BBMI MLB Power Rankings, September 21: Milwaukee Sets the Wins Record, Tampa Bay Climbs to No. 2, and the AL Goes to the Wire
Ten days of movement since the September 11 board, eight days before the Wild Card Series: Milwaukee has the most wins in franchise history, Tampa Bay has passed Los Angeles for No. 2, San Diego has won 13 of 14, and one game separates first from second in both the AL Central and the AL West.
Milwaukee won its 98th game Sunday night in Baltimore, and no Brewers team has ever won more.
Jacob Misiorowski opened with three scoreless innings, William Contreras hit his 18th home run, Cooper Pratt drove in the other two runs, and six relievers carried a 3–0 shutout the rest of the way. It was Milwaukee's second straight shutout of the Orioles, it finished a three-game sweep, and it moved the record to 98–58 with six games left. The old franchise mark was 97, set last season.
That is where the final regular-season edition of these rankings starts, because almost nothing else at the top is still in doubt. Milwaukee, Los Angeles and Atlanta have clinched the three National League divisions. Tampa Bay, the Yankees and Boston have clinched American League playoff spots. The Cubs, Padres and Phillies hold the three NL wild cards, and the Playoff Pulse has each of them in October at 99% or better.
What is left lives in the American League. Cleveland leads the White Sox by one game in the Central. Texas leads Houston by one in the West. In both races the club in second place owns the tiebreaker, so a tie at the finish flips the division: Chicago went 7–6 against Cleveland this season, and Houston went 9–4 against Texas.
The September 21 Playoff Pulse has 91 games left across the league. The Wild Card Series starts Tuesday, September 29.
The full board
| # | Team | Mv | BBMI | Talent | Record | Last 15 | FIP | OPS | October | Div | WS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Milwaukee Brewers | – | .866 | .578 | 98–58 | 11–4 | 3.86 | .744 | 100% | 100% | 14% |
| 2 | Tampa Bay Rays | ▲1 | .845 | .557 | 95–60 | 12–3 | 4.15 | .732 | 100% | 99% | 17% |
| 3 | Los Angeles Dodgers | ▼1 | .843 | .662 | 96–60 | 12–3 | 3.91 | .765 | 100% | 100% | 23% |
| 4 | Atlanta Braves | ▲1 | .818 | .542 | 92–64 | 8–7 | 4.20 | .722 | 100% | 100% | 5% |
| 5 | New York Yankees | ▼1 | .808 | .611 | 89–66 | 9–6 | 3.88 | .721 | 100% | <1% | 9% |
| 6 | San Diego Padres | ▲3 | .771 | .542 | 87–69 | 13–2 | 4.23 | .719 | 99% | 0% | 4% |
| 7 | Chicago Cubs | – | .771 | .529 | 87–69 | 8–7 | 4.61 | .772 | 100% | 0% | 6% |
| 8 | Philadelphia Phillies | ▼2 | .759 | .524 | 86–70 | 7–8 | 3.87 | .709 | 99% | 0% | 4% |
| 9 | Boston Red Sox | ▼1 | .757 | .597 | 84–72 | 8–7 | 3.84 | .721 | 100% | 0% | 4% |
| 10 | Arizona Diamondbacks | – | .737 | .512 | 82–74 | 8–7 | 4.41 | .714 | 3% | 0% | <1% |
| 11 | Chicago White Sox | – | .718 | .485 | 80–76 | 6–9 | 4.40 | .721 | 97% | 45% | 2% |
| 12 | Cleveland Guardians | ▲3 | .711 | .492 | 81–75 | 10–5 | 3.95 | .692 | 98% | 55% | 5% |
| 13 | Pittsburgh Pirates | – | .709 | .527 | 79–77 | 10–5 | 3.93 | .738 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 14 | Toronto Blue Jays | ▼2 | .709 | .492 | 77–79 | 7–8 | 4.16 | .694 | 4% | 0% | <1% |
| 15 | Texas Rangers | ▲2 | .697 | .511 | 78–78 | 8–7 | 4.16 | .717 | 73% | 72% | 5% |
| 16 | Houston Astros | ▼2 | .684 | .536 | 77–79 | 5–10 | 4.51 | .723 | 29% | 28% | 2% |
