Sports Illustrated power rankings

[DrungoHazewood]

New rankings are up and the O's....drop a spot to 21. The Red Sox, currently 7 full games behind the O's, moved up a spot to 8. The Rays fresh off of a sweep of the Angels are unchanged at 12. The Angels on the other hand, moved up 3 places.

I guess I have to commend them for sticking with this team WAR idea, instead of jumping ship on it.

They can't. This is the same kind of BS that gives us a 2 loss SEC team in the BCS Championship game.

If you want a ranking of teams based on wins and losses they do that, too. It's called the standings.

[ledzepp8]

If you want a ranking of teams based on wins and losses they do that, too. It's called the standings.

What do you feel power rankings are supposed to actually be ranking (putting aside whether or not you feel they are pointless)?

[baltfan]

If you want a ranking of teams based on wins and losses they do that, too. It's called the standings.

This is true but it doesn't make up for the fact that it is ridiculous at this point to think the Red Sox, with all of their problems, are ranked ahead of the Rays and the Orioles.

[OFFNY]

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RED SOX PROPOGANDA AD:

"Winning two close contests against the Yankees could be an igniter for the Red Sox to make a late season push."

Wow. 2 ENTIRE close contests from the Yankees ??? And they were close contests, which count for more, since they are clutch. It's much more impressive than if they would have blown the Yankees off the field. But hey, IF THEY HAD blown the Yankees off the field in those 2 games, then we simply would have played up that aspect of it, and described them as dominating beat-downs, through and through.

"With David Ortiz expected back this week, this could be the first time Boston's lineup is at full strength all season, which is scary for the rest of the AL East as only the Blue Jays have scored more runs this year."

REAL SCARY for the real of the A.L. East. Everyone is quivering in their boots about David Ortiz being back, and the Red Sox' lineup being AT FULL-STRENGTH. OOOHHH.

"The Red Sox do need to get a bit more out of Adrian Gonzalez if they want to make a big push though, as his 106 wRC+ would be his lowest of any season with 100 games and he has not taken a walk since June 24."

When making any sort of criticism of this team, be sure to TIPTOE VERY CAREFULLY with our choice of words ....... "The Red Sox do need to get a bit more out of Adrian Gonzalez, as his numbers are cra ....... eh, I mean his 106 wRC+ would be the lowest of any season with 100 games."

P.S. Our deepest apologies to both Adrian Gonzalez individually and the Red Sox as a whole if you feel that we may have dissed you in the slightest way with that last Adrian Gonzalez statement. That WAS NOT our intention. If you deem it necessary, we will promptly issue a public apology for sullying the name and the reputation of your players and your team.

THE FOLLOWING WEEK:

OK, I have to admit that they weren't as bad with their crush on the Red Sox this time. Still, they can't help themselves from waving the red pom-poms at the end:

"The Red Sox certainly have the talent to make a late season push, so counting them out of it in mid-August may not be wise."

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/baseball/mlb/08/13/fangraphs-power-rankings-week-18/index.html#ixzz23eo6Howj

AND NOW:

OK ...... FINALLY, SI/CNN has come full circle, and has made a completely objective analysis of the Red Sox in their "comments" section:

A bad season has taken another turn for the worse, as now the organization is dealing with public reports of players asking for meetings with ownership to discuss their issues with manager Bobby Valentine. Boston continues to underachieve, going just 6-12 in August despite a schedule that included eight games against the Twins and Indians.

Like the Cardinals, the Red Sox' underlying performance suggests that they should have a better record than they actually do, but they have performed the worst when it has mattered the most, winning just 8 of their 24 contests against New York and Baltimore this season. They should be better, but that's been true for a while now, and they're showing no signs of turning their season around.

[OFFNY]

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Again, as thedan 0909 pointed out in the first page, they use some type of mathematical formula for their rankings, so I don't have a problem with the rankings themselves. But the comments section does not have any such restrictions on them (as do the actual placement of each team within the rankings), so when they were slobbering all over the Red Sox 2 weeks ago in said section, that is what I was objecting to. Last week, their objectivity in the comments section for the Red Sox was considerably improved, although they couldn't help themselves from a little bit of Boston boot-licking. This week, they finally gave an accurate description of the Red Sox' current status without any Beantown brown-nosing.

[Orioles0615]

Notice how there is no comment section in the SI power rankings for people to lash into how stupid they are each week.

[Can_of_corn]

If you want a ranking of teams based on wins and losses they do that, too. It's called the standings.

Where did I say that it should be based on wins and losses? I do however, think that wins and losses should be a factor in their rankings.

