For Approximately The Billionth Time: The Atlanta Braves Are The Absolute Best Team In MLB
Week 21 MLB Power Rankings
It's Monday.
Fresh 1-9 through heading into week 21.5 of the MLB season:
The Yankees have their worst losing streak in 28 years and will not be making this list any time soon. A lot of you enjoy that which is why I opened with it.
Personally I think baseball's at it's best with the Yankees on this list at nearly all times and that's for many reasons. Notably - the sport's growing and you could use the biggest name in sports helping out. Full stopping as Chris Klemmer routinely suggests - 77 wins isn't doing shit for the global push.
Hubbs can explain it better and he certainly does this week on the show. I believe he said Rock Bottom. Or maybe it was The Most Embarrassed I've Ever Been In My Entire Life. I can't recall. It was sincere and miserable though.
Other programming notes:
- The Braves are still a casually-observable level better than the Dodgers, and the Dodgers are 17-2 in August. Their lineup (all of 'em) have an .820 OPS and they keep getting better. Nobody said they're cheating but Jason Heyward has a 115 OPS+ if you wanted to be surprised about something.
- The Orioles have looked good, of course. But the Dodgers run has simply been too hot. The Rangers are losers of 4 in a row. The 2-3-4 here is iron clad. You can't tell me the Rangers deserve to be any higher. There's no holes to poke.
- Speaking of the Rangers, they got smacked by the Brewers and Scherzer gassed. They're still up 2.5 games in 1st place but things are overall tightening up in the AL. We could easily come back next week with extra Mariners gravy. It's happened.
- They're 6 because they look awesome. Some concern that Julio can't hit .800 the rest of the season, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. The Mariners have lost one series since the trade deadline and that was against the Orioles. A brief scare with the Sewald trade but they've recovered nicely and could outright win the west at this pace.
- Astros Schmastros. I'm not ready to say they're worse than the Mariners. I'm just not sure what to think about them. They're the Astros. Any other club would be 10 games under .500 facing their scale of adversity. Next week we'll know much better who is 5-6-7 on this list.
- Rays lose Wander Franco for being a pedophile. Allegedly a serial pedophile. The clubhouse responds with a 4-2 week as we all agree this has to boost morale ASSUMING most guys knew he was a scumbag. If they knew, then it must have been a long time coming. Yet he's still the most valuable shortstop in the American League not named Corey Seager so at some point you're gonna be at a disadvantage without his talent. No McClanahan. No good.
- Red Sox are 9-4 since their fanbase declared the season over. We don't talk about them but I wanted to say that out loud here.
- The Cubs got bumped for the Blue Jays despite beating the Blue Jays last weekend. I did my best but this is a collective. The group likes the Blue Jays just a little bit more. Hard to argue about 3rd place teams. Let's just agree on that.
- The Phillies are made for the playoffs. There's a good discussion why. I'm not repeating it. You can check it out here.