| 17 | Baltimore Orioles | ▲1 | .683 | .457 | 75–81 | 6–9 | 4.26 | .708 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 18 | Miami Marlins | ▲2 | .676 | .465 | 76–80 | 5–10 | 4.32 | .727 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 19 | St. Louis Cardinals | ▼3 | .675 | .451 | 76–80 | 6–9 | 4.18 | .697 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 20 | Washington Nationals | ▲5 | .655 | .464 | 73–83 | 6–9 | 4.79 | .747 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 21 | Minnesota Twins | – | .655 | .458 | 73–83 | 6–9 | 4.30 | .720 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 22 | Seattle Mariners | ▼3 | .653 | .574 | 73–83 | 7–8 | 4.08 | .692 | <1% | <1% | 0% |
| 23 | Detroit Tigers | ▲1 | .652 | .496 | 73–83 | 9–6 | 4.12 | .717 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 24 | Cincinnati Reds | ▼2 | .647 | .431 | 72–84 | 5–10 | 4.73 | .699 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 25 | New York Mets | ▼2 | .638 | .463 | 71–85 | 7–8 | 4.12 | .703 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 26 | Kansas City Royals | – | .603 | .448 | 67–89 | 4–11 | 4.57 | .713 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 27 | San Francisco Giants | – | .579 | .430 | 64–92 | 6–9 | 4.20 | .713 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 28 | Athletics | – | .553 | .397 | 61–95 | 6–9 | 4.91 | .716 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 29 | Los Angeles Angels | – | .546 | .422 | 60–96 | 7–8 | 4.35 | .676 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 30 | Colorado Rockies | – | .526 | .404 | 57–99 | 3–12 | 5.04 | .739 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
BBMI, Talent, Record, Last 15, FIP and OPS are from the September 20 Power Rankings snapshot. October, Div and WS come from the September 21 Playoff Pulse, rebuilt after the September 20 games. Mv is rank movement against the September 11 installment.
Milwaukee is done with the division and not done with the record
When the September 11 board went up, Milwaukee was 91–56 and still holding off the Cubs. Since then the Brewers have clinched the Central, gone 11–4 over their last 15, and swept Baltimore without allowing a run in the last two games. Contreras has 18 homers, Pratt drove in two of the three runs Sunday, and Misiorowski's ERA is down to 1.86.
The board has moved with them. Milwaukee's BBMI Score is up from .851 on September 11 to .866, the highest figure on the board, and the 98 wins are why: the score gives full credit for wins already banked, and nobody has banked more.
The Playoff Pulse asks a different question and gives a different answer. It has Milwaukee at 14% to win the World Series, behind Los Angeles at 23% and Tampa Bay at 17%. The gap is the Talent column. Milwaukee's .578 is fourth on the board and the Dodgers' .662 is first by a wide margin, and a short series is where the roster counts for more than the record. Milwaukee has been the best regular-season team in baseball. It is not the roster the model would pick in a seven-game series. Those are two different questions, and the model gives two different answers.
Bars are scaled within each metric. Record-based BBMI Score puts Milwaukee first; roster-based Talent and the championship simulation both put Los Angeles first.
Tampa Bay moved past the Dodgers, and the schedule did it
The Rays closed their home schedule by beating Boston 5–1. Griffin Jax gave them five scoreless innings, Jonny DeLuca and Chandler Simpson drove in two runs apiece in the first, and Victor Mesa Jr. homered in the fourth. Tampa Bay went 8–1 on the homestand and finished 55–26 at Tropicana Field, the best home record in the majors and the most home wins in franchise history.
