Opening Day MLB Power Rankings and Predictions

It's Opening Day Eve! (You Seattle fans be quiet.  Oakland fans don't exist, so I'm not worried about hearing from them). Time for my first real power rankings of the year.

Last year when I started doing these I said I hated putting them in writing because they always look poor in retrospect.  But the flip side is that you can also look like a genius.  Either way it's fun to look back at them afterwards and see where your analysis went wrong and learn from that.


#1 - Texas - do you realize they were 1 strike away from winning the World Series while having a 2 run lead last year?  Twice!  Not even the cursed Red Sox ....... oh, never mind.

2012 MLB Power Rankings - preseason

This is my first MLB power rankings of the year.  Let me cut right through the chase and start with my #1...

#1. Houston Astros - WHAT?  Am I crazy.  Do I know anything about baseball?  Read on to see the rest of the list and my simple explanation of why they are worthy of the top spot

Power Rankings - September edition

It's time for the stretch run. Looks like there might not be much excitement these last few weeks as all playoff spots look secure, but there's a reason they play the games. Just ask the 64 Phillies or 95 Angels or more recently the 2007 Mets. This will be the last power rankings for the season, I will reflect back on these after the season is over and comment on the best few (might be a challenge to find) and worst (might be a challenge to narrow it down to just a few) rankings and comments I made throughout the season.

Drumroll.... who has the coveted #1 ranking heading into September? No major surprise as for the 5th month in a row it's the Phillies. Here is the complete list. Numbers in brackets are movement from last month and their high/low rank for the season.

#1 - Philadelphia (--,1/2) - How good are they? Vance Worley who is 9-1 with a 2.65 ERA isn't likely to start in the posteason, because he's not a top 4 guy in their rotation. 'nuf said.

#2 - Boston (--,1/8) - Canadian Erik Bedard has looked like a solid #3 starter to replace Buchholz who isn't likely to return, and our catchers have gone from a liability to an asset. We can hit good pitchers so I'm not worried about facing Verlander or CC in the AL playoffs. Hitting 4 good pitchers in a row against Philly might be more of a challenge. And if we make it that far we lose a bat (Ortiz?) for up to 4 of the games.

MLB Power Rankings - August edition

Now that the trade deadline is done and for the most part, teams have made the changes they need for the last 1/3 of the season, here are the latest power rankings.  Numbers in brackets are movement from last month, and their high/low rank for the season.   Look at previous rankings  (Jan, February, March, Opening Day, May, June, July) for explanations of how the teams got to where they are. 

#1 – Philadelphia (--, 1/2) – I  may have mentioned this before – but there are some guys who know how to pitch a ball pretty good out in Eastern Pennsylvania.   Getting Hunter Pence at the deadline wasn’t a necessity but certainly doesn’t hurt.

MLB Power Rankings - July edition

I don't know how this happened, but these rankings didn't get posted.  I found them on my spreadsheet that keeps track of movement from month to month when I was writing up August's rankings.  It's too bad because I had some good comments on some teams that moved a lot (Pirates from 26 to 14, Florida from 9 to 20, Oakland from 13 to 23), but in retrospect the analysis was flawed as the month of July showed, so probably better that nobody saw it !  Anyhow, here is the list FWIW, sans commentary:

#1 - Philadelphia (--,1/2)
#2 - Boston (--, 1/8)
#3 - San Francisco (+5, 3/12)
#4 - Yankees (+2, 4/10)
#5 - Atlanta (+5, 5/16)
#6 - Texas (-3, 3/10)
#7 - Tampa Bay (-2, 5/8)
#8 - Detroit (+6, 8/14)
#9 - Milwaukee (-2, 7/18)
#10 - St. Louis (-6, 4/15)
#11 - Angels (+6, 11/22)
#12 - Arizona (+4, 12/27)
#13 - Toronto (+2, 13/20)
#14 - Pittsburgh (+12, 14/29)
#15 - Cincinnati (+3, 14/18)
#16 - Cleveland (-4, 12/30)
#17 - Washington (+10, 17/27)
#18 - Mets (+7, 18/28)
#19 - White Sox (--, 15/23)
#20 - Florida (-11, 5/20)
#21 - Minnesota (+3, 3/24)
#22 - Colorado (-11, 2/22)
#23 - Oakland (-10, 4/23)
#24 - Dodgers (-1, 20/24)
#25 - Seattle (-3, 22/27)
#26 - Cubs (-5, 12/26)
#27 - Kansas City (+1, 22/28)
#28 - San Diego (+1, 17/29)
#29 - Baltimore (-9, 17/29)
#30 - Houston (--, 28/30)

