Don't blame Pujols? He's having a subpar season. If he can do no better than .300 BA, 30 HR & 100 RBI, the Cards will continue to flounder.

these actually seem fair, but for the money the cubs spent that grade should be lower. and how can "Josh Hamilton was one of the best stories of the second half." when the 2nd half hasn't happened yet?...GO BUCCOs

Yay, you have posted each team's total runs scored and total runs given up alongside their record, which means you can, if you can work excel, plot correllations. Or, if you're me, and lazy, you can just do the following half-assed exercise to determine, once and for never, whether pitching really is key to the pennant.

Okay, so I added the total runs scored, for or against each team, and also noted the total number of games over or below five hundred for each team. Then I gave each team a rank from 1 to 16 (I only did three divisions, ALC, NLC, and NLW because, again, I am lazy, and the exercise is pointless and stupid) based on how many games above five hundred they were, where 1 was the most above five hundred, and 16 was the most below. Then I assigned ranks from 1 to 16 based on total runs scored or given up in the teams' games, where 1 was the team that played in the highest scoring games and 16 was the team that played in the lowest scoring games. Then I determined the absolute value of the difference between each team's ranks in these two statistics, i.e. if a team were ranked 1 in games above five hundred and 1 in total runs involved in their games (like the Tigers) the result would be an absolute value of zero (1-1=0). But if a team were first in games above five hundred but last in total runs involved in their games, the absolute value produced would 15 (1-16=-15, the absolute value of which is 15). To try to see whether teams that tended to play in high scoring games tended to win more or less than teams that tended to play in low scoring games, I then calculated an average absolute value and looked to see whether it was closer to the average absolute value that would occur if rank in games over five hundred were perfectly and positively correllated with rank in runs involved in the team's games or closer instead to the average absolute value that would occur if rank in games over five hundred were perfectly and negatively correlated with runs involved in the team's games. If teams that tended to play in high scoring games always finished better than teams that tended to play in low scoring games, you would get an average absolute value of zero (team ranked 1 in the standings would be ranked 1 in total runs scored by and against, producing an absolute value of zero, team ranked 2 in the standings would be ranked 2 in total runs scored by and against, etc...). On the other hand if every team that tended to play in low scoring games wound up better in the standings than every team that that tended to play in high scoring games, I think the average absolute value would 8.
It turns out the average absolute value was 4.875, which, if this exercise had any validity, and weren't screwed up six hundred ways to Sunday, would suggest a small and almost certainly statistically insignificant tendency for low scoring teams to do better in the standings. Note however that the sample includes both AL and NL teams, including the Tigers and Cleveland, who have the best two records in the group and play in the highest scoring games of any teams in the group, which you would think would bias the stats in favor of hitting. The AL is just a better league this and, sigh, every year, so you would think that the interleague play would depress the NL teams rankings, thereby tending to show, perhaps speciously, that teams playing high scoring games do better. So the fact that the pitching still appeared to exert the stronger influence says something. I mean, says something?

Pitching it is then!

The careful observer will also note that this data clearly shows that the Astros deserve the unrelenting loyalty of every human being that has ever or will ever exist since the dawn of time.

you give the Reds too much credit. they're a good home run hitting team, not a good hitting team. worst batting average with runners in scoring position in the NL

Cardinals consistently sell out, could afford better players. They can't always rely on just Pujols.

Anyone else find it funny that when giving out grades they fail to not the expectations of the team they are grading? I mean for example if you expected a team to be 4th in it's division and they actual are 4th in their division, wouldn't that indicate something like a C, you know meeting expectation?
I am all for praising the team that was expected to be doing poorly and they are doing well, but come on. Remember the Marlins last year, everyone thought they would be dogs, but they had some bite. To me that is an A.
Now take the Astros who everyone said would finish 4th behind the Brewers, Cubs and Cardinals; Look they are 4th... to me that is meeting expectation, so a D is rather harsh... Did anyone expect Woody Williams and Jason Jennings to replace Clemens and Pettitte? Did they expect Carlos Lee to make them so much better offensively to counter balance the change in pitchers? I find all this grading laughable when you have teams doing what you said they would prior to the season starting. I thought you were "experts"!

Dude ... the Astros could be playing GOOD baseball and be in fourth place ... the fact is that they are playing (mostly) pathetic baseball and hence, that is the grade they received.

anonymous gm says no one wants to see cubs in post-season. i don't know about that. if i were an opposing team, they would be exactly who i wanted to see in the post season. everyone knows they'll find some ridiculous and unprecedented way to lose. god bless 'em. baseball wouldn't be the same without them.

You're an IDIOT! You give the CUBS the same grade as the METS. The CUBS spent more money than GOD this winter and are only playing .500 ball. Meanwhile the METS are 1 game off their pace of last years 97 win season which was tied for best in the bigs in 2006. You give the BREWERS an "A" why? Because they're finally playing up to their ability? Big Deal! Wait until the PLAYOFFS until you start handing out RINGS. I LOVE how you media freaks love to prematurely crown PAPER CHAMPIONS! And YES, I enjoy CAPITALIZING WORDS for EMPHASIS!

hey anonymous @ 5:40, he put "one of the best stories of the first half" so what are u talking about? and robafry, what do u expect from pujols? .300 ba, 30hr, and 100 rbi's tags any player as an mvp candidate. what more do u want, 20 wins and a 2.50 era?

i want on pace to finish with .283 ba 60 hr and 142 rbi's thats my mvp candidate