Power rankings system devised and compiled weekly by Stemshul. “Expert” analysis by paradroid.
The Braves have done it! The worst ranked team to make the playoffs beat the Brewers (#8), the Dodgers (#1), and the Astros (#4). They did benefit from avoiding a one game playoff in the wildcard round due to everybody else in the N.L. East sucking winning their division, but they beat the (very tough) teams in front of them, and handily. After a game 1 loss to Milwaukee, they won three straight. In both the NLCS and the World Series, Atlanta got up 3-1, lost game 5, and then closed out game 6. The pitching against Houston was really impressive; in the 4 wins, the Braves only allowed 4 runs combined. This was against the best scoring team in the regular season. This is probably up there with the N.Y. Giants beating the undefeated N.E. Patriots in Super Bowl XLII for Stemshul as far as unexpected results are concerned (the better team should have won! There are rules!), but it’s not even the most unexpected World Series winner in recent memory. In 2006, St Louis went 83-78 to barely win their division, but managed to win the championship in 5 games over (yep, you guessed it) the Detroit Tigers.
This was interesting year, with the year long battle in the N.L. West between the Dodgers and Giants going down to the final day and the A.L. East having 4 deserving teams battle it out for 3 spots. If there had been a 3rd wildcard, the Blue Jays would have taken it. Sure, some divisions (A.L. Central, N.L. Central) were all but decided by midsummer, but there was a least a little intrigue in the other 4 races all the way into the last couple weeks of the season. The wildcard has added something to baseball by keeping more teams involved later into the year, but I wish the round itself was at least 3 games. These teams were scrambling just to qualify for the post season, so they couldn’t even line up their best starters for an elimination game. I understand the one game playoff to determine who gets in if there’s a dead heat, but having a 106 team need to win a game just to get to an actual series while an 88 win team gets to rest up and reset their pitching somewhat lessens the reward for incredible effort and success during a very long season. I believe they should reseed regardless of division winners; just do it by record. And we should incorporate the 3 game wildcard round as well. A final idea is to expand to a 3rd wildcard system. It could then be a 1 game playoff between the 2nd and 3rd wildcard in each league, followed by the 3 game wildcard round. It is very unlikely a very good team would face a 1 game elimination in this system, and it would allow a team like the 91-71 Toronto Blue Jays (and the 83-79 Cincinnati Reds) to get a shot making a Braves-like run while still forcing them to run a bit of a gauntlet. This would still only have 40% of MLB teams making the postseason, which is a lower percentage than any other big professional league in the U.S. (NFL: 44%, NBA: 53%, NHL: 50%, MLS: 52%). I hope Rob Manfred is taking notes.
For the Tigers, it was a pretty great year, considering. The team flirted with .500 and ended up well above most people’s predictions. What’s more, they did it with their 2 best hitting prospects still mashing the minors and a parade of non-stars and youngsters. Avila has also indicated that spending will happen this off season. In fact, Detroit has already traded for a veteran catcher with 2 Gold Gloves (2017, 2020) and a decent bat (well, for a catcher) in Tucker Barnhart. A top level shortstop and maybe a solid starter or two combined with continued improvement from the young prospects could make a winning season and (dare to dream) competing for a wildcard berth a real possibility. I’m just trying to concentrate in the Tigers and Red Wings, because the Lions and Pistons are 1-14 so far this year. We’ll see you next spring for another season of baseball. Go Tigers!
Note: All 30 teams are shown, including credit for post season wins. The top ten, which are the playoff teams, are not in order of points, but rather in order of playoff elimination. You can still see their final ranking in the “Rank” column.
[table id=163 /]