MLB Power Rankings - June edition

Two months into the season, I can no longer use the excuse that it's early to hide some bad predictions.  When the 30th ranked Indians were off to a good start, I still thought they'd cool off by Memorial Day.  Well, that has come and gone and they still have the largest lead of any division leader, so maybe they're for real.   I still don't think they are a playoff team, but I'd like to take back my January comment when I said about the Pirates "Fans will probably be happy that I didn’t put them in their perennial #30 spot.  And there’s a very good reason for that.  It’s called the Cleveland Indians!" Pittsburgh is not at the bottom of my rankings, but it's not because Cleveland is any lower.  On the other end of the spectrum, my initial ranking of the Twins at #5 doesn't look too brilliant either.

Not all my predictions were quite as bad. I had Boston and Philly 1-2 and in spite of the Red Sox' slow start, these are still the 2 top teams.  I was one of the few who believed Tampa would still contend this year, and they have.  I had the Brewers ranked #7 in January, and that's where they're back to.  Predicting Adrian Gonzalez to win the MVP doesn't look like such a bad guess either.  And when I had Jon Lester winning the Cy Young, I actually meant Josh Beckett ;)

MLB Power Rankings - May edition

Now that the season is 1 month old, time to update the power rankings and give my readers a chance to comment on some laughably bad predictions that I had made earlier.  Not unexpectedly there is a new team atop the rankings.  And it has as much to do with Philadelphia's league best 18-8 start as it has for previously #1 ranked Boston's underwhelming April.  With that unsurprising spoiler out of the way, here are the full rankings.

Opening Day Eve - final preseason predictions

I made the first set of preseason predictions 2 months ago before spring training games started.  Since then there have been several injuries, player roles have been redefined and teams have finalized opening day rosters.   The season starts this weekend, so time for an updated set of projections, by division:

AMERICAN LEAGUE

East:

No major events in spring training, so I still expect the Red Sox to win.  Tampa and New York will fight for a wildcard spot.  Toronto and Baltimore, while both greatly improved, are still impaired by having to play more than 1/3 of their games against the above teams.

Central:

Twins are still the class of this division.  The Tigers and White Sox could contend but will be looking up most of the season, and KC and Cleveland will be out of the race by Victoria Day (or Memorial Day for those  readers South of the 49th).

West:

Oakland and Texas should have a good fight all season.  I originally had Oakland with a large edge due to their pitching , but the absence of Andrew Bailey evens things up.  I will modify my original forecast, and pick Texas to repeat.   The Angels are on their way down and Seattle will finish last again.

Summary:

AL East: Boston

AL Central: Minnesota

AL West: Texas

Wildcard prediction:  Oakland – easy wins against divisional foes will give them more victories than New York or Tampa. Other teams in the race could be the White Sox and Tigers.

ALCS:  Oakland over Minnesota

MVP: Adrian Gonzalez

RoY: Kyle Drabek

Cy Young: Jon Lester

NATIONAL LEAGUE

East:

With the Phillies injuries, this is now a tighter race than I had envisioned 6 weeks ago.  Philly’s starting pitching should still give them the edge over the Braves though.  In what will realistically only be a 2 horse race all season, the Marlins and Nationals will be looking forward to next year, while Mets fans shouldn’t  be expecting much, and won’t be disappointed.

