Season 10 - AL Power Rankings (halfway through the season)

AL Power Rankings to represent the AL in the World Series.

-Rankings are based on expected win pct (run differential), standings, and stats.

Please, please, pleaseeeeeee don’t take this seriously. This is purely for fun and is just to make this blog better.

The AL is definitely head and shoulders above the NL in depth with good teams. Some of the “pretenders” would definitely be “contenders” in the NL. Some good teams are going to just miss the playoffs.

Favorite
1. Philadelphia Owls – Dominating performance through the first half of the season, especially considering they are playing against some great AL competition and their run differential shows that their record should be even higher.

Contenders (Chance of making the playoffs and better chance of going deep in the playoffs)

2. Salem Beavers – Second in the AL West, but have had some bad luck in one run games. The AL West is home to the top two hitting teams in the AL. They might need to improve their fielding to get to that next level.

3. Anaheim Trojans – A little bit of a surprise ranking the Trojans below the Beavers since they are leading the West and I’m sure ajwalton will use this as bulletin board material for the locker room. The Trojans are a very good team and will be a force come the playoffs.

4. New York Red Storm – Solid team, but is mainly going after a wildcard berth as Philly is up 12 games in the division. They have a decent shot at making a run though because as a team they are very well rounded. #2 in the league in pitching and defense while still packing some punch with a bat.

Pretenders (Chance of making the playoffs and everything would have to go perfectly to go deep in the playoffs) – Jut to re-iterate what I said above, several of these teams below are very good. It just looks like the four above are the cream of the crop.


5. Oakland Golden Bears – The top pitching team in the league definitely could make a run in the playoffs, but everything would need to break right. The playoffs are always a crap shoot though and to go in with the top pitching staff could give them a good chance.

6. Little Rock Razorbacks – Playing a bit above their heads right now as they are 18-9 in one run games which they have leveraged to take the NL South division lead. Probably will come back to Earth down the stretch as it would be surprising to see a team winning 2/3 of their one run games. They’ll need to get better pitching to keep the lead.

7. Fargo Bison – I could probably cut and paste Little Rock’s description here. Currently 21-7 in one run games which has them playing over 100 points above their run differential would indicate. They are below average in all three major categories and near the bottom in pitching.

8. Portland Ducks – Scrambling after Fargo right now for the division and is hoping the Bison do come back down to Earth. The two are currently neck and neck in run differential so the Ducks have some work to do to make up the 5 game lead.

9. New Orleans Bayou Bengals – The Bengals have been very unlucky and are currently playing 50 points below what their run differential indicates. They aren’t completely out of the division race, but the three teams in it will probably beat themselves up a ton and without many weak teams in the AL, it may be tough to make up the ground. They can hit the ball well, but are currently last in the league in fielding which has hurt them.

10. Jackson Rebels – One of the top pitching staffs in the league will battle the Bengals to make up the ground in the South. Maybe try to acquire a bat or two to strengthen the lineup?

Is it next season yet?

11. Minnesota Golden Gophers – After last seasons “well someone has to win the AL North” and subsequent surprise run to the world series, it looks like the rebuilding job continue in Minnesota under bighead34’s watchful eye.

12. Seattle Huskies – It is tough being in the one of the most competitive divisions in the world, but lefty is focusing on putting one foot in front of the other while developing his organization.

13. Charleston Cougars – If you look at the standings then you may be wondering why the Cougars are so low, but once you take a look at run differential you’ll see that work remains to be done. The Cougars were once a world series participant and dgtrache is working hard to get them back.

14. Chicago Blue Demons – Arte is on record as saying this is a full rebuild and recently traded longtime Demon Hawk Wagner.

15. Cincinnati Bearcats – Allright took over this squad who hadn’t won many games in a long time. This season isn’t look great, but there is a lot of talent in the organization.

16. Nashville Commodores – Disappointing season for the Commodores, but meteu doesn’t expect the second half to be as bad as the first. Work had to be done on this team after the previous owner had left the minors in shambles.