The 2019 regular season is in the books, but now it's time for the most important month of the year. We have 10 teams still standing. Let's get all kinds of meta and rank teams in the intro of power rankings before we actually rank the teams. The rankings before the rankings might be different. While the power rankings are how good a team is right now, the "who has the best chance to win the World Series?" rankings are sort of my educated guess. I had the Red Sox second last year and that proved to be close but wrong. Let's give it another go. 

And to be clear, before the city of Milwaukee marches southeast with torches and pitchforks, every team here obviously has a chance to win it all. 

Best chance to win the World Series rankings

10. Brewers: There are a few elements of play here in my thinking. One, they won 18 of 20 before losing two in Colorado and that has the feeling of emptying the tank. Next, it's hard for me to see them sustaining this kind of success against good teams -- their string came against mostly teams that were already eliminated -- without their best player in Christian Yelich. I also just don't see their pitching holding up. This run was amazing, but the story is most likely going to be this run getting them to the playoffs, not doing anything in the playoffs. 

9. Athletics: The AL is brutal, possessing three 100-win teams. If the A's somehow come out of that, they'll likely have the 106-win Dodgers or 98-win Braves to deal with. The one-game wild card is a toss up anyway, but getting through that and then having to win three series against better teams is just such a tough hill to climb. 

8. Rays: Basically, everything I said above applies here. I just like Charlie Morton slightly more than Sean Manaea in the Wild Card Game. 

7. Twins: The Twins are awesome and I love their power on offense. It'll keep them in most postseason games they play. I also do not trust their pitching staff to keep the Yankees from out-slugging them at all. 

6. Cardinals: The third-best team in an inferior league with one starter it can definitely trust, a mostly untrustworthy bullpen and an offense that ranks in double digits in the NL in runs, average, on-base percentage and slugging. They've been outstanding nearly the last two months, though, on the positive side. A run is possible. 

5. Nationals: This might be too high for a wild card, but if there's a team that could shock the Dodgers in the NLDS, this is one to consider. Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin would work Games 1 and 2 in Dodger Stadium before the Nats return home with Max Scherzer in Game 3. The offense is outstanding, too, though the bullpen remains a problem. 

4. Braves: Such a strong and deep offense here. They can beat you with power and/or speed. They have an ace in Mike Soroka, Mike Foltynewicz has been fixed and Dallas Keuchel is the playoff veteran on staff. The bullpen can be shaky, but there is so much to like here. 

3. Yankees: They haven't been full strength all year and still won over 100 games. They're as close to full strength right now as they've been all season. There is so much firepower here. The rotation is a question mark, but it's not as bad as many think now with Luis Severino back and James Paxton going well (assuming his glute issue is minor, as the Yankees say it is). The bullpen can shorten games anyway. 

2. Dodgers: The best team in the NL by far. Can the deep list of quality starting pitchers be used to help shore up the bullpen as we've seen the Astros and Red Sox do against the Dodgers in the last two World Series? 

1. Astros: Relentless offense, lock-down bullpen, three aces in the rotation, a manager who has proven he's excellent in the postseason ... I'm without good reasons to discount the Astros. Working against them is how many great teams there are this year, particularly in the AL, but the Astros are the best of the bunch and the best bet to win it all. 

Previous rankings: Week 26 | Week 25 | Week 24 | Week 23 | Week 22 | Week 21 | Week 20 | Week 19 | Week 18 | Week 17 | Week 16 | Week 15 | Week 14 | Week 13 | Week 12 | Week 11 | Week 10 | Week 9 | Week 8 | Week 7 | Week 6 | Week 5 | Week 4 | Week 3 | Week 2 | Week 1 | Preseason | Offseason       

Biggest Movers
6 Pirates
3 Phillies
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Chg
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1 Astros With Wade Miley's struggles, the biggest question the Astros have right now is a fourth starter. Is that really *that* big a deal at this point, though? -- 87-75
2 Dodgers "Spring training" is now over. Life ain't fair and the Dodgers are proof. If they don't win it all, they are branded failures. 1 93-69
3 Yankees Prediction: Giancarlo Stanton has a monster postseason. 1 94-68
4 Twins Mitch Garver had seven career homers in 387 plate appearances heading into this season. In 2019, he hit 31 in 359. 1 70-92
5 Athletics It's over. Khris Davis did not hit .247, ending a four-year run. 1 76-86
6 Rays Despite the low-ish ranking above (due to how good the AL is), they feel dangerous, don't they? 1 77-85
7 Braves Ronald Acuna better be OK to go for the playoffs. His injury is already unacceptable. 1 76-86
8 Nationals If the Nats do finally get past the NLDS, don't be the fool that claims Bryce Harper was the problem in years past. 3 66-96
9 Cardinals They needlessly made that race interesting, huh? 1 78-84
10 Brewers I really thought they were done when Christian Yelich went down. Kudos to them for this run. -- 97-65
11 Guardians Yeah, they won 90-plus games, but 30 of those wins came against the Tigers and Royals. 2 88-74
12 Mets The season didn't go as planned, but at least they have a stud in Pete Alonso. -- 83-79
13 Cubs Two months ago, mentioning Yu Darvish being able to opt out of his contract would've been laughable, but it appears there's a real decision to be made. In 13 starts since the All-Star break, he had a 2.76 ERA, 0.81 WHIP, 118 strikeouts and seven walks in 81 2/3 innings. 1 92-70
14 Red Sox Let the Mookie Betts trade speculation run wild. 1 89-73
15 Diamondbacks Only one year and $17 million left on that Yasmany Tomas deal! 1 80-82
16 Phillies While everyone was out there blaming his contract, Bryce Harper shattered his career high in RBI and posted his second-highest home run total. 3 96-66
17 Giants Bittersweet to see the Bruce Bochy era come to an end. -- 81-81
18 Rangers The Red Sox being mad about the Mike Minor 200 strikeouts thing was the dumbest "controversy" I can remember. 1 81-81
19 Reds Part of their path to contention next season includes Trevor Bauer figuring out what in the world happened to him. 1 83-79
20 Angels Justin Upton got downballot MVP votes in 2017. In 2019, he posted a negative WAR. -- 72-90
21 White Sox Their estimated payroll for next season is only $53.3 million. I suppose it would be too much to ask for the front office to actually spend in free agency to supplement their good, young talent and operate like a large market team for once? 1 60-102
22 Rockies Should they explore trading Jon Gray? He's under team control for two more years and had a pretty nice bounceback season from an ERA standpoint. There's a lot to like overall. 2 43-119
23 Pirates The Clint Hurdle era is over. The upper back area of the rest of the league's hitters collectively rejoice. 6 71-91
24 Padres Fernando Tatis Jr. comfortably led the team in WAR despite only playing in 84 games. Where you at, Manny? 3 90-72
25 Mariners Long live King Felix. 2 90-72
26 Blue Jays It's pretty exciting to think about full seasons of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Cavan Biggio, Bo Bichette and Lourdes Gurriel together next year. 1 94-68
27 Royals He's done it. Jorge Soler is the first Royals player to ever lead the league in home runs. 1 82-80
28 Marlins The Marlins have had some really bad teams. This is officially the second-worst in terms of win-loss record. 1 79-83
29 Orioles John Means will get some AL Rookie of the Year votes, so there's that. 1 75-87
30 Tigers Remember when they made the playoffs four years in a row? -- 87-75