FanGraphs Power Rankings: September 8–14

All of a sudden the NL Wild Card race looks a lot more exciting, while the playoff picture in the AL had a big shakeup over the weekend. It’s bound to be an exciting final two weeks of the regular season.

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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The Phillies essentially wrapped up the NL East race by sweeping the Mets in four games last week, but they can officially clinch the division with a win as soon as Monday night against the Dodgers in Los Angeles. Despite missing both Trea Turner and Alec Bohm, the lineup hasn’t missed a beat. Kyle Schwarber blasted three home runs to extend his NL lead to 52, and Bryce Harper chipped in with a pair of homers as well, but the real star of the show was Harrison Bader, who collected 16 hits last week.

The Brewers became the first team to clinch a playoff berth last week, though the celebrations were a little delayed after they were swept by the red hot Rangers to start the week. The Crew managed to turn things around and took two of three from the Cardinals over the weekend. Milwaukee’s sights are now set on securing its third straight NL Central title and its fifth division crown over the last eight years.

The Blue Jays bounced back from their series loss to the Yankees the first weekend of September by taking two of three from the Astros last week and then sweeping the Orioles over the weekend. With a four-game lead over New York in the AL East and 13 games left to play, Toronto’s odds to win the division sit at 92.0% as of this writing. The Jays have seven games remaining against the Rays (four in Tampa this week and then three in Toronto to finish the season), with three-game sets against the Royals and Red Sox sandwiched between them.

Meanwhile, the Yankees have the easiest remaining schedule of any playoff contender, with seven games against the Orioles and three apiece against the Twins and White Sox. That’s why New York still has a 7.3% shot at taking the division this late in the season. However, because the Blue Jays own the tiebreaker between the two teams, the Yankees essentially need to pick up five games in the East to secure the division title. Crucially, Aaron Judge has caught fire over the last few weeks; he blasted five home runs last week and is slashing .362/.519/.793 (a 251 wRC+) over his last 17 games. He’s also back playing part time in the outfield, which has allowed New York to keep both him and Giancarlo Stanton in the lineup every day.

The Mariners completed a perfect, seven-game homestand last week, ran their witch-powered winning streak to nine games, and took sole possession of the AL West lead for the first time since June 2. This is the latest in the season the M’s have led the division since 2001, which also happens to be the last time they won the West. It’s no exaggeration to say that their upcoming road trip might be their most important since that historic season. First, they’ll play three in Kansas City, where they’ll try to bury the Royals for good. Then, the main event: a three-game series in Houston that could very well decide the division. Winning the West should especially be a priority for the Mariners because it would secure them no worse than the AL’s no. 3 seed, thus granting them home-field advantage for at least the first round of the playoffs. Since the All-Star break, Seattle has gone 23-6 inside T-Mobile Park and its home record this year is tied for fourth best in baseball.

After a frustrating season at the plate, Mookie Betts is finally heating up at precisely the right time; he collected 12 hits last week and is slashing .385/.429/.731 (a 219 wRC+) since the calendar flipped to September. Even with Betts performing, a fully healthy starting rotation, and Shohei Ohtani wrapping up what should be his fourth MVP season, the Dodgers’ path to the postseason isn’t going to get any easier. Late last week, they finally opted to place Will Smith on the IL after he missed seven games with a hand contusion, though fortunately he is expected to be ready for the playoffs. Another concern for Los Angeles: Its remaining schedule looks pretty daunting, with home series against the Phillies and Giants this week before heading out on a final road trip through Arizona and Seattle. The Dodgers hold a 2 1/2-game lead over the Padres in the NL West and have 93.2% odds to win the division, but this race isn’t quite over just yet.

The Tigers dodged a bullet after Tarik Skubal exited his start early on Saturday with side tightness, as it sounds like he is going to be just fine. Obviously, no player on Detroit’s roster is as important as Skubal. The Tigers are 2 1/2 games behind the Blue Jays for the best record in the AL, but making sure Skubal is healthy enough to pitch deep into October has to be their top priority, even if it means resting him and sacrificing their shot at the top seed in the league.

Even with the Mariners going 9-1 over their last 10 games, the AL playoff picture is still immensely crowded because the Rangers and Guardians also refuse to lose. Over this same stretch, Texas has gone 7-3 while Cleveland has matched Seattle’s record; the Rangers are two games out of the final Wild Card berth, the Guards 2 1/2. The team they trail, though, is no longer Seattle; it’s the Astros, the only member of the quartet that isn’t winning. Houston is 4-6 over its last 10 games, and its 72.4% playoff odds as this writing are the lowest of any club currently in possession of a postseason position. Based on the trajectory of these four teams, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Astros fall out of a playoff spot entirely by the end of this week, though obviously they are quite capable of turning things around at any point.

