FanGraphs Power Rankings: May 4–10

The current standings between the two leagues are quite lopsided entering the second full week of May. Just three teams in the American League have winning records, while all five clubs in the NL Central are above .500. Then again, that division, which was not supposed to be all that strong entering the season, is doing a lot to prop up the National League as a whole; seven of the remaining 10 teams in the Senior Circuit have losing records.

Our power rankings use 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 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 were handed their first series loss last week, dropping two of three to the Mariners, but they bounced right back by taking two of three from the Dodgers in Los Angeles over the weekend. Despite that small hiccup in Seattle, Atlanta is clearly in the driver’s seat in the NL East. The team is nine games clear of the Phillies, Marlins, and Nationals in a three-way tie for second place, and 12.5 games ahead of the worst-in-baseball Mets. It’s still very early in the season, and the Braves are bound for some sort of regression, but because they’ve pulled out to such a comfortable lead, it’s possible this division race could already be over.

The Cubs keep rising up the standings. After their 10-game winning streak was snapped a few weeks ago, they rattled off another 10-gamer that ended on Saturday. This most recent surge included three straight walk-off wins over the Reds, two of which came in extra innings. Chicago dropped two of three over the weekend against the Rangers, but the team’s previous series loss was sandwiched between the two 10-game streaks. Surely, that doesn’t mean the Cubs are going to continue alternating between winning 10 games and losing a weekend series, but it does suggest that they probably won’t cool off too much. Rather, it’s an indication that this team is likely to win many more games than it loses this year.

Both the Dodgers and Yankees lost their grip on their division leads last week, though Los Angeles has been struggling for longer than New York. The two-time reigning World Series champs have gone a listless 9-12 during their last 21 games. It’s hard to ignore the 103 wRC+ that Shohei Ohtani has put up during this cold streak; at one point he went hitless in five straight games in between starts on the mound — two outings in which he didn’t bat. But despite his recent woes at the plate, he’s been absolutely dominant on the mound; he’d be leading baseball in ERA at 0.97 if he qualified for the ERA title. Maybe the return of Mookie Betts, who is expected to be activated off the IL this week, will be the spark the Dodgers need.

As for the Yankees, they were swept by the Brewers this past weekend and slipped from the top spot in the AL East. They promoted Spencer Jones to make his major league debut on Friday and activated Carlos Rodón off the IL on Sunday. Jones has been a bit of a divisive prospect as he’s worked his way through the minor leagues, but after Jasson Domínguez injured his shoulder on Thursday just nine games after he was recalled from the minors, the Yankees needed another outfielder on the big league roster. Now that Rodón is healthy, Gerrit Cole is the next injured member of New York’s excellent rotation set to be activated. He’s on rehab assignment now and could be back in the majors as soon as early next week.

The Rays managed to take advantage of New York’s woes, sweeping the Blue Jays and winning a rain-shortened series against the Red Sox over the weekend. After missing the entirety of the last two seasons, Shane McClanahan has reemerged as the ace of the Tampa Bay staff. Though it took him a little while to find his groove, he hasn’t allowed a run across his last three starts.

While the Cubs remained in first place, the rest of the NL Central did some shuffling over the last week, with the Brewers gaining the most ground following their weekend sweep of the Yankees. Milwaukee walked-off New York in the final two games of the series, scoring all four runs against the bullpen on Saturday to win 4-3 in the 10th inning before Brice Turang’s Sunday solo shot broke a 3-3 tie with two outs in the ninth. Oh, and on Friday, Jacob Misiorowski put any injury concerns to bed by throwing six scoreless innings while striking out 11.

With two weekend wins against the Cardinals, the Padres managed to catch up to the Dodgers in the NL West standings, though their offense remains a concern. They rank 25th in the majors with a 92 wRC+ and 28th in wOBA (.298), and the trio of Fernando Tatis Jr. (78 wRC+), Manny Machado (85), and Jackson Merrill (90) has greatly underperformed. The lone bright spot in the lineup has been Xander Bogaerts; he collected a pair of home runs last week and is currently running a 124 wRC+.

The Athletics are one of the three winning teams in the AL, good enough to put them in first place in the West for now. While he hasn’t hit many home runs so far in his sophomore season, Nick Kurtz is enjoying a fascinating follow-up to his Rookie of the Year campaign. His contact quality is still elite, but his batted balls just haven’t been flying over the fence. Instead, he’s been walking a ton, satisfied to take a base when pitchers avoid giving him something to hit; he’s riding a 34-game on-base streak entering this week. The guy who is hitting home runs is Shea Langeliers. He’s up to 11 on the season and is currently sporting a 176 wRC+, the best among big league catchers.

