Week 3 Power Rankings

Part of the reason for the delay this week is my attempt to develop a more quantitative method for assessing teams. So I put together some formulas in Excel that show every team’s rank in each category according totals at that point. Then, I took the average rank for each team. Obviously this hurts teams with no closers, but is reflective of the team’s ability to compete in each category. It’s not perfects, as there’s some weighting issues that could be accounted for, but it’s just an objective tool to help put these together. Certainly “past performance does not indicate future results,” so I’ll factor in my qualitative judgment as well.

1. Clayton & The King (previous: 2) - 4.6 avg (1st), .825
Ladies and gentlemen, you’re new #1. Frankly, Russ and Casten were close in my mind before the season and to this point, Clayton is King. What is most impressive is that this team boasting perhaps the strongest group of starters in the league is tops in R and HR and that’s without typical production from CarGo and Cano. Hamilton has been a force and Freese has picked up where he left off, while pitching is top five in four of the five categories. If Crawford and Trout come up and are productive, watch out. He’s only gone against Urban and Angry, but Donkey this week could be challenging.

2. Grumpy Munckins (previous: 1) – 5.2 avg (4th), .650
There’s still a lot to like here, but Casten’s team hasn’t produced to their capabilities. Weiters is finally producing for his team, providing the type of production he expected when he picked him in the first round two years ago, but Pujols, Cutch, and Reyes have underachieved greatly. While Heyward and Hart have been great, Dunn may indeed be done. Pitching has been inconsistent, which isn’t entirely surprising given some of the volatile starters. Still he’s top 5 in K, ERA, QS, HR, SB, and OBP, so there’s plenty to be happy about. Moose just happened to be equally productive, resulting in three ties.

3. Ring of Fire (previous: 4) – 4.9 (3rd), .700
Matt Kemp is a man among boys and is really pacing Dagan’s production on the offensive side, which includes tops in RBIs, second in HR, and third in OBP. It’s interesting since no one on his roster has more than one home run besides Kemp (6) and Bruce (3). He’s killing in the rate categories: first in WHIP (1.12) and second in ERA (3.07) behind Wandy, Cueto, and Anibal, and is fourth in saves despite Walden still looking for his first. Urban shouldn’t be a problem for him this week, but you have to wonder whether the team will hold up once (or, if) Kemp slows down.

4. Montezuma’s Revenge (previous: 7) – 4.7 (2nd), .800
Nice bump for myself. Tough to judge my own team objectively, but I can’t argue against the numbers so far: I’m the only team not ranking below 8th in any category, tops in K, and top five in R, HR, RBI, OBP, and QS. No way to avoid it, my team is just not that bad. Production from the offense has been basically across the board, with surprisingly JUpton and Hosmer among the underachievers. The Schafer pickup immediately paid dividends, and Drabek looks like he might be for real this time (glad I decided not to drop him and went all out on SCasilla rather than holding on to SRomo). There’s still issues with pitching, but Colby Lewis has been damn near perfect.

5. Moose in Loose (previous: 3) – 6.9 (8th), .500
Brian has a team that’s much better than a .500 record, but he’s only top five in saves and WHIP. BJ Upton’s impending return will help his issues in SB and R (8th and 9th, respectively), while he should see improvements from Uggla, Tulo, Crisp, Ichiro, and Morneau is coming along. Pitching is a question mark though. No problem with his bullpen, with five big league closers, but ESantana and Greinke have been bad, and the rest of the staff just mediocre. He’ll need Ubaldo, Santana, Marcum, Danks, and Kuroda to be solid to be able to compete in the pitching cats week in and week out. He’s got a very tough early season schedule with Cowhide (won 6-3-1), Grumpy (lost 2-5-3), Montezumas, Clayton, and then Ring, so it may take a while for Brian to climb the standings.

6. Cowhide Joyride (previous: 5) – 8.7 (10th) .325
While the stats say drop Dave’s Disappointments further, I’m not going to overreact based on two weeks of games. This is a good team that is just odd statistically as he’s third in R but 14th in RBI, namely because Posey, Fielder, Zimmerman, and Lind have all disappointed here. He’s got some quality fins in Cespedes, the surprising Austin Jackson and KJohnson. Also liked the Reimold pick up. Hard to believe Posey has more steals than Weeks and Andrus combined, but that will fix itself. The offense will be fine, the pitching is worrisome though. Lincecum is obviously not right, Darvish hasn’t exactly set the world on fire, and Liriano has been dreadful. This could turn around quickly, but Dave took some chances on some pitchers and he’s seem quite a mixed bag so far. He better hope it shapes up soon cus he’s got a tough schedule coming weeks 5-8 with his opponents encompassing the entire top four of this list.

7. Prestige Worldwide (previous: 8) – 6.9 (7th) .700
Lars team is interesting in that the output of the pitching vs. hitting is the second most lopsided in the league (hitting categories: 4.6, pitching: 9.2). This imbalance is further exacerbated by the fact that he’s tops in saves, meaning, yup, he has to be quite dreadful to still have a 9.2 avg in pitching (11th in ERA, WHIP, QS, and 12th in K). The primary sources of underperformance have been CBuchholz and DHudson (eras above 7.00), while DPrice and RRomero have hovered between OK and shitty and no one on the staff is producing in the K department with LLynn your leader (nice pick up though!). Marmol, Holland, and Aceves also sport ERAs above 7.00. I expect this will improve while the offense won’t kick quite this much ass (Trumbo, Jetes and E5 aren’t this good). He’s got some tough matchups for the next four weeks.

