Week 15 Power Rankings

There’s no way to check Elias on this, but last week could have been the first time in league history that only one game was decided by fewer than 8 runs. If “dominance” was the key word last weekend, I think it’s also a fitting word to describe the power rankings this year. In previous years my rankings listed all 16 teams. This year the number was reduced to 8 mostly because I wanted to focus on the positives and wanted to avoid writing negative comments about teams in the bottom half. Symbolically speaking though, going from 16 to 8 teams for the power rankings can also represent the idea of dichotomy. Where in previous years, all teams were connected by the rankings, this year we have the haves and have-nots. You’re either on the rankings, or you’re not.

As we enter the home stretch of the regular season, I’m curious to see how this will translate to the playoffs.  In the four years of having two separate 1-8 seedings for the playoffs, 2010 was the only year where one of the leagues had all four top seeds advance to the second round. One would look at the National League this year and think there’s a good chance that feat will be repeated this year (although being that my team sits in the #5 slot, I’m hoping there’s at least one upset waiting to happen). The top four NL teams won their games last week by 11,9,16, and 16 runs respectively. Dominance indeed.

Power Rankings:

1.       Applebaum (1)

2.       Jacoby (2)

3.       Randell (5)

4.       Carlin (3)

5.       Wallman (4)

6.       Mamone (6)

7.       Pollock (7)

8.       Goldfarb (8)

Other Notes:

Once again there’s a huge logjam at the 7-11 spots. If any of these teams can get super hot over the last few weeks, it might result in a move to the #6 spot. That big of a jump is still unlikely because I anticipate Team Mamone will get back on track and recover from their awful game.