FanGraphs Power Rankings: April 8–14

The FanGraphs Newsletter, April 16, 2024 [READ IN BROWSER]( April 16, 2024 What’s gotten into the Central divisions? Often an afterthought behind the big market clubs on either coast, it’s the Central teams in both leagues that are providing the most surprising starts, and most entertaining baseball, so far this season. This season, we’ve revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined since March. That’s why we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using a modified [Elo rating system](. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s [defunct sports section]( you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coin flip playoff odds (specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%). As the best and worst teams sort themselves out throughout the season, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings, while the exercise will remain reactive to hot streaks or cold snaps. First up are the full rankings, presented in a sortable table: [Read More]( [Call Him Butter, Because Craig Kimbrel Is On a Roll]( Oh right, Craig Kimbrel is still an elite closer. | by Ben Clemens [Player's View: Tales From the Minor Leagues]( Nine people from around baseball share anecdotes from their time down on the farm. | by David Laurila [An Annual Tradition: The Astros Are Off to a Slow Start]( As a result of extremes on both sides of the ball, Houston has the AL's second-worst record, and the club's worst at this juncture since 2016. | by Jay Jaffe [Can the Royals Pull Off an AL Central Upset?]( With a weak division and some key injuries to the Twins and Guardians, the Royals making it back to the playoffs is at least plausible. | by Dan Szymborski [Spencer Strider Undergoes Surgery, Will Miss Remainder of 2024 Season]( Strider didn't have standard Tommy John surgery, instead opting for an internal brace that could reduce his rehab time. What does that mean for him, his team, and baseball more broadly? | by Ben Clemens 🎧 [Effectively Wild Episode 2151: The MLB Reboot]( [DOWNLOAD THE FANGRAPHS APP]( [FanGraphs & Effectively Wild Merch Is Now Available at BreakingT!]( [ORDER HERE]( [How Jackson Holliday's clubhouse past helps his MLB future]( by Tim Kurkjian, ESPN [First-Pitch Swinging is Good, but for Who?]( by Timothy Jackson, Baseball Prospectus ($) [How contact hitters like Steven Kwan, Jackson Merrill and CJ Abrams are working to add power]( by Eno Sarris, The Athletic ($) [@fangraphs]( [FanGraphs]( [FanGraphs]( [RSS]( [FORWARD]( [SUBSCRIBE]( Copyright © 2024 FanGraphs Inc, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the FanGraphs Newsletter. Our mailing address is: FanGraphs Inc 3017 N Underwood StArlington, VA 22213 [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](