The Mariners showed a bit of life with a series win against the Braves last week and then added a 12-run outburst on Friday against the White Sox. Alas, they scored just twice across the final two games of their series in Chicago. Brendan Donovan was activated off the IL on Friday, which should help Seattle’s beleaguered offense, but the real culprit is none other than Cal Raleigh. He’s gone hitless with 15 strikeouts in his last 36 plate appearances dating back to April 27. He missed three games earlier this month with right side soreness, and it’s possible that is affecting his performance, but either way, the Mariners need him to find his swing.

The Diamondbacks have been mired in a pretty miserable slump at the plate over the last two weeks, scoring just 3.1 runs per game in their last 12 games. When Ildemaro Vargas is one of your best hitters, things probably aren’t going so well. That’s no disrespect to Vargas, who has been one of hottest hitters in baseball to start the season. but Ketel Marte (13 wRC+ over the last 14 days), Corbin Carroll (87), and Geraldo Perdomo (95) should be leading this lineup. Arizona did promote top prospect Ryan Waldschmidt on Friday, and he went 3-for-8 in his first three games. Maybe he’ll help provide a spark for the Snakes.

Things very quickly went off the rails for the Reds last week. They were swept by the Cubs in four games and had their losing streak extended to eight in a 10-0 blowout loss to the Astros on Friday. Three of those losses in Chicago were walk-offs, a pretty dramatic and disappointing way to lose to a division rival. They did manage to win their series weekend against Houston, though that’s a small consolation. Having outperformed their underlying peripherals for much of the start of the season, the Reds have suddenly hit a wave of regression. Even so, because of that strong start, Cincinnati enters this week three games over .500 and remains very much in the mix in the competitive NL Central.

With the injury to Tarik Skubal last week, the AL Central suddenly became one of the most interesting divisions in baseball. Detroit lost five straight after placing its ace on the IL on Monday before finally snapping that losing streak on Sunday night. Meanwhile, the White Sox (!) of all teams are currently second in the division, at 19-21, and just a game behind the first-place Guardians. And the Royals — who are tied for third with Detroit and just a half game behind Chicago — have quietly been one of the hottest teams in the majors over the last few weeks. At 11-5, they have the second-best record in baseball since the start of April 24. Oh, and let’s not forget the last-place Twins, who are lurking just 2.5 games behind Cleveland.

To make things more intriguing, these division rivals spent last week beating up on each other; the Guardians and Royals split a four-game series early last week, while the Twins and Royals won their weekend series against Cleveland and Detroit, respectively.

Our Playoff Odds still give the Tigers the slight edge to win the division, though their margin for error is obviously a lot thinner with Skubal sidelined for the next few months. Unfortunately, the injury also exacerbates the issues already plaguing Detroit’s starting rotation. Casey Mize and Justin Verlander have been dealing with minor ailments this year, and Troy Melton, Reese Olson, and Jackson Jobe have been out with more significant injuries. Among the healthy starters, Jack Flaherty is mired in the worst start of his career, and Framber Valdez suffered through a 10-run meltdown on Tuesday that ended in an ejection for throwing at Trevor Story, earning him a six-game suspension.

With the Tigers in turmoil, the Guardians are acting with uncharacteristic urgency. On Saturday, they swung an early-season trade with the Giants for Patrick Bailey, the best defensive catcher in baseball. To get him, Cleveland gave up left-handed pitcher Matt “Tugboat” Wilkinson, a 45-FV prospect currently in Double-A, and the 29th pick in this year’s draft. Bo Naylor, who has been the Guardians’ starting catcher since the middle of June 2023, was optioned to the minor leagues.

The Marlins promoted two top prospects last week; catcher Joe Mack got the call on Monday and left-hander Robby Snelling made his first big league start on Friday. The trio of Liam Hicks (153 wRC+), Xavier Edwards (152), and Otto Lopez (147) has been driving the offense, but Kyle Stowers has yet to get his bat going, and Jakob Marsee and Owen Caissie have looked pretty lost at the plate. Still, the fact that even some of these position players have developed into solid hitters is a major win for Miami.

The blows just keep coming for the Astros. Carlos Correa injured his ankle during pregame warmups on Tuesday and will be out for the rest of the season following surgery. The same day, Houston also placed Yainer Diaz on the IL with a strained oblique, bringing the team’s total number of injured players to 15, the most in the majors. Jeremy Peña and Tatsuya Imai should be making their way back soon; Imai is scheduled to start on Tuesday and Peña could return as soon as this weekend.

The Rockies have lost four straight series since sweeping the Mets the last weekend of April, dropping their record to 16-25, second worst in the NL. Even so, there are a few bright spots to highlight in Colorado. Rather unexpectedly, Mickey Moniak has been one of the best hitters in the NL to start the season; his 163 wRC+ ranks ninth in the majors. On the pitching side of things, Chase Dollander has also continued to impress. In his second traditional start of the season on Friday, he took a no-hitter into the fourth inning against the Phillies and held them scoreless until the sixth before giving up a pair of runs.