MLB Power Rankings for August 3rd- 2006

The All-Star Game has past. The trade deadline has past. Barry Bonds’ grand jury has expired. Which means the playoffs are rapidly approaching, however, while this should be the beginning of the most exciting stretch of the baseball season, we are inundated with news from football training camps across the country, and for some of us, a panic that our basketball team might pack their bags and head east.

And speaking of heading east, your faithful weekly power rankings writer will be doing the same, taking a jaunt into the Idaho wilderness for an obscure music festival in the mountains. How does this affect you? It probably doesn’t, but for four days you’ll be able to talk all the smack you want without me being able to defend myself.

Rank (Pv)	Team	Record	Comments
1 (1)		72-35	If nothing else, the acquisition of Sean Casey shows the rest of the league just how deep the Tigers are. To make room, they sent Chris Shelton down to Triple-A, who despite a shortage of power since his torrid April, was still hitting .277 with 45 RBI and an .819 OPS.
2 (2)		64-42	Until Monday I had tentatively penciled in Vernon Wells as my AL MVP. However, after watching Papi’s 9th inning, two-on, one-out, walk-off homerun off of Fausto Carmona on Monday, I’ve officially changed my vote, and now, I’m willing to write it using a Sharpie.
3 (3)		64-42	The Mets couldn’t nab Zito, or Oswalt, but they did get help in Hernandez. Roberto, that is. Not Livan. In other news, Carlos Beltran tied a major league record by hitting three grand slams during the month of July.
4 (4)		63-41	I think the change of venue will be highly beneficial for Bobby Abreu. His power numbers have suffered a significant dropoff over the past season, but Yankee stadium favors a left-handed pull-hitter, so Abreu should aptly fill the void left by injured Sheffield.
5 (5)		61-45	With Santana and Liriano the Twins have the kind of one-two punch that makes teams deadly in the playoffs, if they can pull off the upset of the White Sox and whoever doesn’t win the East. Remember Johnson and Schilling in 2001? They were a combined 43-12. So far this year, Santana and Liriano are 24-7.
6 (7)		63-43	Jon Garland seems to have turned his season around. On June 8th he was 4-3 with a 6.19 ERA. Since then he’s brought his ERA down to 5.10 and won seven consecutive decisions. On the other hand, Mark Buerhle has fallen to pieces. Buerhle’s ERA on June 15th was 3.13. Now, its up to 4.74 and 0-5 since the first of July.
7 (6)		58-48	With the exception of Chris Carpenter, the Cardinals are clueless when it comes to their starting rotation. They’ve tried Jason Marquis, Jeff Suppan, Sidney Ponson, Mark Mulder, Anthony Reyes, Brad Thompson, and Jeff Weaver, and none have a starting ERA under 4.50 (Ponson, who was released).
8 (8)		57-50	Where has Benjie Molina’s cannon gone? In five of the past six seasons, he’s thrown out at least 20 basestealers and over 31% of attempts. This season he’s only thrown out 12 runners for a percentage of .197.
9 (10)		57-51	The A’s maintain their lead in the AL West (up 1.5 games over 2nd place Anaheim, and 3.5 games over last place Seattle), despite the worst slugging percentage in the majors and the fourth worst on-base percentage.
10 (9)		55-52	Scary situation with Chan Ho Park’s internal bleeding and severe blood-loss. He’s eligible to come off the disable list on August 10th, but that would seem awful quick for a person who lost entirely half his volume of blood.
11 (11)		55-52	The Reds are coming upon a crucial stretch in their schedule. Trailing St. Louis by 3.5 games, the Reds play the slumping Red Birds six times in the next two weeks.
12 (12)		55-52	Juan Rivera cam out of nowhere to spark the Angels offense. The left-fielder had never hit more than 15 homeruns or knocked in more than 59 RBI in a single season, until this year. Right now, he’s hitting .296 with 17 homeruns and 54 RBI.
