FanGraphs Power Rankings: May 15–21

The Yankees and Cardinals have surged up the standings — and these rankings — behind some outstanding performances from their superstars. That suggests it’s not too late for a big turn around from those early strugglers, especially since the best teams really haven’t been able to separate themselves from the pack so far.

A reminder for how these rankings are calculated: first, we take the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), their pitching (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by starter and reliever IP share), and their defense (RAA) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric. 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.

The Rays lost a hard fought series against the Mets last week before taking two of three from the Brewers over the weekend. Their pace has definitely slowed recently, though they’re still on track to challenge the 2001 Mariners’ win record. The injuries are piling up and their entire division is sitting above .500, with the Orioles just 2.5 games behind them. On Sunday, they lost just their fourth game at home this season; they’ll host the Blue Jays and Dodgers this week.

The Rangers welcomed Corey Seager back last week, and he promptly collected five extra-base hits and eight RBI in his first four games off the injured list. He returns to a club that’s leading the AL West despite missing its headline offseason acquisition, Jacob deGrom. The Rangers are getting breakout performances up and down their lineup, and their pitching has been solid in deGrom’s absence — Dane Dunning has been thrust back into the rotation and he’s responded by making three fantastic starts.

After a slow start in April, the Dodgers rattled off 15 wins in 18 games beginning on April 28. That surge was squashed by an ugly series loss in St. Louis over the weekend that saw their pitching staff allow 32 runs in four games. To make matters worse, they lost Julio Urías and Dustin May to serious injuries on back-to-back days last week, significantly thinning their already strained rotation. Tony Gonsolin’s return from his spring injury has been welcome, but Los Angeles will have to turn to its stable of young pitching prospects to pick up the slack. Luckily, the lineup is swinging some really hot bats, which should take some pressure off the pitching staff.

When Aaron Judge gets on a heater, he has the ability to carry an entire team. That’s what he’s done over his last eight games, collecting 14 hits, seven home runs and 16 RBI. Thanks to Judge’s hot streak, the Yankees have turned around their season after falling to a game above .500 on May 7, going 11-3 since then. Last week, they won a four-game series in Toronto and then swept the Reds in Cincinnati. Luis Severino was activated off the IL for his first start of the season on Sunday, providing some reinforcements to a pitching staff that is still missing a bunch of big contributors.

The Astros went a perfect 6-0 last week and have jumped to just two games back of the Rangers in their division. They activated Jose Altuve off the IL on Friday, which should provide a boost to an offense that simply hasn’t been as dangerous as we’re used to seeing from Houston. During this seven-game win streak, they’ve only scored 4.86 runs per game, just a little over their season average. Instead, it’s their pitching staff that has carried much of the load recently, highlighted by a complete-game shutout spun by Framber Valdez on Sunday. Even though they’re missing three of their best starters, they’ve gotten solid contributions from a couple of youngsters in Hunter Brown and J.P. France.

The Mariners possess one of the best run prevention units in baseball — their pitching staff ranks highly in park- and league-adjusted FIP and their defense is among the league leaders in RAA. Bryce Miller has been absolutely dazzling through his first four starts in the majors, joining George Kirby and Logan Gilbert as standout graduates of Seattle’s pitching pipeline. Unfortunately, they’ve been sunk by an offense that has really struggled to find any consistency. Julio Rodríguez is stuck in a sophomore slump, and the team is leading the majors in strikeout rate without the accompanying power numbers you’d expect from a group of free swingers.

All of a sudden, the Cardinals have surged up the standings, winning 11 of their last 14 games. Nolan Arenado has led the charge, collecting 20 hits, six home runs and 16 RBI during this stretch. Not to be outdone, Nolan Gorman has also hit six home runs over the last two weeks. The Cardinals have won four series in a row and have a pretty easy schedule to finish out the month, with the Reds, Guardians, Royals, and Pirates on the docket. It wouldn’t be shocking to see them back at .500 as the calendar flips over to June.

The Blue Jays won just a single game last week, a walk-off victory on Wednesday against the Yankees. They’ve fallen into last place in the hyper-competitive AL East, though they’re still three games above .500. Alek Manoah is really struggling on the mound and Matt Chapman has cooled off after his scorching hot April. They’ll head to Tampa Bay for a big four-game series this week, which isn’t likely to help matters.

The Giants have been stuck right where they left off last season, sitting around .500 with a talented if flawed roster. They rattled off five wins in six games last week to push their record up to two games under .500, and they’re finally showing some signs of life. LaMonte Wade Jr. has been leading the offense, while Casey Schmitt has given their infield a young spark. With the Padres floundering, they’ve got an opening to push themselves into the NL Wild Card conversation, with top pitching prospect Kyle Harrison waiting in the wings.

It’s been a roller coaster of a season for the Red Sox already. They won eight straight as the calendar flipped from April to May, then lost six of seven before winning four straight last week. This kind of inconsistency is present throughout the roster — just last week, they scored nine and 12 runs in a pair of blowout wins but allowed 10 and seven runs in a pair of blowout losses. They did activate James Paxton off the IL a few weeks ago. He made his first start in more than two years and Garrett Whitlock should be following him shortly.

Very little has gone right for the Padres recently. They haven’t won a series since taking two of three from the Reds to begin this month. They just placed Manny Machado on the IL with a broken bone in his hand, though his absence is the least of San Diego’s worries. Even with a resurgent Juan Soto, they’ve scored just 3.4 runs per game in May. With the amount of star power filling their lineup every night, that’s a pretty deep team-wide slump.

The Mets won their series against the Rays and swept the Guardians last week, pushing their record back over .500. Four of those five wins were come-from-behind victories and two of them ended on walk-off hits. More importantly, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander both looked dominant on Sunday; the former went six scoreless in the first game of their double-header while the latter spun eight innings of one-run ball in the nightcap. Getting those two right is as important to the Mets’ summer as anything else concerning their roster.

Things are looking a little better in Washington, as the Nationals have shown some improvement after a major league-worst 107 losses last year. A bunch of their youngsters have made key adjustments, though there isn’t a big breakout that you can point to right now. It’s mostly incremental development, which is a good if boring way to slowly build a roster that’s ready for the clutch of prospects they received in the Juan Soto trade last summer.

The White Sox won five of their six games last week, with a sweep of the Royals over the weekend a highlight. After struggling through most of the early part of the season, Michael Kopech threw eight scoreless innings on Friday, allowing just a single hit while striking out 10. Their entire pitching staff is on a pretty good run right now; the last time they allowed more than five runs in a game was back on May 10. They’re facing a huge uphill battle, but the AL Central isn’t that high of a mountain to climb right now.

The A’s notched their 10th win of the season on Tuesday, a decidedly unexciting extra-innings walk-off to conclude a game against the Diamondbacks that neither team appeared all that eager to win. That was Oakland’s fourth walk-off win and third win in extras this year, which is all a little silly when you realize that means they’ve only won five “normal” games this season.

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