in the NLDS, and it’s still unclear if he’d be able to pitch if Milwaukee advances deeper into the postseason.

The Mariners met the moment. Entering their weekend series against the Astros, the two teams were tied in the standings with the AL West on the line. The M’s absolutely dominated the proceedings in Houston, sweeping their division rivals in three games, giving them what is effectively a four-game cushion in the West thanks to the tiebreaker rules. Earlier in the week, Cal Raleigh made a bit of history, breaking Mickey Mantle’s single-season home run record for a switch-hitter on Monday and setting the franchise record for homers in a single season on Saturday. He then cracked another dinger on Sunday to bring his total up to 58. Not only has the hot streak brought the Mariners within a few games of their first division title since 2001, it has also pushed them ahead of the Tigers in the overall AL standings. If they maintain that lead, they’ll secure the second seed and a first-round postseason bye.

Even if the Phillies can’t chase down the Brewers for the NL’s top seed, they’re two games away from clinching a first-round bye. Those extra days off before the NLDS would give them time to ensure that Trea Turner is completely healthy for the playoffs. Their shortstop has been sidelined with a hamstring injury since September 8 and is hoping to be activated off the IL for at least a few games during the final week of the season.

The Yankees won in extra innings on Sunday to finish off a 7-3 road trip, keeping them within two games of the Blue Jays in the AL East. With the White Sox and Orioles coming to Yankee Stadium this week, New York has an extremely soft schedule to close the gap and possibly pull ahead of Toronto.

As for the Blue Jays, they’ve stumbled at the worst possible moment. Before winning on Sunday, they’d lost four straight games and combined for only three runs in those losses. The worst of those was a 20-1 drubbing against the Royals on Friday. The Jays offense is sorely missing shortstop Bo Bichette, who has been sidelined since September 7 and is hoping to ramp up baseball activities this week to get ready for the postseason. With the Red Sox and Rays coming to town, Toronto has a more challenging slate of opponents lined up for the final week of the season than the Yankees do, but there is a silver lining for the Jays. They own the tiebreaker over New York, meaning they practically have a three-game cushion with six left to play.

Although they’ve won only half their games so far this month, the Red Sox have mostly avoided the chaos elsewhere in the AL playoff race and maintained second place in the Wild Card standings. Things could get dicey this week, though, as they are set to face a pair of teams desperately clinging to their division leads; the Sox first head to Toronto for three games against the Blue Jays before returning to Fenway for three against the Tigers. Our playoff odds still favor Boston’s chances of making it to the postseason, but both the Guardians and Astros enter this week only a game behind the Sox. One of these three teams (or four if you include the Tigers) isn’t going to make it. Boston owns the tiebreaker over Cleveland and Houston, but this race is far from over.

The Dodgers weren’t quite able to secure the four-game sweep over the Giants last weekend after losing on Sunday. Nevertheless, they now have a three-game lead in the NL West, which pretty much guarantees them their 12th division title in the last 13 years. Ahead of his final start at Dodger Stadium, Clayton Kershaw announced last week that he is retiring after the season. We should see him on the mound at least one more time, as he’s scheduled to start on Friday night in Seattle. Although he’s pitched quite well this season (10-2, 3.55 ERA, 3.69 FIP, 2.2 WAR), he’s far from a lock to make the Dodgers’ playoff rotation; unlike last year, most of their starters seem to be fully healthy entering October. However, if Los Angeles doesn’t start Kershaw, it sure could use him out of the bullpen, maybe even in high-leverage spots, as the regular Dodgers relievers have continued to falter late in games. Blake Treinen was handed three losses last week alone, and the team’s bullpen ERA has ballooned to 5.23 in September, 25th in baseball.

The Cubs clinched a playoff berth last week, but they’re not exactly playing well at the moment. They were swept by the Reds in four games over the weekend, getting shut out twice and scoring just seven runs total. It’s still up in the air when, or if, Kyle Tucker will be back from his calf injury, and Pete Crow-Armstrong is still mired in an ugly slump — he’s posted a 34 wRC+ since August 1. With series at home lined up against the Mets and Cardinals, Chicago has one week to get back on track before the NL Wild Card Series begins next Tuesday.

