MLB Power Rankings: Every contender in baseball has flaws, which means it's still wide open at the top (2024)

We're now past Labor Day here in the 2024 season and obviously we know some things. A good number of teams are definitely contenders and a good number definitely are not. There's the mediocre tier as well. Within the playoff contenders, though there are (very lightly-drawn) lines within the tier, deciding on the best team weekly this season has been the toughest time I've had this late in the season in the 13 seasons I've been doing Power Rankings.

Let's run through the contenders very quickly to show that while there are certainly strong teams, they are all covered in warts. If we were comparing teams this season to the best teams in the regular seasons from the recent past, we'd have zero elite teams. None are going to win 100 games.

It's going to sound like I'm only focusing on the negative, but these teams' records establish them as the good teams and I'm illustrating the aforementioned warts and/or sub-par recent play.

Orioles - The O's haven't won a series over a team currently above .500 since July 4, and that was against the Mariners. Before that it was June 20. The rotation is an issue as Grayson Rodríguez is hurt, Trevor Rogers got sent to the minors and Corbin Burnes had a 7.36 ERA in August.

Yankees - On June 14, the Yankees were 50-22. Since then? They are 30-36. They lost series to the Nationals and Cardinals last week. It's just not a reliable team at all.

Guardians - Speaking of which, the Guardians started 51-26. They are 28-33 since. They very recently completed an 8-16 stretch.

Astros - The Astros have done a lot of winning for a while, but starting the season 12-24 put them in a tough position and they've had a few fairly recent hiccups, such as losing six of eight from Aug. 20-27. Especially with Kyle Tucker still injured, the back half of the lineup is far from impressive.

Phillies - From July 12 through Aug. 22, the Phillies went 13-22. That's a 35-game stretch where they played like a 102-loss team.

Brewers - They are, like the Astros, doing an awful lot of winning right now. Like the Astros, the Brewers are not impervious to rough stretches. They had a losing record in July, during which they lost Christian Yelich for the season.

Dodgers - The rotation continues to be basically a trainer's room, if not a surgical recovery ward. Even the healthy ones aren't collectively reliable at all. They are just going to continue to patch it together and hope they out-slug people.

Padres and Diamondbacks - These have been the two best teams in baseball since the All-Star break, but both were mediocre before the break and that was a much larger sample of baseball.

Royals and Twins - The Royals tied the Guardians and then lost six in a row (and counting). The Twins have lost nine of 14, continue to be an injury-prone bunch and aren't very inspiring.

Braves and Mets (and Cubs?) - The Braves have had the season from hell in terms of injuries along with some under-performance. Until sweeping the pathetic White Sox over the weekend, the Mets had been mediocre (15-16) for a month-plus. The Cubs have moved into contention, but remember, they were under .500 until winning eight of nine against the Marlins, Pirates and Nationals. They aren't just all of a sudden reliably great.

Red Sox? Tigers? Mariners? Even in this down year overall, if you can't shake .500 by more than a few games on the AL side, you aren't a true contender.

Now, I know seeing so many teams bunched so closely together with no teams headed for 100 wins makes it seem like we're destined for a crazy playoff season that might yield an underdog vs. underdog World Series matchup. It might. Look no further than 2014. Hell, last season was pretty high on the "let's get nuts" scale. But the last time no team in MLB reached a .600 winning percentage in a season was 2013. The Cardinals and Red Sox tied for the best record in baseball at 97-65 (.599). They both ended up in the Fall Classic.

I definitely think we're going to have a fun playoff season and plenty of back-and-forth and unpredictability, but that doesn't mean we can take a No. 1 seed vs. No. 1 seed matchup in the Fall Classic off the table.

We just have no idea which two teams those will be right now.