I wasn't ranting about the standings when I posted the latest. I find it amusing that they went all in with these WAR based rankings only to have it differ so drastically to the reality of the outcome of the games.

[DrungoHazewood]

What do you feel power rankings are supposed to actually be ranking (putting aside whether or not you feel they are pointless)?

I think they're a reasonable look at the strengths of the teams going forward. If you look at it as "if the season started today, with the rosters and resources each team currently has in place" I think these power rankings make a fair amount of sense. Or maybe "if you played the 2012 season 1000 times on a simulation, this is what the average standings would look like."

I wouldn't aruge with the supposition that if God played the '12 season 1000 times the O's would end up with 75 wins a lot more often than 90.

[Dipper9]

in my opinion, every week that the power rankings come out, the WORST that any playoff leading team could be is 10th. The rankings are supposed to be a living thing, changing each week, but if a team is leading a WC or Division at the time of the rankings, then how can they be worse than 10th?

[DrungoHazewood]

in my opinion, every week that the power rankings come out, the WORST that any playoff leading team could be is 10th. The rankings are supposed to be a living thing, changing each week, but if a team is leading a WC or Division at the time of the rankings, then how can they be worse than 10th?

Because I don't think that's what it's supposed to represent. It's supposed to be a ranking of the strongest teams. It's possible you can have a terrible division, in the NL, where the first place team would really be a 70-ish win team in the AL East. Not only that, but they could be a 84-win team that is overshooting their Pythag by 5 games, and has some bizarre split like 15 games under .500 against teams with winning records. They could have a playoff slot almost locked up, and really be the 20th or 25th-best team in the MLB.

Prime example: 2005 Padres.

[Slappy]

I'm enjoying this year as much as anyone, but you can't be blind to the fact that the Orioles have used some pretty powerful voodoo to get to their record given their basic proficiency in scoring and preventing runs. I have no issue with us being in the 10-15 range. But it really makes little difference, the standings are all that matters, and once you get to the playoffs it is a legitimate crapshoot.

[scottbbfm]

New rankings are up and the O's....drop a spot to 21. The Red Sox, currently 7 full games behind the O's, moved up a spot to 8. The Rays fresh off of a sweep of the Angels are unchanged at 12. The Angels on the other hand, moved up 3 places.

I guess I have to commend them for sticking with this team WAR idea, instead of jumping ship on it.

What is the correlation between pyth win total and high WAR? I'm guessing its pretty high. The problem I have with Team WAR is for the red sox or O's, you can't win more than once per game, or lose more than once. Look at May 13th for the red sox - they won 12-1; but if you type in the box score into a WAR calculator, their WAR for the day is >1. Likewise-I'm sure there have been games for the O's where there's been a negative WAR.

It just seems like there are a whole bunch of meaningless hits and runs out there that don't translate to wins and losses. This makes sense for individual WAR where one individual has less control over the score, but seems like there should be caps and floors on WAR available per game - and a cap on pyth win total - like runs +/- 5.

Maybe if I get a minute today I'll try and run it for the pyth.

[Mondo Trasho]

in my opinion, every week that the power rankings come out, the WORST that any playoff leading team could be is 10th. The rankings are supposed to be a living thing, changing each week, but if a team is leading a WC or Division at the time of the rankings, then how can they be worse than 10th?

I'd probably go with 15 instead of 10 since there can be some strong teams in one league that aren't holding a current playoff spot but are better than others who are.

But these "rankings" are extremely odd. They have St. Louis (currently 8 games behind division leader Cincinatti) ranked #2. Ahead of the Rangers, Yankees, Braves and Rays. The Royals are ahead of us as are the Phillies and Red Sox (with the Phillies being 19 out in the NL East and 10 out of the NL Wild Card).

It isn't just about the Orioles the whole thing looks like it was put together by someone hasn't watched baseball this year.

[SilentJames]

Im sorry but at some point you need to get over the algebra and look at the real world.

This isn't D & D, the game isn't played with dice and graph paper, and WAR doesn't get you in the playoffs. And this list is just ridiculous, not even the orioles stuff but the Red Sox I mean how can a team who has lost five of its last seven games, losing Carl Crawford, in complete chaos and just fired its pitching coach - the first of many firings most likely be considered one of the top 10 "strongest" teams in baseball?

I get it, run diff and WAR and that's great but come the hell on. At some point you would think these guys would look at what is happening in the real world.

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[SilentJames]

FWIW, ESPN has the orioles at 14, 7 in the AL, bunched with the Tigers, A's and Angels. Seems just about right.

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