FanGraphs Power Rankings: May 16–22
We’ve hit the quarter-mark for the season and some of the early-season disappointments are finally turning things around. Not much has changed at the top of the rankings, however.
A reminder for how these rankings are calculated: first, we take the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), and their starting rotation and bullpen (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by IP share) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric. New for this year, I’ve opted to include defense as a component, though it’s weighted less heavily than offense and pitching. Some element of team defense is captured by RA9-, but now that FanGraphs has Statcast’s OAA/RAA available on our leaderboards, I’ve chosen to include that as the defensive component for each team. 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.
Team | Record | “Luck” | wRC+ | SP- | RP- | RAA | Team Quality | Playoff Odds |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Yankees | 29-12 | 0 | 119 | 78 | 80 | -2 | 173 | 97.9% |
Astros | 27-15 | 0 | 116 | 87 | 82 | 11 | 177 | 97.5% |
Mets | 28-15 | 1 | 111 | 85 | 94 | 0 | 152 | 87.8% |
Dodgers | 27-13 | -3 | 116 | 83 | 83 | -9 | 144 | 97.2% |
There’s no love lost between the Yankees and White Sox these days. After tensions rose during a four-game set two weekends ago, they tipped past the breaking point after Josh Donaldson’s racially charged comments to Tim Anderson on Saturday. That storyline understandably dominated the headlines, overshadowing a week in which the Yankees went 5-3 to maintain the best record in baseball. Aaron Judge is currently locked in and blasting everything in sight. He launched his league-leading 15th home run during the day game on Sunday; it was the third long ball he hit last week. Read the rest of this entry »