8. Keepin it Real (previous: 9) – 5.4 (5th) .525
Pierce is inching his way up the board with surprising totals and equally surprising balance. He’s the only team that is tops in three categories and it happens to be all the rate stats (OBP, ERA, WHIP). But there’s reason for concern. The offense has been solid top to bottom, yet with no real standouts. He just lost his best player, Ellsbury, for six weeks, which is a very tough blow and it makes you wonder if the power numbers will be there when he does return. And his starting pitching is quickly coming back to Earth with the recent Dickey and Lester stinkers. That said, he might have something with Aroldis even if he’s just a setup guys all season and Billingsley looks like the Buzzsaw of old, which nicely compliments the usually good Lester and Lee. Some things need to shape out here, but Pierce could fall quickly.

9. Donkey Punchers (previous: 6) – 8.8 (11th) .325
As Pierce rises, Chris falls again. However, this too could change. Despite the prowess of Ethier thus far, the Donkey offense has been far and away the worse in the league, averaging 11.8 in each category (highest is steals at 8th). The primary culprits were a slow-starting Napoli, Teixera, Bautista, Holliday, and Davis—all of whom I expect to be much better and have already shown sparks this week. Surprisingly, the top base stealer on this squad is Gamel (3). With pitching that has been quite good (5.8 avg), Chris has the most imbalanced team with a 6 point difference. McCarhty, Cain, Dempster, Doc, Gallardo, Volquez, Worley, Hell Boy have all been very good, while Duffy could ultimately be one of the year’s top FA finds if he maintains control. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is lowest Chris is ranked all season.

10. One Nut Wonders (previous: 11) – 6.4 (6th) .625
Jason gets a bump despite the disturbing image of his enlarged testicle, as he’s had a pretty solid team thus far with RBI his worst category at 10th. The addition of Brandon Phillips, while not one of my favorites, was an absolute steal and Hanley, Yadier, and AJones have paced the offense (you don’t get credit for Infante’s flashy stats). Meanwhile, pitching has been pretty good with Shields overcoming a bad start and Weaver producing as usual. HAlvarez only has 4 Ks, but he’s got two QS and a tidy 2.77/0.92 – we’ll see if that holds up. There’s also some upside here as I expect Moore to pitch much better, and Niemann, Nicasio, and Hochevar to be serviceable. A bit of a mirage at this point, in my opinion, but there’s some potential for him to move up further.

11. Anal Hershieser (previous: 13) – 8.4 avg (9th)
The most active manager thus far with 11 moves, Andrew has a solid roster top to bottom, but has had very few big producers outside of ALaRoche (who might be the pickup of the year if he keeps this up). He’s been hurt by Konerko’s slow start, as well as that of Ramos, RRobets, Bourjos, Bourn, Wells… OK, everyone. The roster still has balance issues with three middle relievers, three bench offense guys, and the inactive Oswalt hurting his ability to dominate Ks and QS with Wilson, Strasburg, Verlander, and Haren. Smyly might be a sneaky good pickup, and THunter has pitched well as has Colon with the exception of one start. Decent production so far, but I see it getting worse before it gets considerably better.

12. Billy Chapel (previous: 10) – 10.0 (13th) .200
The stats say to drop Troy even farther, but there’s a lot of underachieving going on here with Beltre, Victorino, Pence, ARod, and Aramis all off to slow starts. Those are his big boppers and they’ve combined for as many homers as Kemp, so its reasonable to expect drastic improvement. Meanwhile, Willingham is showing his power can’t be contained by a big stadium with 5 HR and a nice .457 OBP. I’d be willing to put this team higher if the roster wasn’t all disjointed. Not sure why Karstens sounded like a good pickup on Tuesday as he was placed on the DL Wednesday, joining Fister and Hudson there. Between the DLd guys, Jurrjens, Lowe, and Chen there’s a lot of jelly-armed starters here, which limits Troy’s ability to compete in Ks. He also has give bench players on offense, which is too much. There are pieces here that could either keep Troy competitive or get him set up well for 2013, but its not clear which way that will go.

13. Urban Achievers (previous: 12) – 9.0 (12th) .175
It just got uglier for Dan as CYoung, who accounted for 5 of the team’s 8 homers through the first two weeks, just got put on the DL. Luckily its not serious, but it’ll be a serious pain in the ass for Dan to replace those numbers over the next two weeks. There has just been nothing from the offense thus far and it got worse with the misguided trade of Phillips. He’s got basically nothing so far from Reynolds, Mouse, DJennings, and Choo—guys who really needed to be good this year for Urban to achieve. I like LScott as a sneaky (and streaky) potential three/four category guy. That said, there’s been a lot of good in the pitching department, lead by Gio, CC, and the surprising JArrieta. Cahill has done well, Porcello was a smart high upside pickup, and Vogelsong could potentially help. Burnett might also contribute soon. But that offense is just killing him and needs to improve dramatically.

14. The Angry Pirates (previous: 14) – 10.1 (14th) .150
I like the roster better than this ranking shows, but there’s just no reason to move them up when you pitching averages 12.2 out of 14. The really sad part is: the pitching has actually been better than I thought it would be, as the middle reliever turned starter three some has done quite well. WChen was a good pickup as well. But JJ is obviously not his old self and Bell and Valverde have struggled, while the loss of BWilson turned what should’ve been a strength into a weakness. I’m confident the names on offense will perform much better very soon, but to really compete Kyle is going to have to do a hell of a job finding the sneaky pitchers that pop up or trade.