That run has the Rays at 95–60 and 12–3 over their last 15. It lifted their BBMI Score from .816 on September 11 to .845, the largest gain on the board over the interval, and moved them past Los Angeles at .843 into second.
The reason is not the standings. The Dodgers have the better record, 96–60 to 95–60, and the site projects them to more wins, 100 to 99. What the BBMI Score does is neutralize the schedule those wins were earned against. The Rays earned theirs in a division where the Yankees have 89 wins and the Red Sox 84. The Dodgers play 26 games a year against the Giants and Rockies, who have 121 wins between them. After the adjustment, Tampa Bay edges Los Angeles by two thousandths, which is a lean rather than a verdict.
The Pulse likes the Rays too: 99% to win the East, 99% for a first-round bye, 33% to reach the World Series and 17% to win it, second only to Los Angeles on both counts. The magic number for the division is two, and Tampa Bay takes it to Yankee Stadium for four games starting Tuesday. The Yankees have clinched a playoff spot and still own the better roster on the Talent column, .611 to .557. What they no longer own is a realistic path to the division; the Pulse has it under 1%.
Los Angeles dropped a spot and did nothing to deserve it
The Dodgers are also 12–3 over their last 15. They swept San Francisco over the weekend and closed it with a 3–1 win in which Emmet Sheehan came in behind an opener in the second inning and threw 5 1/3 innings of one-hit ball with nine strikeouts. Tommy Edman's sixth-inning homer tied it, and Enrique Hernández doubled home the go-ahead run in the seventh.
Their BBMI Score is .843, exactly where it was on September 11. Their Talent rating of .662 leads the Yankees by 51 points and everyone else by more, and that is the number the Pulse cares about once the season turns into a series tournament. Los Angeles reaches the World Series in 37% of simulations and wins it in 23%, both the highest marks in the model, and it lands a top-two seed and a first-round bye in 98%.
The West is clinched. What remains is the NL's No. 1 seed, and Milwaukee holds both the two-game lead and the head-to-head tiebreaker at 4–3.
San Diego picked the right month
Jake Cronenworth homered twice and drove in five Sunday, Fernando Tatis Jr. hit his 25th, Walker Buehler went 6 2/3 innings, and the Padres beat Miami 7–3 to finish a sweep. That is five straight wins and 13 of the last 14.
The board caught nearly all of it. San Diego is 13–2 over its last 15, up from ninth on September 11 to sixth, and its BBMI Score rose from .748 to .771, tied with the Cubs. The two clubs share an 87–69 record as well.
The Pulse has the Padres at 99% to make October, so the question is no longer whether but where. Chicago holds the first wild card on the tiebreaker after winning the season series 5–1, and Philadelphia sits one game back with a tiebreaker of its own: the Phillies went 6–0 against San Diego. The Padres can finish level with either club and still rank behind both. On the current bracket that means opening on the road at Wrigley Field, which is not where a team that has played better than anyone in the National League for two weeks wants to be.
The Cubs have a bigger worry than the seed
Pete Crow-Armstrong hit his 45th home run Sunday in a 9–1 win over Cincinnati, went 3-for-5 with his 30th double and 38th stolen base, and became the first center fielder in major league history with 40 homers, 30 doubles and 30 steals in one season. Michael Conforto and Seiya Suzuki also homered.
The Cubs are seventh on the board, one spot behind San Diego, with the same .771 BBMI Score and the same 87–69 record. Their .772 OPS is the best on the board and their 4.61 FIP is the worst of the fourteen clubs above .700. That is the Cubs in one line: they hit more than anyone and pitch worse than every other contender.
Sorted by OPS. Bars are scaled across these fourteen clubs only; the board average is .719 OPS and 4.27 FIP.
The bigger news came in the fourth inning. Alex Bregman was hit in the face by a Michael Busch foul ball while standing in the on-deck circle and left for X-rays and a CT scan. Reports Monday, citing ESPN, described multiple facial fractures, no surgery, and a plan to return for the postseason. Whether he is in the lineup on September 29 matters more than the seed.
