MLB Power Rankings for July 13th- 2006

Rank (Pv)

Team

Record

Comments

Not only is Detroit the most improved team in baseball, but they could legitimately be considered one of the most improved teams over the past decade. The Tigers have been downright awful for 12 years consecutively, and now have a firm grasp on the league’s best record.

It’s hard to say too much negative about the defending champs, other than being 2.5 games back of Detroit, but if one thing can be identified, it’s the pitching. Last year’s staff had a 3.61 ERA (2nd in the AL), while this year’s team carries a mediocre 4.44 into the second half.

In constant competition with the Yankees (in both standings and payroll), Boston has succeeded in one major area that New York has failed. Boston has gotten production out of its low-salary players as well as its mega-stars. Jonathon Papelbon and Kevin Youkilis both make essentially the league minimum, and three other starters make under $3 million.

At this point last season, the Mets were the worst team in the NL East (44-44). This year they’re running away with the division, 12 games ahead of the Phillies.

The Yankees are hanging in strong despite key injuries to Sheffield and Matsui, but as we all know, nothing short of a championship can be considered a success in New York. Is it possible Steinbrenner would give Torre the axe if the Yankees didn’t make the playoffs?

The Cardinals’ heavy reliance on Pujols and tendency for pitching staff meltdowns make St. Louis the most likely team for a divisional series upset.

Toronto is still right in the thick of things, but they’ll need another arm and some luck to catch either of the Sox teams. Regardless of whether they make the playoffs, the Jays have taken a huge step forward from last year, where they were .500 at the break.

Minnesota has made progress in leaps and bounds this season, but they are also coming to a crossroads, as Hunter, Stewart, and Castillo are all going to be free agents after this season. On the flip side, though, is that Brad Radke’s $9 million contract will also expire, and might be enough for the Twins to make an off-season move or two.

The Padres have been one of the streakiest teams in baseball, but they waltz into the break on the right foot with a 5 game winning streak and a two game lead in the NL West. A big key to their second half could be Jake Peavy, who has not lived up to his ability so far this season. The preseason favorite for NL Cy Young is just 4-8 with a 4.46 ERA.

Although leading the division, the A’s season at this point has to be considered a disappointment. Partially due to injury (losing Harden has been huge), the A’s haven’t been able to live up to mass amounts of pre-season hype. Before the season started, seven out of nineteen ESPN analysts picked Oakland to win the World Series. Two Picked Bobby Crosby to be the 2006 AL MVP, and four picked Rich Harden as the Cy Young. Somehow hitting .235 with 8 homeruns and 35 RBI doesn’t sound like MVP numbers to me. Proving once again, the bigwigs at ESPN probably don’t know much more than the average fan.

The Dodgers have a solid offense and a sold starting pitching staff, but their bullpen is horrendous, having already lost 17 games, second in the majors. Gagne is out for the season, and will be a free-agent after this season.

Texas’ pitching has improved dramatically, but now it seems the young power hitters that seemed so solid have stumbled a bit. Before the break, Teixeira, Young and Blalock only had 28 homeruns combined. Last year the trio combined for 93 round-trippers.

Cincinnati has shown to be vastly improved over last year, but it seems ownership still wants to cut corners. They entered the season with David Weathers as the closer, obviously a patch for a more talented or expensive closer. They’ve since bandaged their bullpen with a couple half-assed attempts at improvement, including adding old and struggling lefty Eddie Guardado, and trading Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez for a couple moderate relievers.

Colorado has by far the lowest salary in the NL West, and they’re only 3 games back of the Padres, proving that they’ve done very well with under-paid talent, especially when you consider that their top-paid player has had a sub-par season (by his standards), and has missed a fair amount of time due to injury.

The Giants were a poorly constructed team from the very beginning. Bonds, Alou, Finley, Vizquel, and Worrell are all older than 36 and well past their prime. Youngsters Matt Cain and Lance Niekro have yet to live up to potential. And their biggest off-season signing (Morris) is a pitcher who seems to have nothing left in the tank, but mediocrity. Fortunately their five highest paid players will be eligible for free agency after this season, and likely none will return to San Fran. Unfortunately, one of those players is their best pitcher (Schmidt).

