NL West Power Rankings After One Month of Baseball

Sep 28, 2016; San Francisco, CA, USA; Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado (28) and right fielder Hunter Pence (8) and shortstop Daniel Descalso (3) and center fielder Charlie Blackmon (19) and right fielder Carlos Gonzalez (5) celebrate after the end of the game against the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park the Colorado Rockies defeated the San Francisco Giants 2 to 0. Mandatory Credit: Neville E. Guard-USA TODAY Sports
Sep 28, 2016; San Francisco, CA, USA; Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado (28) and right fielder Hunter Pence (8) and shortstop Daniel Descalso (3) and center fielder Charlie Blackmon (19) and right fielder Carlos Gonzalez (5) celebrate after the end of the game against the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park the Colorado Rockies defeated the San Francisco Giants 2 to 0. Mandatory Credit: Neville E. Guard-USA TODAY Sports /
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San Francisco Giants NL West
Sep 28, 2016; San Francisco, CA, USA; Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado (28) and right fielder Hunter Pence (8) and shortstop Daniel Descalso (3) and center fielder Charlie Blackmon (19) and right fielder Carlos Gonzalez (5) celebrate after the end of the game against the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park the Colorado Rockies defeated the San Francisco Giants 2 to 0. Mandatory Credit: Neville E. Guard-USA TODAY Sports /

The San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers are currently not in first or second, and one of them is last place. Safe to say the NL West is turned on its head.

However, the standings, probably don’t tell the whole story about the shape of the division, especially after just 16% of the season has taken place. The season has not started kindly for the San Francisco Giants, while the Rockies and Diamondbacks have raced out to a solid lead.

Even though the Giants are in last place, they’re still only four games out. And with 84% of the season still ahead of them, there is plenty of time to flip that on its head.

So now that we’ve seen roughly one month of baseball (Opening day was April 2nd, it’s May 2nd) it’s time to give a bit our first power-ranking of the division. Here is how we would’ve given the NL West Power-Rankings at the start of 2017:

  1. Los Angeles Dodgers
  2. San Francisco Giants
  3. Colorado Rockies
  4. Arizona Diamondbacks
  5. San Diego Padres

Given that this was how we think the division will end up anyways, it definitely hasn’t shaken out that way to start, so there might be a few surprises.

I would encourage you not to be shocked at where your team may or may not land. After all this is pretty much arbitrary, but an attempt to be realistic about what happened in the first month, and where the respective teams actual limit on performance might be at.

* NOTE: the little power ranking graphic says “Last Week.” It will not necessarily be last week, it will be their record at the time of the current ranking. Don’t blame me.