13 (13)		54-54	Despite newly-acquired Kip Wells’ 6.00+ ERA, he won his Texas debut in solid fashion, allowing only one run in 5 innings. In his three previous starts Wells had an ERA of 1.83.
14 (15)		54-52	Shawn Green and Luis Gonzalez seem like mirror images to me. Both are left-handers hitting in the .290s with 10 homeruns and just under 50 RBI. Both had career years in 2001, when Gonzalez hit 57 homeruns, Green, 49. Both have knocked in 99 or more RBI five times. Gonzalez has a career average of .285, Green, .283.
15 (17)		53-54	A little known fact that should haunt Mariner fans: David Ortiz was originally signed as an amateur free-agent by Seattle in 1992, who then traded him in 1996 for Dave Hollins. Hollins played 28 games for the M’s, who failed to make the playoffs in ’96. Another fact that should haunt Mariner fans (and all baseball fans for that matter): Stitch and Pitch Night at Safeco Field.
16 (14)		52-56	As good as Jason Schmidt has been (3.11 ERA, 119 strikeouts, .228 opponent batting average, 3 complete games), he has only eight wins to go against his seven losses.
17 (16)		51-56	Preston Wilson hit five homeruns in April, but in the three months since he’s only hit four.
18 (18)		52-55	The Dodgers made a big-time pickup with the addition of Greg Maddux. Although getting up there in years, Mad Dog still has some wins left in him. Also, over the past four seasons, Maddux’s ERA has been a whole run per game lower after the All-Star break than before. The Dodgers ride into this week on a five game winning streak.
19 (19)		50-56	By far Atlanta had the highest slugging percentage in baseball during July. The Braves slugged .554. Second was the White Sox, over 50 points behind (.499).
20 (20)		51-55	We’re going streaking! Chase Utley counter: 34.
21 (21)		52-55	Jeff Cirillo complains about soggy balls. Do I need to say anything else?
22 (22)		51-57	At first glance the Brewers got quite a lot in return for Carlos Lee, but all three players have slumped badly as of late. Mench has only hit 6 homeruns since his breakthrough April, when he hit 7 in a single month. Cordero’s ERA after the All-Star break is almost 5.50. Nix has hit (gulp!) .094 for the season.
23 (24)		50-57	With Josh Johnson still leading the National League in ERA (he lowered it to 2.52 over the past week), and Liriano leading the American League, this marks the first time in history both league leaders in ERA were rookies.
24 (23)		46-60	Fausto Carmona was brought in to be the successor to Bob Wickman, but he has been anything but impressive this week. After giving up the game-ending three run bomb to Big Papi on Monday, he had another meltdown on Wednesday. With a one-run lead and two outs Carmona hit two consecutive batters, and walked the third, before giving up the walk-off shot off the monster to Mark Loretta.
25 (25)		49-60	The Orioles have used 20 pitchers this year, 15 from the bullpen.
26 (26)		48-60	Two weeks ago, in a Sportscolumn.com poll, 63% of people (including yours truly) said Alfonso Soriano would be the first marquee player to get traded. We were very, very wrong.
27 (27)		44-64	Travis Lee is one of those players who had the “potential” label plastered all over him. Needless to say, he hasn’t turned out to be the player the D-Rays wanted. Lee is only hitting .207 with 24 RBI.
28 (28)		44-62	Despite being on a terrible team, Carlos Zambrano is at the forefront of a boring NL Cy Young battle. The big right-hander has flown under the radar much of his career, behind headliners Wood and Prior, and Hall of Famer Maddux, but this year he leads the NL with a 12-3 record and has a 3.24 ERA.
29 (29)		40-68	The Pirates have to be ecstatic that could find somebody to take Oliver Perez off their hands. If they hadn’t already lost 70 games.
30 (30)		38-69	I’m finally reading Moneyball for the first time and I found it interesting how Billy Beane was so interested in drafting Mark Teahen, but then traded him for Octavio Dotel. This year Teahen has an on-base percentage of .364 and a slugging percentage of .535. Solid numbers in the categories Beane values most.