Power rankings are customary in sports blogging. They’re dumb, of course—they’re often just the opinions of one or more people, much less useful for predicting what will happen than complicated numbers, and much less useful for gauging what has happened than simple numbers.
These are not those kind of power rankings.
Imagine the blacktop at a playground. There are kids. There are games: knockout, four-square, repeatedly tackling one another if there’s snow, etc. Some kids are better at these games than others. Over time, a pecking order emerges. It isn’t perfectly clear who’s the best, but based on everything that’s happened, everyone’s got a good enough idea of where they stand. Everyone knows what bragging rights they have, and who has bragging rights over them. It isn’t just about that day, or that week, and it certainly isn’t about what’s going to happen in the future. There’s a hierarchy, and it takes every recess of every year into account.
These are those kind of power rankings. This is where teams stand. This is the hierarchy. The rules are simple: World Series titles and pennants build your credibility. Winning helps. Losing hurts. Recency bias is strong, but not insurmountable. Hope is powerful. Embarrassment is too.
30. San Diego Padres
They’ve been around since 1969. They’ve only made the World Series twice. They’ve only won one World Series game. They squandered not only Tony Gwynn’s prime, but his entire career. They could climb quickly, but as of right now, every other team on the playground has something they can point to that places them higher than the Padres.
29. Colorado Rockies
The Rockies haven’t been actively futile. They’ve made the playoffs five times, including each of the last two years. But they haven’t done much once there. The only thing keeping them above the Padres is the fact that they made the World Series more recently, and they beat the Padres in a tiebreaker game along the way. It helps too that they’re younger, coming into the league in 1993.
28. Seattle Mariners
They’re one of the only two franchises in baseball to never play in a World Series. They have the longest streak of playoff absence in the big four leagues. The only thing keeping them from the bottom is that for one glorious season, they had one of the best teams in baseball history, even if that team had the misfortune of running into the Yankees at the tail end of one of the MLB’s greatest dynastic runs. They also have no cause for optimism in the moderately short-term.
27. Pittsburgh Pirates
As one of the sixteen franchises that existed when the first World Series was played, the Pirates have had ample opportunities. And they’ve taken advantage of those to a reasonable extent, winning five titles. But they haven’t won a playoff series since 1979 (they won one Wild Card Game, but no series), they recently had a historic string of losing seasons, and they’re in a state of limbo between contention and rebuilding that looks suspiciously like it will wind up as a rebuild.
26. Miami Marlins
The Marlins have won two World Series in the last 22 seasons, and they’ve never lost a playoff series. But when they’ve been bad, they’ve been so terrible that those look more like flukes than anything the Marlins actually earned. They’re also currently in such a state of dysfunction that it’s hard to take them seriously. The rules are simple. Don’t embarrass yourselves.
25. Baltimore Orioles
They were pretty good for a few years there recently, but they haven’t made the World Series since 1983, and their 115 losses last year have them squarely embarrassed. But they also had the first pick this week, and will have another top pick next year, and they deserve at least a little benefit of the doubt for playing in a division with the Yankees all these years. They’ve only recently taken on a crown as a paragon of futility. They may wind up alright.
24. Chicago White Sox
When you have nearly a century-long stretch without winning a title, bookended on the front end by one of baseball’s most notorious scandals, winning is cathartic. When you quickly become terrible again, and continue to be upstaged in your own town by a team even more futile both historically and in the present, winning is forgotten. When that neighbor finally gets good, it’s almost as though you never won at all. The White Sox also have the inglorious achievement of winning the fewest pennants of any of the original sixteen franchises.
23. Milwaukee Brewers
The Brewers have been admirable lately, seizing opportunities when available, and managing to not finish last in their division since 2004. They’re also a legitimate contender this year, as they were last year. But they haven’t made a World Series since they were in the AL, and that one—in 1982—was their only appearance. Their current trajectory is the only thing keeping them out of contention for last on this list. But it’s strong enough that with another division title this year, they’d likely enter the top ten, or perhaps even the top five.
22. New York Mets
The Mets have won a pennant as recently as 2015, and they’ve won their fair share of titles since coming into the MLB. And when they’re bad, they aren’t even awful anymore like they used to be. But goodness, are they a mess. A punchline. Punchlines don’t stack up well on the playground.
21. Tampa Bay Rays
The Rays have completed their transformation from absolutely-horrible-franchise-with-no-hope to one-of-the-best-run-franchises-in-the-league, but they still play in what’s been baseball’s toughest division (on the aggregate) since the current format was adopted, and they still have only one pennant and no titles to their name.
20. Oakland Athletics
Another well-run franchise, the A’s were snakebit in the playoffs at their two most recent peaks, and while they have one of the most successful histories in the MLB (the fourth-most pennants, tied for the third-most titles), they haven’t made it past an LCS since 1990. They also suffer from a despair-worthy stadium situation, making them the equivalent of the chronically sick kid on the playground. When he’s healthy, yeah, he’s fine, but he’s so rarely healthy.
19. Cincinnati Reds
The Reds don’t have much credit remaining from their Big Red Machine days, but it’s not entirely gone. When your team has a name that cool, that never entirely goes away, especially if you can avoid the more outlandish failures that have accompanied teams like the Mets, Orioles, and Pirates. The Reds also won a World Series as recently as 1990, and consistently contended in the NL Central over a recent stretch.
18. Detroit Tigers
The Tigers were real bad for a bit there around the turn of the millennium, but they did win a pennant in 2012, and won their division for four straight years surrounding 2012. Anytime you’re a default option for the playoffs, you’re in a good spot in these rankings. They won the World Series in 1984, which is a long time ago but more recent than most.
