August Burned Red: Updated MLB Rankings Based on FUBAR

The baseball world was rocked when the Los Angeles Angels swept the Oakland Athletics this past weekend. Despite Oakland’s efforts to improve their starting rotation, the A’s have seen a dip in production in this area. More concerning is the fact that Oakland sent out their best starters to match up against the Angels’ best starters, and still were dominated over the weekend. After chasing down Oakland all summer long, Anaheim looks to have full control of their playoff destiny.

However, despite the Angels’ success, they were not the best team in the month of August according to Felipe’s Ultimate Baseball Advanced Rankings (or FUBAR for short). Reverting back to a small sample size, we will be taking a look at Major League Baseball during the month of August. The small sample size will help evaluate teams who made big acquisitions via trades. For a basis of comparison, we compare this month’s rankings with July’s FUBAR rankings. But first, let’s highlight the best teams in each aspect of the game.

And now for the pitching staffs:

And here are the teams flashing the best leather:

And a very quick look at the worst from each category:

• Worst Offense: Chicago White Sox
• Worst Starting Rotation: Colorado Rockies and Boston Red Sox
• Worst Bullpen: Minnesota Twins
• Worst Defense: Cleveland Indians

TOP OVERALL TEAMS

1. Orioles–Though the large sample-sized rankings do not think much of the O’s, this is the second consecutive month where they rank in the top 10:

As mentioned before, their bullpen and defense might carry them far, but with their offense finally getting into gear and their rotation being surprisingly in the top 10, Baltimore is starting to unravel as a legit title contender.

Key Series–The O’s first big test in the month of September will be against the Tampa Bay Rays:

Baltimore has been crushing the ball and will look to continue their hot streak, though they run into an elite pitching staff in Tampa. The Rays have the better plate discipline and base running, but have been let down by their defense. Really tough to bet against the Rays’ rotation, but the Orioles are the hotter team at the moment and should be able to take the series.

2. Athletics–Despite their struggles last month, their defense was the one saving grace in helping them attain such a high spot in our rankings.

Key Series–The A’s return home to take on another tough, divisional foe:

The AL West has been the toughest division to be in 2014. Contrary to popular belief, the A’s still have a good offense, however, their high ranking is based on their base running and aided heavily by a strong plate discipline. They’re going to need that skill going against the likes of Felix Hernandez and the second best bullpen in baseball. They’re also going to need to find a way to get out of their current hitting slump. People will cite the absence of Yoenis Cespedes, but the A’s should have plenty to at least win their series against Seattle.

T-3. Royals–A lot of doubters are waiting for the Royals to implode and cede the AL Central to Detroit. They’ll have a chance to prove their worth against another tough opponent:

The Royals have been on a tear on offense (top 10 in wOBA in August) and it will be very interesting to see how they fare against the third best rotation in baseball. The Yankees’ pitching staff looks good, but the bullpen seems to get the job done with more guile than dominance. Look to see the Royals take advantage of the Yanks’ porous defense.

The rest of the top 10 looks like this:

Middle of the pack clubs are as follows:

The following should prove to be some of the more interesting match-ups this week.

The congested NL Central is about to get tighter if the Pirates find a way to exploit a fledgling pitching staff. With all the talent, it is shocking to see the Cardinals rate this low. Though the Pirates are middle of the pack on offense in August, they were sixth in wOBA. But Pittsburgh’s pitching staff have had some struggles of their own and their defense can be suspect. That is why the Cards should be able to out-slug Pittsburgh in this match-up.

The next series also involves St. Louis:

The Brewers had a tough week in California last week, getting frustrated by San Diego and then getting embarrassed in San Francisco. They’ll be happy to face a struggling pitching staff, although their own pitching staff is having issues of their own. When in doubt, defense can prove to be the tie-breaker in this series, giving the edge to the Cards.

Speaking of California:

This should prove to be a fun series to watch. The Dodgers bullpen and defense have seen their struggles, but their offense and rotation, where most of their top-dollar talent play, have been carrying this club through much of the season. The second game of this series will pit Doug Fister against 2014, consensus Cy Young pick, Clayton Kershaw. But if the first game is any indication, Washington’s offense should help the Nats prevail in this series, despite having to face Kershaw.

We finally take a look at the rest of the clubs:

Everything seems to be copacetic. White Sox and Blue Jays’ fans can’t be too mad as both of their clubs had the worst run differentials last month. Brewers’ fans should be concerned because their team has been shockingly dipping in performance. And of course, FUBAR has been hating on the Detroit Tigers since the very beginning so seeing them this low is not surprising. But they do have a chance to redeem themselves:

Currently, Detroit is facing off against Cleveland, but the Giants are closer to Detroit in terms of these rankings so we will spotlight this match-up. Just like the Dodgers, the big-money talent for Motor City is in the rotation and in the everyday hitting lineup and those phases came up huge in August. Unfortunately, the bullpen and defense was putrid as always. The Giants are not world-beaters in the latter phases either, but they have been on a roll, winning seven of their last eight games. And scheduled to start in this series is big, nasty, lefty Madison Bumgarner, who pretty much shut down a just-as-potent Milwaukee offense last week. Nevertheless, the Giants have been one of the more impatient teams in the last month and the Tigers proved to have a well-balanced offense in that same stretch. That might be enough to frustrate a pretty good Giants’ rotation and help Detroit take the series.

Stats courtesy of fangraphs.com, mlb.com, and espn.com.

Felipe Melecio

Felipe Melecio was the managing editor for the blog Pathological Hate. He believes that math is your friend and numbers can be fun, especially when it comes to baseball. Keep tabs on all his knee-jerk reactions on Twitter: Follow @pathological_h8 !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

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