USA Today’s Weekly MLB Power Rankings

Another week of baseball down and another week closer to the August 31^st trade deadline, which comes and goes tomorrow in case you don’t have a calendar handy, and another week closer to the playoffs. Whether the New York Yankees will be there in October remains to be seen but the team is doing everything they have to do in order to get there, but will it be enough? The Yankees are winning series, almost every series in fact, but at some point they have to start making up ground on the 900 (slight exaggeration) teams in front of them in the AL Wild Card chase and they do that by sweeping teams. Well that and by rising a bit in these rankings.

The Yankees despite have another great week of baseball rose just one spot in the rankings to the #16 position. I know I’ve said this a couple weeks in a row now but I think the crew over there is being cautious with this team and the first time they go on a three or four game losing streak they will drop them like they are hot in the rankings. Oh well, only way to prevent that is to keep winning I guess. The Yankees best bet to make the postseason may be to leapfrog the teams ahead of them in the division and win and to do that they would have to hunt down the #4 ranked Toronto Blue Jays, the #6 ranked Boston Red Sox and the #9 ranked Baltimore Orioles while holding off the #23 ranked Tampa Bay Rays.

The biggest rise of the week went to the Oakland Athletics who rose four spots to the #22 position while the biggest fall went to the Miami Marlins who are streaking in the wrong direction at the worst possible time. Miami slid five spots this week down to the #17 position in the rankings. Ouch.

The Top Five teams according to the rankings are the Chicago Cubs, the Washington Nationals, the Texas Rangers, the Toronto Blue Jays and the Cleveland Indians in order while the five teams that nobody wants to be in the league right now are the #26 Cincinnati Reds, the #27 San Diego Padres, the #28 Arizona Diamondbacks, the #29 Minnesota Twins and the #30 Atlanta Braves.

It will be interesting to see how tomorrow trade deadline affects the playoff chases and these rankings. Stay tuned for that and stay tuned to see if the Yankees continue to stockpile talent for their minor league teams and their future.