To ratchet up the excitement, these teams will face each other a bunch over these next two weeks. The Astros host the Rangers and Mariners this week in what will likely be a season-defining homestand, and the Rangers and Guardians match up during the final weekend of the season in Cleveland.

Want to know the secret behind the Texas and Cleveland surges? It’s the pitching. The Guardians lead all of baseball with a 2.63 ERA in September, while the Rangers are third with a 3.27 ERA. Tanner Bibee threw a shutout in his start on Friday, and as a staff, the Guards allowed just 11 runs total in seven games last week. For Texas, Jacob deGrom was excellent in his return to Citi Field on Friday, tossing seven innings of three-run ball. The bullpen has been especially key for the Rangers during this stretch; their relievers have a 3.35 ERA in September, fifth best in the majors. The pen has kept them in some very close games, which has set the stage for the scrappy lineup to earn a bunch of come-from-behind wins, including two last week.

The Mets finally won a game, and it came in the most dramatic fashion. Having lost eight straight, New York looked like it was going to squeak out a win on Sunday until the bullpen coughed up another late-inning lead. Instead, it went to extra innings, where Pete Alonso emphatically blasted a walk-off three-run homer in the 10th. It might be hyperbolic to say that Alonso’s blast saved the Mets season — they’re very much still in danger of slipping behind any of the Giants, Diamondbacks, or Reds — but it was a desperately needed win to stop an agonizing late-season skid.

The Giants also enjoyed a dramatic, walk-off home run last week — a grand slam off the bat of Patrick Bailey no less — but that moment happened in Friday’s game, and they followed it up with two stinkers against the Dodgers on Saturday and Sunday. Those two losses dropped them 1 1/2 games behind New York for the final NL Wild Card spot, and the Mets hold the tiebreaker, which leaves the Giants with a 9.2% chance of overcoming that gap as of this writing. In an effort to boost those odds, San Francisco will be calling up Bryce Eldridge, the team’s top prospect, for a final push for the playoffs.

You can’t count the Diamondbacks or Reds out either, though those two teams face much larger hurdles. Arizona has a gauntlet lined up for its final four series — a trio of three-game sets at home against the Giants, Phillies, and Dodgers before heading to San Diego to finish out the season. So, if the D-backs manage overcome their 5.0% playoff odds, they’ll have really earned it. Cincinnati’s remaining schedule isn’t quite as difficult as that, but all four series left on the ledger come against its four divisional foes, two of whom are going to the playoffs.

The Athletics swept the Reds last weekend, and they’ll have a few more opportunities to sow chaos into the playoff picture with one three-game set against the Red Sox beginning on Tuesday and another against the Astros during the final week of the season. The A’s are the perfect spoiler. They’ve been among the best teams in the AL since the All-Star break, and their roster is full of young guys looking to prove that they belong and that the organization might finally be on the upswing.

The Orioles are in a similar boat as the A’s even though their second-half record isn’t as good. The O’s are desperate for any positive signs they can take into next year after such a disappointing season. Beating the Yankees as many times as they can over the seven remaining games against their division rivals might not serve as a building block for next year, but it would definitely feel really good.

After sticking with the Mariners, Rangers, and Guardians in the Wild Card standings for most of the second half, the Royals crashed out of the playoff race last week, going 2-5 against Cleveland and Philadelphia. They’ve got one shot to save their season, with a three-game series against the Mariners beginning on Tuesday followed by a weekend set against the Blue Jays. Kansas City is pulling out all the stops for its last charge: The team is planning on activating Michael Wacha and Cole Ragans off the IL to start in that series against Seattle. Ragans has been on the shelf since mid-June with a shoulder strain, but maybe his return will spark a shocking turnaround as the season winds down.

A week ago, it looked like the Cardinals were hoping to sneak into the NL Wild Card race — they pushed their record back to .500 on September 7 and were 4 1/2 games back at that point. A 1-5 week against the Mariners and Brewers quickly dashed those hopes, and now St. Louis will officially turn toward next year. The problem is, many of the questions the Cards had about the youngsters peppering their roster haven’t been answered. Are Jordan Walker, Nolan Gorman, and Victor Scott II ever going to be above-average contributors? The answer will have to be figured out by incoming president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom.

There wasn’t much to enjoy about how this season played out in Minnesota, but getting nearly a full season out of Byron Buxton during his peak is a small consolation. The Twins also activated Pablo López off the IL a few weeks ago, and he’s looked no worse for wear after a shoulder injury interrupted his season. They’ll also have a bunch of opportunities to play spoiler over the final stretch, lending a bit of artificial excitement to the end of the season. They’ll host the Yankees and Guardians this week and then finish up with two road series against the Rangers and Phillies.