Tuesday, June 14, 2016

USA Today’s Weekly MLB Power Rankings


The New York Yankees came out of the gates this week like a team possessed. New York rode the waves of good karma and even better baseball to start the week out on a 5-0 stretch including a sweep of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim only to fall short in their final two games of the week against the Detroit Tigers. Would the Yankees fall again in the rankings or would a sweep of Mike Trout and Albert Pujols be enough to propel the team closer to the Promised Land? Keep reading and find out.

New York did not fall this week and in fact they rose two spots from the #19 position to the #17 position after a strong week. You have to think that pulling out either the Saturday night or Sunday afternoon game against the Tigers would have helped propel them another slot or so higher but I guess we’ll never know. Speaking of series victories, sweeps and rising in the standings a weekend series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Pirates had a large bearing on this week’s rankings as well. The Cardinals swept the Pirates over the weekend giving St. Louis the biggest rise of the week while Pittsburgh had the biggest fall of the week. St. Louis rose five spots to the #9 position while Pittsburgh finished down four spots at the #13 position.

The Top Five teams according to the rankings were the Chicago Cubs, Washington Nationals, Texas Rangers, San Francisco Giants and Boston Red Sox in that order. Meanwhile the five worst teams according to the rankings were the #26 San Diego Padres, the Oakland Athletics, the Cincinnati Reds, the Minnesota Twins and the #30 Atlanta Braves.

The American League East boasts three teams in the Top 10 with Boston claiming the fifth spot, Baltimore the sixth and Toronto the 10th spot on the list. New York, as we stated earlier, was 17th while the Tampa Bay Rays are bringing up the rear in the division with the #20 ranking overall.

Teams have already begun buying and selling off players with much more either being discussed or to come so expect a shakeup of these rankings pretty soon. The more the Yankees rise in these rankings the less likely they will be to sell but if they slip into the 20’s again we may see the first selling off period in the Bronx since 1989. Oakland thanks you for Rickey Henderson once again by the way. Stay tuned every week as we figure this thing out and watch to see if New York can climb and claw their way back into this thing.


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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)