17. Minnesota Twins
The Twins, who were the original Washington Senators, have three World Series titles, most recently in 1991. They ran the AL Central in the mid-2000’s. This year, they’re finally good again. It’s close between them and the Tigers, but present hope is powerful, especially when that hope has you as the clear favorite in your division, rather than a team fighting an uphill battle just to make the Division Series.
16. Washington Nationals
The Nationals, formerly the Expos, have never won a pennant. But they got screwed by the 1994 strike, they’re in a good enough place right now as a franchise (young talent, the best pitcher in baseball year-in and year-out, etc.) and have been in a good enough place recently (lots of division titles, even if one of the failure seasons featured Papelbon choking Harper) that they’re taken seriously: one of those franchises where it seems, at least at times, like a question of when, not if. This is something teams like the Brewers, Rays, A’s, and even Twins don’t have, as with those it’s always a question of if.
15. The Angels
The Angels have a World Series to their name this millennium, and were a fairly consistent playoff appearer over the last decade. Yes, they’re historically futile (only one pennant over 58 seasons), but because they’ve managed to not be one of the worst teams in baseball for pretty much forever, and because they currently have one of the best baseball players to ever walk the earth, that futility seems more like consistent mediocrity and a little recent success. They aren’t in a great place, no, but they have a moderately recent title to rest on, and they’ve never undermined that title by being an utter debacle.
14. Texas Rangers
They won back-to-back pennants in recent memory. Yes, it’s been a few years ago now, and they’ve won no other pennants or World Series titles, but they’ve still won a pennant more recently than seventy percent of their league.
13. Toronto Blue Jays
As recently as 2016, the Blue Jays were supplying the MLB with raucous playoff games. They, along with the last team on this list, had legitimate bad blood over multiple seasons. The Blue Jays were not to be trifled with. Combined with back-to-back titles in the 90’s and a guy on their roster billed as the future of the game, this gives them some credibility.
12. Cleveland Indians
The Indians have the longest World Series drought around, if measuring title-less teams’ droughts from the time of their conception. But they won a pennant as recently as 2016, and they’ve won their division three straight years. While they may be on their way to a big black eye this year, the punch has yet to land.
11. Arizona Diamondbacks
A title is a powerful thing, especially when it comes the way Arizona’s did, ending one of the greatest dynasties in sports (though that wasn’t obvious at the time). They’ve been relevant enough since then to keep themselves in baseball’s upper half, which means they’re basically the Angels with less baggage.
10. Kansas City Royals
It was a flash in the pan, but what a flash it was. For two recent years, the Royals defied logic, coming away from it all with a championship. Yes, they’re returning to futility, but it’ll take a while for that flash to completely wear off.
9. Philadelphia Phillies
While they’ve been one of baseball’s most losing franchises historically, they ran the East for five straight recent seasons, they added a second World Series title to their collection in 2008, and they haven’t been comedically bad in a long time, even if they’ve finished last a few times. Last place is different when the rebuild looks sensible.
8. Atlanta Braves
The Braves returned atop the East last season and have a good chance to hold serve this year. Coupled with a dynasty in the NL in the 90’s, the win last year has them at least atop the NL East on the playground.
7. San Francisco Giants
The Giants have quickly dropped from a prime position on this list, but the ensuing fall should take longer, because three titles in five years is a rare achievement (the Yankees were the last to do it, and before them it was the A’s winning three straight in the early 70’s). There are laurels to be rested upon here.
6. St. Louis Cardinals
As the Giants have been borne out by the tide, the Cardinals have climbed another rung back towards their historic position atop the NL pecking order. With the second-most championships in the MLB, and the kingship of their division as recently as September 2015, the Cardinals would have to repeatedly do boneheaded things to fall out of the top ten.
5. New York Yankees
It feels like the Yankees haven’t done much lately, but they’ve made the playoffs seven times in the last ten seasons, and they won a World Series in the first of those ten. They are the default atop this list, building up so much credibility that even the Diamondbacks’ title in 2001 didn’t dethrone them at the time. Teams will rise and fall past them, as with the Cardinals, but it would take a long, futile stretch for them to drop far, with only one good season being enough to vault them back up.
4. Chicago Cubs
They won a World Series just three years ago, and were at the time far and away the best team in baseball. They’re still young, and they’re still atop this list in their division (when a team wins its division multiple times in a row, and then only barely loses it, it doesn’t get passed up right away). If the franchise falls apart, yes, they would drop like a stone, as their only success is recent, and their futility is the most historically notorious of all their peers. But for now, they ride the currents of the last four years, and try to notch their claim as deeply as possible near the pole’s top while they’re here.
3. Los Angeles Dodgers
No, the Dodgers haven’t won a World Series since 1988. But they’ve won back-to-back pennants and six straight division titles. A question of when, not if, and with notches in the belt, to boot.
2. Houston Astros
They aren’t the reigning champions, but they’re the next-best thing, and with the Dodgers, they’re a co-favorite to finish this year with the best record in the game. Their presence in the Division Series is a foregone conclusion, and their presence in the Championship Series is more likely than not. Which is all something only they and the Dodgers can say, and they beat the Dodgers head-to-head in ’17.
1. Boston Red Sox
It’s nice to be the reigning champion, and with no current dynasties in action, the Red Sox don’t have to do much extra beyond winning the last one. If they did, though, they’d have a strong case, with four titles in a 15-year stretch. In all likelihood, they’ll fall below at least the Dodgers and Astros after this year, but for now, they’re at the top of the heap.
