Baseball Rankings Now: May 15, 2008

Evidence of media bias:
- AOL Sports rates the Yankees #2 in baseball and the Angels get sixth
- CBS puts the Angels at third place in the bigs
- FOX ranks the Los Angeles Angels fourth and the Dodgers seventh

Now let's look at the stats, free of regional bias: we rate the Yanks #16 because of mediocre play, the Angels are no better than #18 because of a laughable 7th-easiest schedule, and the Dodgers reach #11 overall but suffer from the worst performance over the last 10 games in baseball. Apparently it's all too easy to look at coastal New York and Los Angeles and write things like "Once [the Yankees] get their starting pitching together, they'll be there" (AOL).

Division Rankings
1 - NL-C
2 - NL-E
3 - AL-E
4 - AL-C
5 - AL-W
6 - NL-W

AL Power Ratings
1 - TAM
2 - BOS
3 - OAK
4 - CLE
5 - CHW
6 - NYY
7 - BAL
8 - LAA
9 - TOR
10 - MIN
11 - TEX
12 - KAN
13 - DET
14 - SEA

NL Power Ratings
1 - CHC
2 - ARI
3 - HOU
4 - ATL
5 - FLA
6 - NYM
7 - LAD
8 - MIL
9 - STL
10 - PHI
11 - PIT
12 - CIN
13 - WAS
14 - COL
15 - SDG
16 - SFO

Playoff Prediction
American League Divisional Series
No. 1 seed OAK over no. 4 seed BOS in 4 games.
No. 2 seed CLE over no. 3 seed TAM in 5 games.

National League Divisional Series
No. 1 seed CHC over no. 3 seed ATL in 4 games.
No. 2 seed ARI over no. 4 seed HOU in 4 games.

American League Championship Series
No. 1 seed OAK over no. 2 seed CLE in 6 games.

National League Championship Series
No. 1 seed CHC over no. 2 seed ARI in 4 games.

*** World Series ***
*** No. 1 seed CHC over no. 1 seed OAK in 5 games. ***