The Pulse has the Cubs hosting San Diego in the Wild Card Series and reaching the Division Series in 54% of simulations to the Padres' 46%. Both clubs are in that round in nearly every simulated season, so read it as a series price: a slight lean to the home team.
Cleveland and Chicago have six games left and no more head-to-head
The White Sox led the Central when the September 11 board went up. Cleveland leads it now, and the game that flipped it was Wednesday in Cleveland. Petey Halpin's three-run homer in the sixth turned a 3–3 game into a 6–3 win, Parker Messick struck out eight over six innings, and Cade Smith retired the last four hitters for his 37th save.
Cleveland is 10–5 over its last 15 and up from 15th to 12th on the board, .697 to .711. Chicago is 6–9 over the same stretch. The standings read 81–75 and 80–76, one game, and that one game is the entire margin: the White Sox won the season series 7–6, so a tie at the finish goes to Chicago. The two clubs do not play again.
The Pulse makes Cleveland a 55% favorite for the division and Chicago 45%, with both clubs in October in at least 97% of simulations. The division comes with a bye, and that is the real prize: Cleveland lands a top-two AL seed in 55% of seasons, Chicago in 44%. The current bracket has the Guardians sitting out the Wild Card round and the White Sox opening at Texas.
Texas leads the West, Houston holds the tiebreaker, and one of them is going home
Josh Jung homered in the first inning against Toronto on Saturday. Cal Quantrill left in the second with a right lat injury, Jordan Montgomery followed with 3 2/3 hitless innings for the win, and Texas won 6–2, its sixth win in seven games. Quantrill went on the 15-day injured list Sunday and will miss the rest of the regular season and the Wild Card round.
Texas is 78–78, up from 17th on September 11 to 15th. Houston is 77–79 and 5–10 over its last 15, and Atlanta did most of that damage by sweeping the Astros in Houston over the weekend. The Astros won the season series 9–4, so a tie is enough for them to take the division.
The Pulse gives Texas 72% for the West and 73% to make October; Houston is 28% and 29%. Unlike the Central, where the runner-up is a wild card, the runner-up here is very likely out. The Rangers and Astros are the only two clubs left in the Pulse's "on the bubble" section.
One more note on the AL bracket. The Pulse has the White Sox reaching the Division Series in 65% of simulations and Texas in 35%, but that is not a series price. Most of Chicago's number comes from the seasons in which it wins the Central and skips the Wild Card round, and most of Texas's shortfall is the 27% of seasons in which it misses the field.
Atlanta clinched, and drew the Phillies for it
Mike Yastrzemski's three-run homer capped a four-run sixth Sunday, Atlanta beat Houston 4–2 to finish the sweep, and the Braves clinched the NL East for the seventh time in nine seasons.
That moved Atlanta past the Yankees on the board, from fifth on September 11 to fourth at .818. The Pulse has the division at 100% and Atlanta as the NL's No. 3 seed, which means hosting a Wild Card Series. It also gives the Braves a 5% title chance and, on the current bracket, Philadelphia as the first-round opponent.
The Phillies reach the Division Series in 51% of simulations to Atlanta's 49%. The Braves host, and the model still leans the other way, barely.
Philadelphia has the tiebreakers and a coin flip
Cristopher Sánchez went 6 1/3 innings for his 18th win Sunday, Justin Crawford's three-run triple in the eighth broke the game open, and the Phillies beat the Mets 7–2 to split the four-game series.
Philadelphia has slipped from sixth to eighth on the board and from .764 to .759, but its playoff position is safer than the ranking suggests: 99% to make October, one game behind the Cubs and Padres for the top wild card, and the tiebreaker over San Diego already in hand at 6–0. The likely first-round opponent is Atlanta, and the Pulse gives Philadelphia the slight edge in that series despite the road assignment. For a club that sits eighth on the board, that is a comfortable place to be.
