A's? Angels? Who Knows?

The Athletics have been the West champions for quite a while now in Baseball Playoffs Now. Their run differential and quality wins have far outstripped the current division leader Angels. But Oakland might not last much longer.

The latest AL Power Rankings have Los Angeles trailing Oakland by only one place:

AL Power Ratings
1 - BOS
2 - TAM
3 - CHW
4 - OAK
5 - LAA

Of even more ominous import, check out their computer model ratings (on a scale from 0.0000 to 1.0000):

OAK: 0.6666
LAA: 0.6659

and final record prediction:

OAK: 90 - 72
LAA: 89 - 73

I'll leave all demonic 666 implications aside, but the bottom line is that Los Angeles is on the brink of eclipsing Oakland in the computer models. Because the models take into account infinite strength of schedule, Los Angeles has taken a while to build up enough good opponents to rival Oakland, and Oakland has choked just enough on their schedule to allow the Angels to catch up. Today's game could throw the entire division championship prediction to Los Angeles.

The same thing happened to Atlanta over the past couple of weeks. A great run differential was smashed by the later-blooming Phillies and a sputtering Braves offense. No prediction lasts forever.