The Guardians’ shocking hot streak has thrown the whole AL playoff picture into chaos. Their surge has brought them to within one game of the Tigers in the AL Central and has knocked the Astros out of a playoff position entirely. Since September 3, Cleveland has lost just three times and made up more than 10 games on Detroit. The starting rotation has given up two or fewer runs in 17 straight games, and Sunday’s loss marked just the second time that Cleveland has allowed more than four runs in its last 19 games. That sets the stage for an absolutely massive three-game set between the Guardians and Tigers in Cleveland.

As incredibly as Cleveland has played lately, the Tigers haven’t done themselves any favors either. During the same span in which the Guardians have gone a major league-best 16-3, Detroit has limped to a 5-11 record, third worst in the AL. The Tigers endured an embarrassing 0-6 homestand last week and have two critical series against the Guardians and Red Sox to finish the season. And yet, for as badly as things have gone, Detroit is still the favorite to win the Central.

After getting swept by the Mariners, the Astros enter this week as the first team out of a playoff spot because they lost their season series against Cleveland. Houston suffered a blow to its playoff hopes when Yordan Alvarez sprained his ankle while crossing the plate on Monday. He returned to the IL less than a month after being activated from a nearly four-month stint on the shelf with a hand injury. Fortunately for the Astros, Isaac Paredes came off the IL over the weekend after missing two months with a hamstring strain, though he’s probably limited to DH duties while his leg continues to heal.

With their four-game sweep over the Cubs, the Reds pushed the Mets out of the final spot in the NL Wild Card standings because they hold the tiebreaker over New York. Hunter Greene was absolutely masterful in his Thursday start against the Cubs, completing the first nine-inning shutout of his career while striking out nine. He and Paul Skenes are slated to start on Wednesday in an absolutely juicy pitching matchup in Cincinnati. After the Pirates, the Reds will head to Milwaukee to finish the season.

Don’t count out the Diamondbacks either. They won both of their series last week and are just a game behind the Reds and Mets in the Wild Card race. Corbin Carroll became the first player in franchise history to join the 30/30 club on Sunday, yet despite his 6.3 WAR, he’s not even the most valuable player on his own team. That would be Geraldo Perdomo, who continues to amaze and mystify our staff during his breakout season. It would be shocking to see the Diamondbacks sneak into the playoffs considering they were one of the most aggressive sellers at the trade deadline. Still, it’s a testament to the strength of their young core that they’re in contention right now. It won’t be an easy finish for Arizona, with three games at home against the Dodgers and then three in San Diego over the weekend.

The three wins the Mets secured last week were one more than they had previously notched in September. Still, it wasn’t enough to ward off the Reds, and now New York is sitting on the outside looking in. You can’t really blame the superstar trio of Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, and Pete Alonso either. They combined for 28 hits and seven home runs last week, while the rest of the team collected just 30 hits and four homers. Memories of the infamous September 2007 collapse are suddenly bubbling to the surface, though it has been a much longer and drawn out slide this year. Since June 12, when they reached a season-high 21 games over .500, they’ve gone 35-52, the third-worst record in the NL during that span.

Want to know how badly the Mets have crashed in the Wild Card race? The Marlins, all but written off in August, are now just four games back and getting delusions of grandeur after winning six straight last week. Since September 10, Miami’s pitching staff has the third-best ERA in baseball, and Edward Cabrera is slated to be activated off the IL for Tuesday’s game against the Phillies. If the Marlins somehow manage to keep winning against Philadelphia, they’re lined up to play the Mets during the final weekend of the season.

The Giants had the opportunity to make some noise in the NL Wild Card race, but back-to-back series losses to the Diamondbacks and Dodgers last week dashed their hopes. There’s technically a slim chance they could slip into the playoffs, but they’d need some help from a number of teams while also winning out against the Cardinals and Rockies. Barring something shocking, San Francisco will likely spend the final week of the season wondering what could have been while preparing for next year.

The Rockies won their 42nd game of the season on Friday to avoid the possibility of losing more games than the historically inept 2024 White Sox; they also won on Sunday to claim victory in their final home series of the year. The team that Colorado beat? That would be the Angels, who are once again a last-place team, though it remains possible for them to finish ahead of the A’s in the AL West. Still, there was good news for the Halos this weekend. On Saturday, Mike Trout blasted a 485-foot moonshot for his 400th career home run.