MLB Power Rankings, Week 7: The Tampa Bay Rays Stand Alone

No one, not even the Yankees, have stopped the Rays so far this year.

And then, there was one.

The Yankees are still on pace to win over 100 games and the Phillies are looking as good as ever, but the Rays are standing head and shoulders above the rest of the league right now. After Tampa’s convincing win in New York last night, we have no choice but to place the Rays alone in the Favorites category. They’ve scored 95 more runs than their opponents, good for an average margin of victory of over two runs. That may not seem like a lot, but if they were to keep that pace up, they’d have the all-time wins record, to say nothing of the scoring record. These Rays are something else.

The top category isn’t the only one seeing a thinning of the ranks, though. The Contenders category also shaved off a few members, dumping the #5 Giants and #6 Twins. Both of those teams are excellent clubs this year, but when there’s a full point difference between their scores and #4 San Diego’s, it’s clear they don’t belong at the top.

And finally, two teams have managed to extricate themselves from the “Truly, Unapologetically Terrible” dungeon. The Angels jumped three spots to #23 following a strong week, and while the Royals didn’t actually rise from #27, their score is at least positive this week, which is more than they’ve been able to say this season.

It’s hardly surprising to see more and more teams heading toward the middle of the pack. As we get a larger sample size of games played, teams are likely to regress toward the mean. Instead of seeing teams like the Rays and Pirates projected to decimate the record books, we’re likely to see them fall back to more modest totals. As of right now, our formula isn’t quite sophisticated enough to take that sort of regression into account, so we’re forced to rely on linear projections that give us four teams winning 100 games or more and one team struggling to win just 46.

Essentially, what we’re saying is to take these rankings with a grain of salt. They’re a good measure of how these teams are performing in relation to each other, but with nearly 120 games to go in the season, it’s still a little reckless to try to predict where each team will finish. So enjoy the estimates, and feel free to throw them back in our faces when they turn out wrong in September.