Arizona is not out, technically
Nolan Arenado's grand slam in the fifth turned a 4–1 deficit into a 6–4 lead Sunday, and Arizona beat the Yankees 8–4 for its 47th comeback win of the season, the most in the majors.
The Diamondbacks are 82–74, four games behind Philadelphia for the last NL wild card with six to play, all on the road: three in Colorado, then three in San Diego. The Pulse puts them at 3%. That number is not a judgment on the roster, which sits tenth on the board at .737. It is arithmetic. Any combination of three Phillies wins and Arizona losses ends it, and the Phillies have six games to find three.
Seattle finished with the fifth-best roster and the 22nd-best result
Seattle has dropped from 19th on September 11 to 22nd, .673 to .653. The Mariners are 73–83, ten games under .500, and the Pulse gives them under 1% to make October.
The Talent column still rates them .574, fifth in baseball behind Los Angeles, New York, Boston and Milwaukee, and the rating has gone up since September 11, from .558 to .574, while the club went 4–5. With six games left that gap between roster and record is going to stay. The roster is the reason Seattle was worth watching. It is also the reason 73–83 reads worse for the Mariners than it does for anyone else at 73–83.
Clubs to the lower right have rosters the model rates well above their season result. Seattle is the clearest case on the board: fifth in Talent, 22nd in BBMI Score.
Washington is the biggest riser, for whatever a riser is worth in September
The Nationals moved from 25th on September 11 to 20th, the largest rank gain on the board, on a BBMI Score that rose from .642 to .655. Their .747 OPS is third on the board behind the Cubs and Dodgers, and it is carrying a 4.79 FIP that is third-worst. Washington is 73–83 and eliminated, so the climb is a note for the full ranking, not a factor in the final week.
What the bracket looks like with one week left
The September 21 Pulse projects this field:
That sends the White Sox to Texas and Boston to New York in the American League, and San Diego to Chicago and Philadelphia to Atlanta in the National League. Tampa Bay, Cleveland, Milwaukee and Los Angeles would sit out the first round.
Los Angeles remains the model's championship favorite at 23%. Tampa Bay is next at 17%, Milwaukee at 14%, the Yankees at 9%, the Cubs at 6%, then Texas, Cleveland and Atlanta at 5%, Philadelphia, Boston and San Diego at 4%, and the White Sox and Houston at 2%.
Those numbers will move before September 29. The bracket may move more, because both AL division races are one game from flipping.
The bottom line
Milwaukee owns the best record in baseball and the best regular season in franchise history, with six games left to add to 98 wins.
Tampa Bay has passed Los Angeles for No. 2 after an 8–1 final homestand and a 12–3 run. The Dodgers have the better record; the Rays had the harder schedule, and the BBMI Score credits it. Los Angeles still has the roster the model likes most for October, at 37% to reach the World Series and 23% to win it.
San Diego is 13–2 over its last 15 and tied with Chicago for the top NL wild card, but the Cubs and Phillies both hold tiebreakers over the Padres, so the hot team is the one most likely to open on the road.
Cleveland leads Chicago by one in the Central and Texas leads Houston by one in the West, and in both races the second-place club wins a tie. The difference is what happens to the loser: the Central runner-up is a wild card, and the West runner-up is probably done.
There are 91 games left in the September 21 simulation. By next week there will be nothing left to simulate about who made the field. We will have the bracket.
Data: BBMI MLB Power Rankings, updated September 20 · BBMI Playoff Pulse, rebuilt September 21 · 10,000 simulated seasons · 91 games remaining in the Pulse snapshot. Rank movement is measured against the September 11 Power Rankings installment.
Disclosure: Independent sports analytics and model projections for informational purposes only. Rankings, forecasts and probabilities are model outputs, not financial or betting advice, and past performance does not guarantee future results.
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