Latest MLB Power Rankings: Yankees reclaim TOP SPOT | CBS Sports

There's a new number one atop CBS Sports Power rankings, and it's a return to the top for the New York Yankees. Matt Snyder reluctantly slotted Cleveland at number one last week for the first time all season, and a week is all it lasted. Jeremy. Yeah Yeesh! Guardians are the biggest fallers, down six spots. No team making real waves. Houston though one of two teams to move up three spots. Astros checking in at 11. I'm Tommy Tran, joined by our power rankings guru Matt Snyder. And as always, every week our MLB insider Jim Bowden, with his thoughts, agreements, disagreements and any team news to deliver. Matt, we've been talking about this recently. The top five is kind of interchangeable, and for you to put a team number one has kind of been like, hey, let me put this here for this X. And y reason. Here, take me through the Yankees at number one this week. Yeah. Well, I mean it's look the Guardians lost seven straight, so they're off the table, right away. The Phillies have been inconsistent for about a month now. Now they did. They won two of three in Dodger Stadium then won their next game in Arizona. It looked like they were going to blaze a path back to the top. But then they lost three in a row. In Arizona, the Phillies are five or the Orioles are five and five. This month. They've been inconsistent for quite a while. The Dodgers still have major pitching staff concerns. The Yankees are tied for the best record and they have the best run differential, and they have one, Soto and Aaron Judge. So, hey, why not? One thing I think that is interesting to point out is we have gotten spoiled with a ton of 100 win teams in the last decade or so. The last time there were no teams that reached 100 wins other than 2020, when it was only 6060 game season was 2014. We're probably not going to have a 100 win team this season. We've seen 111, 108, 107, 104. I think maybe part of me struggling to find a number one is I'm still locked in that mode where we're seeing teams win 105 to 110 games, and that's just not going to be the case this year. Well, I agree with the Yankees at number one. I think Matt's got him in the right spot. Let's talk about why I think they belong there. Number one, you look at Garrett Cole's last start. Ten strikeouts, two walks out of 90 pitches. It was very impressive. It looks like the Gerrit Cole of old. We'll see if he can continue it. But combine that with the Orioles losing Grayson Rodriguez to the injured list, that's their second best starter. He's going to be out till at least mid September. To me, that's a difference maker between the Yankees and the Orioles. Now I talked to Brian Cashman, the general manager of the Yankees, yesterday. I asked him about his trade deadline deals and he said, look, Jazz Chisholm is just what this lineup needed. We needed more speed, power. We need to lengthen the lineup. We needed more youth, jazz checked all those boxes. Then I complimented him on the trade for Mark Leiter to improve the bullpen, and he quickly came back with, Hey Jim, remember over the next ten days to two weeks, I'm going to get Clark Schmidt, Lou Trevino, and Cody Pettite all back off the injured list. So this pitch is going to get better. And oh, by the way, Jose Trevino will come off the IL to catch against Left-Handed pitching. The other thing he mentioned is one of the difference makers for the Yankees over the last couple of weeks has been the rookie catcher, Austin Wells, who is now their cleanup hitter. And he's putting up A2A 2.4 War, a 112 Ops+, and suddenly he's in the rookie of the year conversation. That's how impressive he has been. And as Matt alluded to about Aaron Judge, one home run away from 300. Now Juan Soto, his 30th last night. And yes, the New York Yankees lead Major League Baseball and runs. And they're third in ERA. Matt's got him in the right spot. Tommy. Gentlemen like Feivel. Let's go west. Talk about the Arizona Diamondbacks. The San Diego Padres. You know, Matt, this time last week, both the snakes and the Friars were eight and two in their last ten. If you check the standings, guess who's eight and two in their last ten? The snakes and the friars. And they're kind of creeping up in that top six category. Three and a half games back of the Dodgers who come in at number four. Yeah the Diamondbacks are 27 and ten since June 28th. So it's not just in the second half of the season. They're getting their pitchers back. Merrill Kelly, Eduardo Rodriguez, Jordan Montgomery still shaky, but maybe he'll get it going down the stretch. It's very, very encouraging. What's going on with Arizona? I mean Christian Walker is hurt right now and they're still humming along. Maybe Corbin Carroll is starting to put things together with a couple home runs in the last couple games. So it's the both the Diamondbacks and the Padres have been amazing. I mean, the Padres 16 and four since the break with series wins over the Guardians, Orioles, Dodgers Fernando Tatis junior surely is going to come back at some point. Joe Musgrove is not far away, but Jurickson Profar has been amazing for the Padres. Ketel Marte has been amazing for the Diamondbacks. They both deserve to walk in MVP consideration. Both of these teams are just on fire, and maybe we will see a three team race when for most of the season it looked like we weren't going to see a race here. Yeah, over the last 30 days, the Diamondbacks actually lead baseball in both home runs and Ops. Pretty impressive right? But the big story with the Diamondbacks is two of their starting pitchers