MLB Team Power Rankings Update: The Red Sox Are Getting Hot at the Right Time
Teams Ranked 30th to 21st
It seems as if the Colorado Rockies will never truly make sense when it comes to the relationship between their record and our metrics, but it gets even worse when they have a bad week. Manager Bud Black's club has gone 2-4 over their last six games, and while Colorado still owns a 5.0-game lead in the National League Wild Card race, their playoff odds have decreased by more than 10 percentage points since we last checked in.
However, there were a few other teams in this group currently on the outside looking in with regard to the playoff picture that had an impactful week of play.
| Rank | Team | nERD | Record | Playoff Odds | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 | San Francisco Giants | -1.07 | 47-73 | 0.0% | 0 |
| 28 | Philadelphia Phillies | -0.77 | 43-73 | 0.0% | 0 |
| 28 | Chicago White Sox | -0.77 | 45-70 | 0.0% | +1 |
| 27 | Colorado Rockies | -0.53 | 66-52 | 62.8% | -2 |
| 26 | San Diego Padres | -0.49 | 52-66 | 0.0% | -2 |
| 25 | Atlanta Braves | -0.48 | 52-64 | 0.2% | -3 |
| 24 | Baltimore Orioles | -0.47 | 59-60 | 7.4% | +2 |
| 23 | Pittsburgh Pirates | -0.46 | 58-60 | 1.9% | -3 |
| 22 | Cincinnati Reds | -0.41 | 49-70 | 0.0% | -1 |
| 21 | Minnesota Twins | -0.40 | 59-57 | 18.9% | +6 |
Biggest Rise: Minnesota Twins
The past few weeks have been weird for the Minnesota Twins. Leading up to the non-waiver trade deadline, they acted as buyers and acquired Jaime Garcia from the Atlanta Braves. But after a rough few days, they were sellers, shipping out Garcia after just one start, while also trading away closer Brandon Kintzler.
Here we are on August 15th, and they're back to two games over .500 and just 0.5 games out of the final American League Wild Card spot. Baseball is a funny game, isn't it?
Third baseman Miguel Sano has been struggling at the dish (80 wRC+ in his last 31 plate appearances), but Joe Mauer, Byron Buxton, Eddie Rosario, Jorge Polanco, Max Kepler, and Brian Dozier have done plenty to pick up the slack -- none of them have posted a wRC+ lower than 149 over the past week.
Biggest Drop: Pittsburgh Pirates
Although reaching the playoffs as a Wild Card team doesn't seem like an option for the Pittsburgh Pirates (they sit eight games behind the final spot), the Chicago Cubs' refusal to run away with the division has left the Buccos just 4.5 games off the pace. Still, they aren't making things easy on themselves -- after a 3-3 week, Pittsburgh's already slim playoff odds got even slimmer (2.7% last week to just 1.9% this week).
They're not playing consistent baseball as a whole, but one guy who's been mashing is rookie first baseman Josh Bell. Over his last 45 plate appearances, the left-handed hitter has produced a .361/.422/.556 triple slash and has been walking more often (13.3%) than he's striking out (11.1%).
A key for the Pirates will be getting some solid pitching. Their 0.8 fWAR over the past week as a collective staff is among the top half in baseball, but they haven't exactly had a ton of luck -- they've produced a 5.12 team ERA despite a 42.4% ground-ball rate and 3.88 FIP. Posting a 59.1% strand rate during this time doesn't help much, either.
