The Cubs are having their best season in years and enter the week with their magic number for clinching a wild card berth at five. But unless something changes with this weekend's critical series against Pittsburgh, they're the third-best team in the National League Central -- which is far less a knock against the Cubs and more a compliment to baseball's best division. It's certainly led to an interesting wild card race, much better than the mediocre hellscape of the race for the American League's No. 2 wild card spot.
With that comes another week of MLB Power Rankings from CSNChicago.com's Tony Andracki and JJ Stankevitz. Stay with us every Monday from here through October for a fresh set of rankings.
Stay tuned for updated rankings every Monday throughout the 2015 campaign. Here's where we're at so far: Preseason rankings | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 12 | Week 13 | Week 14 | Week 15 | Week 16 | Week 17 | Week 18 | Week 19 | Week 20 | Week 21 | Week 22 | Week 23
Rank | Team |
Last Week | Comment |
1 | 1 |
Is their deal with the devil finally over? |
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2 | 3 | ||
3 | 5 |
They're the first team since the 2006 White Sox with three players with 35 or more home runs (Donaldson/Bautista/Encarnacion, Konerko/Dye/Thome). |
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4 | 3 |
Jake Arrieta is an alien. Has to be. |
|
5 | 4 |
Wade Davis, who will close in the postseason, has actually lowered his ERA from 1.00 in 2014 to 0.97 in 2015. |
|
6 | 7 |
With great starting pitching, a solid bullpen and a lineup featuring Cespedes-Wright-Duda, this Mets team could be scary in the postseason. |
|
7 | 8 |
The biggest question is if Masahiro Tanaka will return to the Yankees rotation this week to tee him up for the Oct. 6 wild card game. |
|
8 | 6 |
Would argue they're the least intimidating of any NL playoff team, despite scary-high payroll. |
|
9 | 9 |
Two and a half games up on Houston, three up on Los Angeles entering the season's final week. Not safe, but close. |
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10 | 13 |
Gunning for the wild card, but have a four-game series against Texas to end the season. |
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11 | 10 |
Their bullpen has a 6.21 ERA in September, which is no way to try to hang on to a playoff spot. |
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12 | 11 |
Technically, they woke up Monday morning with a 0.1 percent chance of making the postseason. |
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13 | 14 |
Even if they don't make the playoffs, this team (and Paul Molitor) deserves a ton of credit for being in contention every week of the season. |
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14 | 12 |
Both Matt Williams and Jonathan Papelbon need to get out of DC now. This has gotten completely out of hand. |
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15 | 15 |
Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco are a rock-solid 1-2 duo around which to build. |
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16 | 20 | ||
17 | 17 |
If Manny Machado gets two more steals, he'll be the first player with 30 HR, 20 SB and .800+ OPS before turning 24 since Mike Trout in 2012. |
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18 | 20 |
Ender Inciarte (.304 AVG, .743 SLG, 21 steals) flying under the radar just like David Peralta, A.J. Pollock and most of this D-Backs team. |
|
19 | 19 |
Chris Archer's rough September (6.58 ERA in five starts) shouldn't take away from what's been a spectacular season for the 27-year-old. |
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20 | 23 |
This is the most exciting thing to happen at Petco Park all season. |
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21 | 16 |
We had them ranked No. 4 as the top AL team before the season. Uhhh... |
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22 | 21 | For all the offseason buzz, they didn't fix a defense that was the third-worst in baseball by UZR last year. This year: Dead last. | |
23 | 22 |
Victor Martinez has been worth -1.9 WAR this year, and still has three years left on a $68 million contract. Yikes. |
|
24 | 25 |
They've had four winning streaks of at least three games in September already. Odd. |
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25 | 28 |
We are all witness to Nolan Arenado's breakout season (41 HR, 126 RBI, .888 OPS). |
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26 | 24 |
The Tim Hudson-Barry Zito matchup on Saturday was awesome, even if the game ended with a 14-10 score. |
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27 | 27 |
Rallied for seven runs on Trevor Rosenthal and the Cardinals in the ninth inning Sunday, proving Brewers can definitely play spoiler in this final week. |
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28 | 26 |
You better believe they're going to want to impact the playoff race with series against Cubs and Pirates this week. |
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29 | 29 |
Swept out of Miami just another dark chapter in this sad season. |
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30 | 30 |
At least they don't have to worry about Papelbon anymore? |