Houston has been a massive disappointment this season, after making their first World Series appearance last year. The team seemed to ignore the holes they had coming into the season (catcher, bullpen, offense), as if setting money aside specifically for Clemens if he chose to return. The re-signing of Clemens was too little, too late, and money that could have been spent better during last off-season.

Despite still being 3 games under .500 the Mariners have come a long way since last season. Unfortunately they are still a long ways from returning to the 90+ win club they were four years ago. They plugged gaping holes at catcher (.216 in ’05) and shortstop (.265 in ’05), found an answer to the Guardado problem (Putz, 16 saves, 2.11 ERA), and their team slugging is up over 30 points. However, Piniero still looks like a dud, Felix Hernandez hasn’t evolved into the instant ace he was perceived to be, and centerfield has become their most recent black hole to open.

The Brewer’s grade is given with a great deal of hesitancy. At times they’ve looked good, and at times they just look young and over-matched. The key is whether or not they re-sign Carlos Lee, and in my opinion they need to do it before free-agency starts because there’ll be a lot of money floating around between this year and next. If they keep Lee, this year could be a big building block toward a playoff run next year. If not, this year will be in vain.

The Angels have started to claw their way back into the AL West race, but they remain the only $100 million team with a losing record. If they’re willing to keep the same payroll next year they should be able to compete for another World Series. About $17 million of their payroll will be available and their three big guns (Colon, Vlad, and Garret Anderson) will still be wrapped up through next year, while K-Rod and Lackey will also be under contract for less than market value.

Arizona wasn’t necessarily expected to be great this year, but their meteoric plummet after the Grimsley scandal broke makes their last place in the NL West particularly unpleasant.

At this point last season the Phillies were one game over .500. This year they’re seven games under. On the bright side, they are in 2nd place in the NL East.

The Indians were the trendy pick as AL champions this year before the season started, but have pretty much fallen on their faces. Sizemore and Hafner look as good or better than they were expected to be, but the Tribe’s pitching has been a shadow of itself from last year. Last year, they had the lowest ERA in the AL. This year their team ERA is a shade under 5.

The Orioles are in desperate need of starting pitching. Erik Bedard has the lowest ERA on the O’s starting staff, at 4.28. Chen and Lopez have almost identically bad ERAs of 6.78 and 6.77.

Undoubtedly people will scoff at the Marlins, 10 games under .500, receiving a B-. What people need to remember is that the Marlins are almost entirely a triple-A team. Their sub-$15 million payroll is less than half of the next lowest team, and one third of the Pittsburgh Pirates. They have 16 players who are making the league minimum, and only two players making over $800,000. Yet, they’ve harvested a crop of youngsters who are showing the early makings of superstars: Mike Jacobs, Hanley Ramirez, Dan Uggla, Jeremy Hermida, Miguel Olivo, and Josh Willingham. And two of their youngsters have already proven to be superstars: Miguel Cabrera (the best under-25 hitter in the game) and Dontrelle Willis (who will be the most coveted free-agent this coming off-season). We might be closer to witnessing a third Marlin World Championship sooner than people think.

At this point in the season last year the Nationals had some buzz about them, leading the NL East. This year they are 12 games under .500 and look a long ways off of bringing competitive baseball to the nation’s capitol.

It seems a foregone conclusion that the Braves will not be in the playoffs, so the only real question that remains about Atlanta is whether or not Smoltz will finish the season in a Braves uniform. His ability to veto trades gives him the final say on which team he’ll be playing for, come season’s end, but it appears that it won’t be Detroit, as was rumored earlier.

In the 8 years of their existence the Devil Rays have lost 90+ games every season. This year will be no different, and they’ve already begun the ’06 firesale, shipping off Hendrickson and Huff.

It’s time the Cubs dismantled and worked at completely rebuilding the team. Trade Pierre and Maddux before the deadline, and allow Wood to leave after ’06. Prior might be worth hanging on to, just because his salary is still a bargain, if he can ever regain his ace status. Rebuild the team around Zambrano and Lee, instead of Wood and Prior, and maybe they’ll be able to reverse the Billy Goat curse before the 70-year anniversary of their last World Series appearance (1945).

I heard a rumor that Mark Cuban was interested in buying at least a portion of the Pirates, but that the current ownership told him the team was not for sale, effectively throwing out the chance of the Bucs being competitive for the next decade.