2010 MLB Power Rankings: Yankees Look Strong

By Sports Nickel

Over the past couple of months we’ve seen the balance of power stabilize across most divisions. The good teams have risen to the top and stayed there, and as we creep toward September, a few clubs have all but assured themselves of playoff spots. At the same time, the cellar-dwellers have stayed safely at the bottom. Still, some of these poorer clubs have experienced small turnarounds. The Orioles hired Buck Showalter as manager, and the new leadership has led to a nice stretch of games. Under Showalter, the team has gone 9-4. The Astros have played above .500 for the month of August, going 7-6 with a sweep of the Pirates. Unfortunately, it’s far too little and far too late for either of these teams to do anything meaningful in 2010. Here then are the updated rankings. New rankings are published approximately every two weeks.

*Rank*	*Team*	*Change*
1	NY Yankees	0
2	Tampa Bay	0
3	San Diego	0
4	Atlanta	+6
5	Minnesota	+1
6	Texas	-2
7	Boston	-2
8	San Francisco	-1
9	Cincinnati	+2
10	St. Louis	-2
11	Philadelphia	+2
12	Toronto	+2
13	Colorado	-1
14	Chicago Sox	-5
15	LA Dodgers	0
16	Florida	0
17	Oakland	-1
18	NY Mets	+1
19	LA Angels	+1
20	Detroit	-1
21	Milwaukee	+2
22	Washington	-1
23	Chicago Cubs	-1
24	Arizona	+2
25	Cleveland	-1
26	Houston	+1
27	Kansas City	-2
28	Seattle	0
29	Baltimore	0
30	Pittsburgh	0

In general, there hasn’t much movement since the previous power rankings. Things have stayed the same at the top and bottom, although it’s worth noting that Houston has climbed 4 spots since the initial rankings.

Since August 2nd, the Braves have stepped up their play. Despite losing Chipper Jones for the rest of the season to a torn ACL, Atlanta rose 6 spots in the rankings thanks in large part to some strong pitching.

In contrast, the White Sox saw their hot stretch come to an end as they tumbled out of first place in the A.L. Cental. Chicago lost 5 spots in the rankings– the largest drop for any team.

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*About the rankings: The MLB Power Rankings are compiled using in-season data from numerous statistical categories. hese include winning percentage, expected (Pythagorean) winning percentage, runs scored, runs allowed, run differential, team OPS (for and against), record in last 10 games, a strength of division rating, and position in the overall and divisional standings. All data are normalized, weighted, and averaged into a single power coefficient. These are rank ordered 1-30 to provide the final rankings.

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