are back off the injured list. This past week, Eduardo Rodriguez came off the I.L. He went five and two thirds innings. Only gave up three runs. Was very impressive. Merrill Kelly came off the I.L. Yesterday. He went five innings of two run ball. They now have six legitimate starters. I talked to Torey Lovullo, the manager of the Diamondbacks, over the weekend, and I asked him, are you going to go to a six man rotation for a couple of times to see what you're going to do? Are you going to put someone in the bullpen? He said, look, we've talked about all those scenarios, Jim, but he goes, I'm really against the six man rotation. I want to keep everybody on four days rest. I want the five man rotation. So I am going to put someone in the bullpen. He would tell me which one. If you have to put the guy that deserves to go to the bullpen, it would be Jordan Montgomery. But my gut feel reading between the lines is they'll probably take Ryan Nelson and put him in the pen, but he doesn't deserve to go there. And in terms of San Diego, how about Dylan Cease? He's been the best pitcher in baseball over the last six starts. In the era of 0.80. And how about Xander Bogaerts quietly over the last 21 games seeing 3.72? And how about Manny Machado and Jackson, Maryland? Jurickson Profar all of them. 5 or 6 home runs apiece over that same time period. But I think the real story has been the rookie Merrill, because right now, of all the position players in the NL East clearly been the best rookie 17 homers, 13 steals, a 124 Ops. And oh, by the way, their ERA, top two in the National League over the last 30 days. So Padres Diamondbacks are for real. Look, I said in March on this show, I said that we would see Dodgers, Diamondbacks, Padres all in the playoffs. I still stand by that here in August. Quality in that division. If we go back to the Al East, gentlemen, the Red Sox, in a bit of a slide heading into our weekly power rankings chart, I pulled the mini Jim Bowden. I texted Will Middlebrooks, our resident Red Sox. He said offense has carried them in the second half, but pitching has let them down. No rotational depth in the minors. Matt, what do you want to add to that in terms of your assessment of Boston? Yeah, I mean, it's just I think they were playing over their heads for a lot of the first half, especially in the rotation. And now that that's fallen apart, it's kind of predictable. Eight and 13 since the all star break, tough upcoming schedule two they have the Rangers first, which that's not as tough right now, but then Orioles, Astros, Diamondbacks, in their next three series after that. So a tough, tough sledding for the Red Sox right now. And they certainly got a hit yesterday when James Paxton left after five pitches with a calf injury. So you can add to will Middlebrooks pitching woes offensively some good stories though right I mean Jarren Duran believe it or not is seventh in Major League Baseball in FanGraphs War with 14 homers, 29 steals. And I talked to Craig Breslow, the GM of the Red Sox, yesterday. He talked about how much he improved defensively with his first step, witness his jumps, his angles. He said, don't forget about Rafael Dever, who's having he thinks the best year of his career getting on base at a 38% clip with 25 home runs. And oh, by the way, he said, believe this or not, they think Trevor's story will be activated from the IL in September. They were not planning on him returning until 2025. They now believe he's going to have a uniform be back on the field at Fenway Park sometime there in September. And by the way, manager Alex Cora continues to be frustrated with Triston Casas, who he thinks he's healthy enough to go out and play Tristan says he's not. Alex said we'll have to wait until he says he is and let's get to the final third of the power rankings. Matt Schneider, Pittsburgh on a seven game slide at the moment. Yeah, look, they had an opportunity facing the Diamondbacks and the Padres and back to back series and said they completely fell apart. Probably going to fall out of the race. Did Jared Jones injury definitely hurt them. But the offense just isn't clicking at all for them. They've had issues holding leads late in the games as well with the bullpen. I do think the future is bright here. I do wonder if they continue to fall. If Paul Skenes gets shut down a little bit early with the way they treated him early in the season, we'll see. But that seems like a realistic possibility at this point. With them falling well, and besides the hitting being trashed, the pitching has been horrible. And when you don't pitch, you can't win. Paul Skenes, now winless, winless in his last three appearances, both Mitch Keller and Luis Ortiz over their last two starts at eras closer to eight than seven. And oh, by the way, if it gets close late in the game, they blow it because their closer David Bednar, in his last five appearances zero and two with an 11.81 ERA and he has blown half of the four save opportunities the Pirates have given him. If you do not pitch, you will not win and you will drop to last place. And that's what's happened in the Berg and those Primanti brothers sandwich the Pittsburghs are known for are not tasting good anymore, no doubt for a good chunk of the season we're talking about, man, if they could just reinforce that lineup now that pitching is also as Jim alluded to and as Matt talked about, not going as scripted. All right, Matt, Jim, certainly appreciate it. You take a look at that list right there. Imanaga could be a ten game winner like lively at the end of the night. Kershaw did bounce