MLB Power Rankings
| 21 |  |
Last Week: 22 |
Australia native Trent Oeltjen is just the 24th Australian-born player to reach the major leagues, but at the rate he's going it
won't take him long to be the best (that honor probably goes to former catcher/first baseman Dave Nilsson, who hit 105 home runs over a very
respectable eight-year career with the Brewers in the 1990s). Oeltjen debuted by batting .500 over his first six games with three home runs and may actually
be helping the game grow Down Under. "If you just went up to a random guy on the street, he wouldn't know what baseball is," he told MLB.com. That's OK, most
Americans have never heard of Korfball, so we can just call it even. |
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| 22 |  |
Last Week: 21 |
Now that it is
almost certain that Citi Field's debut season will not end with a playoff series, the Mets are slashing ticket prices, with some games going for
50 percent below normal. This is very much not the team many fans have expected to see, and paying well over $100 to go see the likes of Angel Pagan
and Daniel Murphy, instead of Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado, probably doesn't make much sense. Then again, paying some of these guys
to be on the roster in the first place probably didn't make much sense either. This will go down as baseball's biggest "What If" team of the year. |
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| 23 |  |
Last Week: 23 |
The A's are
presenting Turn Back the Clock Day to 1929 this Sunday, in honor of their world champion team from that season. Now there's a year people are anxious to
remember. Note to A's: You did win the World Series in years that won't remind people of economic catastrophe. Pick one of those for Turn Back the Clock.
(And yes, I realize it's an even 80 years that they're celebrating. Still strange.) If you ask me, 1911 doesn't get nearly the respect that it should.
Besides, if anyone wants to hear about the 1929 A's, they should just read this excellent SI story from 1996. |
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| 24 |  |
Last Week: 25 |
Since trading
Victor Martinez and Cliff Lee, the Indians have actually played some of their best ball of the season, going 7-4. That's the good news. The bad
news is that the club announced they are expecting to lose $16 million. Club president Larry Dolan's solution to help bridge the gap between the haves
and have-nots: a full draft that includes international players, and a slotting system for those picks. "We'll never get a level playing field," he said,
"but the gap needs to be closer than it is now." |
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| 25 |  |
Last Week: 26 |
This is the last
season that Hal McCoy, the longtime baseball writer for the Dayton Daily News, will cover the Cincinnati Reds and that's a shame. It's a shame
because he's not only an exceptionally nice guy, he's a Hall of Famer, and according to his bio on the paper's site, has covered the same team longer (37
straight years) than anyone else in the country. It's also a shame that he has to go out watching what has become a dreadful year in Cincy. The Reds, who
were over .500 and just two games out on July 4, have plummeted to a 9-24 record since and are now 12 1/2 games behind in the NL Central. So long, Hal. Your
kindness hasn't been forgotten, even if you don't remember exuding it in the first place. |
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| 26 |  |
Last Week: 24 |
You know
things are looking down for your team when the local newspaper has a blog post asking fans which
pitcher will be the ace of the staff in two years (I say Chris Tillman). Sadly for O's fans, it's not at all ridiculous to ask that. The
farther they fall -- now 3-9 this month, 20 games under .500 for the year and 24 games out of first -- the more reason there is to wonder whether even next
year will snap their streak of losing seasons, which is about to lock in year No. 12. |
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| 27 |  |
Last Week: 28 |
How could the
San Diego Padres impact the ACC football season? Because after not being able to sign No. 3 overall pick Donovan Tate until now, Tate is leaving the University of North Carolina -- a preseason
top-20 team -- to try and work out a deal with the Padres before next week's deadline. The Tate signing wouldn't decimate the Tar Heels, but it would be a
nice boost for the Padres to prove they can sign their top picks and get them some kind of professional experience as soon as possible. They need some good
news. Adrian Gonzalez can't go 6-for-6 every night. |
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| 28 |  |
Last Week: 30 |
The
Nationals have certainly come a long way this year: from embarrassing on-field play to a series of off-field stumbles. (One I happened to be in attendance
for: a guitarist taking five tries to get the national anthem right because he didn't have his guitar tuned properly.) But now they ripped off an eight-game
winning streak, are tied for the sixth-best record since the All-Star break and have even corrected the whole national anthem snafu, recently employing a guy
who plays the (electric) violin made out of a bat to perform the anthem. The Nationals:
for the first time all year, they're not on Desolation Row. At least not this week. |
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| 29 |  |
Last Week: 27 |
Well, this
was inevitable. The Pirates went on an eight-game losing streak not long after they completed the trades that sent almost anyone who was recognizable, and
several who weren't, out of town. They are buried in last place in the NL Central, Pedro Alvarez may not be making his major league debut this year
despite tearing up Double-A pitching (.331/.401/.570), and the Steelers already opened training camp, which I think means that baseball in Pittsburgh is more
or less done for the season. |
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| 30 |  |
Last Week: 29 |
Though one
former first-round pick (Alex Gordon) has struggled, another (Billy Butler) is progressing nicely for the Royals. Butler has already
established career highs for home runs (13) and RBIs (58), and his .300/.355/.481 batting percentages are also career highs. It's a little premature for him
to be compared to Joe DiMaggio, but Butler is getting plenty of pub these days thanks to a nationwide TV commercial that shows him next to the Yankee Clipper. |
Ted Keith's Mailbag
Ted Keith will answer select questions from SI.com users in his Baseball Mailbag.
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