Dan's 2017 Power Rankings

[Rockies GM (Dan)]

As requested, I have again meticulously compiled Steamer ratings for every stat for every player on every team, then put them through an algorithm which spit out rankings at me.

Again, my approach to this is designed to remove any personal bias. Biggest change from last year - I heavily adjusted the weight of offensive bench players.

These rankings are not meant to predict championship (or even division) winners. Instead, they should be viewed as how teams would be ranked if this was a roto league. I have not found a way to account for luck in rankings - for example, the Reds had a statistically dominant team last year, but still missed the playoffs because of bad luck in H2H matchups. And in the playoffs, all bets are off, as luck seems to play an even greater factor in the playoffs.

Without further ado, here are the rankings. This year, I scaled scores down to 0-50 for offense and defense in order to get to a max score of 100.

Team Name	Offense	Pitching	Overall Score
1) Rockies	48	41	89
2) Nationals	42	42	84
3) Cubs	43	33	76
4) Phillies	39	36	75
5) Blue Jays	37	38	75
6) Rangers	38	36	74
7) Giants	47	26	73
8) Brewers	35	32	67
9) Twins	31	29	60
10) Braves	27	32	59
11) White Sox	19	38	57
12) Padres	26	30	56
13) Indians	18	37	55
14) Reds	27	26	53
15) Astros	26	25	51
16) Pirates	19	31	50
17) Athletics	31	16	47
18) Mets	34	12	46
19) Angels	26	18	44
20) Royals	18	25	43
21) Dodgers	18	24	42
22) Orioles	12	29	41
23) Tigers	26	11	37
24) Yankees	15	20	35
25) Diamondbacks	16	17	33
26) Red Sox	19	13	32
27) Rays	9	21	30
28) Cardinals	16	14	30
29) Marlins	6	21	27
30) Mariners	12	9	21

[Rays GM (Donavan)]

Wow, so the Rockies are the best team by 5 points to the Nats and 13 points to 3rd place, and has $31M still to spend....

[Guardians GM (Matt)]

Looks like another close AL Central race

[Mariners GM (Nick J)]

Trust the process.

[Former Twins GM (Robin)]

AL Central is always a battle. 7 out of 10 teams at the top of the chart are NL franchises. Boo! Rockies NL bias.

[Royals GM (Mac - Retired)]

From 30th to 20th....I don't see the improvement (losing Reyes for the year) but I'm not complaining

[Cubs GM (Beau)]

I think top ranking looks right. Rockies gonna have at least a 3 year peak.

[Rockies GM (Dan)]

Mar 12, 2017 9:48:36 GMT -8 Royals GM (Mac - Retired) said:

From 30th to 20th....I don't see the improvement (losing Reyes for the year) but I'm not complaining

One of the flaws of using projections is that I can't really account for injuries or call-ups in them. It likes your starting pitching (and Edwin Diaz), but it assumes that Jose de Leon and Tyler Glasnow will be pitching and accumulating innings from the beginning (Steamer has them pegged for 117 and 126 innings respectively), which is probably an erroneous assumption. Still, without some major retooling of my algorithm, it's a difficult issue to correct. If you can hit AB minimums, the system likes your chances at competing in AVG and OPS (in fact, you're top-10 in those two statistics).

So, is it a mirage/flaw in the projections? Maybe, but it's probably also a perhaps-too-early reflection of improvement.

[Rockies GM (Dan)]

Mar 12, 2017 9:35:25 GMT -8 Former Twins GM (Robin) said:

AL Central is always a battle. 7 out of 10 teams at the top of the chart are NL franchises. Boo! Rockies NL bias.

I think the flip side of this is that there is a lot more competition in the AL. The Rangers and the Blue Jays look like clear favorites in their divisions, but 5 points separate 1-3 in the AL Central. And it looks like there are probably 5-6 teams that could really challenge for the wild card slots.

In the NL, you have 3 clear division favorites, and then 3 favorites for the wild card by what isn't an insignificant margin. Anything can happen (injuries, breakouts, sudden declines), but there doesn't appear to be as much turnover in terms of competition in the NL.

[White Sox GM (Aidan)]

Like I mentioned last year, to touch on your point, Steamer is notoriously bad/ optimistic when projecting younger players with less big league experience. Thanks for doing these again, should be a fun year!