Central:

This may be the most interesting divisional race.  There are no really good teams, and anyone could get hot for a short while and take the division.  Pirate fans - if either one of you are reading this, I wasn't talking to you.  And those of you in Texas who want to back a winner, better root for the Rangers – your Astros will finish last.  But the Cardinals do not look like much more than a .500 team.  The Brewers made some improvements, but they only won 77 games last year, and their biggest offseason acquisition, Zack Greinke is starting the season on the DL. Last year’s winner, Cincinnati, played above their heads and aren’t likely to have everything fall into place so nicely again.  The Cubs are the 4^th team in this mix and they only won 75 last year, although finished strong.  I would not be surprised if all 4 of these teams played .500 ball, while none of them win more than 88 games.  But if I have to make a wild-ass guess – sorry, I mean educated prediction after poring through thousands of advanced stats and scouting reports – I’m going to pick the Cubs to make the playoffs.  Whoever doesn’t win this division will not be in the wildcard race at all.

West

Another interesting race.  The Giants have the arms but still don’t have offence.  (Although as I recall that didn't end too badly for them last year).  The Rockies are going to give them a fight wire to wire.  I’m going to give Colorado the division crown, and have San Francisco in good shape to battle Atlanta for the wildcard.  San Diego hung in the race most of last year, but apparently did it with smoke and mirrors because other than Adrian Gonzalez, I’m not sure what they had.  Expect them to finish below .500 this year and not be a factor.  LA is an interesting team – I’ve seen them ranked as high as #5 in other power rankings, and as low as 26.  I’m leaning towards the latter.  They may challenge San Diego for a meaningless 3^rd place finish in this division.   The nicest thing I can say about the Diamondbacks is that they might be the best last place team in the league.

Summary:

NL East: Philadelphia

NL Central: Cubs

NL West: Rockies

Wildcard prediction - I think the Giants are a better team than the Braves, but ultimately Atlanta will end up with more wins, due to being able to beat up their divisional foes more easily than San Francisco can.   Don't see any other teams in the hunt for the wildcard.

NLCS:  Rockies over Philly

MVP:  Carlos Gonzalez, with Prince Fielder and Dan Uggla having great years.

RoY:  Freddie Freeman 

Cy Young: Josh Johnson with Ubaldo Jimenez, Roy Oswalt and Matt Garza having excellent seasons. 

World Series:

Oakland over Colorado in 6.

MLB Power Rankings - March edition

This is my last preseason power rankings.  I will update these near the beginning of each month throughout the season.  I will also update my preseason predictions before the season starts.

Numbers in brackets are movement from last month, and their high/low rank for the season.  Look at previous rankings(here for the initial January ones, and here for February) for explanations of how the team got to where they were - any explanation here just reflects recent changes.



#1 - Boston ( --, 1/1) They haven't done anything to drop from the top of the rankings.

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#2 - Philadelphia (--, 2/2)  Some injuries may make them less formidable, but along with Boston they are still the only other team likely to win 95 games.
#3 - Minnesota (--, 3/5) Beating up on weak division opponents will help their win total.

MLB Power Rankings - February edition

I will be providing monthly updates of the power rankings.   Expect them on or near the 1st of each month going forward.   Spring Training hasn't even started yet, so there isn't much movement from my original rankings, but there have been a few moves made, so it was time for an update, along with some commentary where a team moved significantly.  (numbers in bracket are last month's ranking)

#1.  Yankees (9) - Brian Cashman must have seen that I ranked them embarrassingly low, so he went out and starting signing all stars, and it helped get his team back atop the rankings.  First the pitching - he inked 2 top

2011 MLB Power Rankings

{editor's note: The following originally appeared on the Rulebook Guru's blog.  As a member of the Baseball Blogger's Alliance, he had been asked to participate in an MLB power ranking feature that was put up on MLB Blog Buzz.  He is an umpire who, like me, loves baseball but is much more involved at the local and amateur level, and does not really follow the MLB in depth, so asked me to write this on his behalf.}

Let me start by saying that I hate committing predictions to writing, because I know how poor they always look in retrospect.  One year ago, nobody predicted the Giants defeating the Rangers in the World Series.  Luck and unforeseen circumstances have a very large and underestimated part of a team’s final record, and the best forecaster in the world can’t predict those factors.   The only thing I’m certain of, is that I’ll have made some awful predictions.  I’ve done this in the past, and without fail one of my top teams always ends up being a woeful disappointment that end up below .500, and one of the bottom teams will end up at least fighting for a playoff spot.    Well, enough ado about nothing, on to the rankings…