American League

1) Royals. The Royals had a comparatively poor game this week – but still ended up with a score that only four other teams have matched so far this season. As it stands right now, they do indeed have what it takes to simply win by brute force.

2) Cubs. The reigning champ is up to his usual tricks, with an average score far outpacing everybody else’s except the Royals. This team’s stock isn’t going down anytime soon.

3) Reds. The Reds manage to take the third spot despite being 0-3 to start the season. Why? Because they’ve had two strong scores in a league where consistent strength has been rare so far, and the three teams they’ve lost to are the three strongest teams in the early going. Now that they’ve escaped that personal hell, they should start piling up some wins.

4) Braves.Still fourth despite their rough third game? If you balk at this, remember two things: Only four active coaches have outscored the Braves in total runs right now, and even more importantly, Atlanta’s defense has been performing quite well so far. Amazing scores aren’t necessarily required to come out on top.

5) Rangers. This certainly isn’t a home field sort of team, but they could still have a solid season if they perform well on the road as they did in their first game.

6) Devil Rays.The bad news is that a completely new and untested coach is now at the helm of this team for the rest of the season. The good news is that he inherits a defense that might win him some games on its own. Don’t count DAWG out before we see what he’s capable of.

7) Angels. The Angels did get blown out in Week 3… but what’s a team to do against the Cubs? Ultimately this team’s scores so far are a concern, but they’ve been more consistent than several other teams, and I think it’s still too early to draw concrete conclusions about their chances during the rest of the season.

8) Rockies. MartianMan has finally claimed a win! I don’t think this will be his last one either. On the other hand, this team is hardly dominant, and I don’t think they’ll collect a lot of wins.

9) Pirates. Only seven runs against the Bombers isn’t the resurgence that Baltimore was looking for. This offense showed a lot of promise, but they need to kick it into gear right about now or it won’t be able to keep up with their rivals.

10) Orioles. The O’s did manage to claim their first win, but 2-2 is hardly an impressive contest. They’re in a deep rut at the moment.

11) Hornets. Yep, still in the same situation.

National League

1) Monsters. Last week was a comparatively poor showing for the Monsters, who logged their worst score so far as their AI was defeated for the first time. Still, they’re one run worse than the best-performing offense and the best-performing AI defense so far. They’re in good shape.

2) Diamondbacks. Things keep going well for the D’Backs. In fact, if you add up all three of their opponents’ run differentials so far, the sum is less than the D’Backs worst showing in the first three games. (The same is also true for the Monsters, but it’s much more impressive with the D’Backs supposedly more suspect defense). The caveat here is that the three teams the D’Backs have faced so far have all been struggling in their other games as well; next week will be a very important one for them as we find out how they fare against another one of the NL’s big dogs.

3) Giants. The Giants had their first loss on Match of the Week, in a much worse performance than their first two. Could this be a sign that they’re in trouble when not facing off against the league’s worse defenses? Possibly, or they could possibly bounce right back up next week. Promisingly, their defense has also held up well so far.

4) Cardinals. Another dominant showing for the Cards firmly establishes them as a strong road team; the question now is how well they’ll do at home. Is the combination of Casa’s slow speed and their slow runners enough to sink them in these games, or will the opposition struggle and the Cards hit well enough for them to win anyway? Next week should be a good indicator of whether their stock will continue to ride high, or will fall some due to their home field woes.

5) Yankees. The Yanks have been very inconsistent through the first three weeks of the season, and it’s anybody’s guess which version of them we’ll see for the majority of the coming games. But it’s still hard to bet against Crazy, they have a higher ceiling thus far than the teams below them, and successfully pulling it off in two of three games so far helps their stock as well.

6) Athletics. The A’s have performed consistently on offense, with okay but not great scores. Right now their fate seems to largely rest with their defense – and that gave an encouraging sign this week, as they largely shut down a strong team to give Arco his second win. If it can keep performing at a high level, they don’t need to score a ton of runs.

7) Marlins. This week was a bit more encouraging for the Marlins, as they upped their run output again and only narrowly lost to the offense-heavy Yankees. It’s enough to stay their course in these rankings for now, as a team that hasn’t done terribly but doesn’t have a lot to get excited about right now.

8) Melonheads. The bad news is that the Melonheads haven’t pulled it off yet and are 0-3 to start the season. The good news is that they’ve been consistently scoring, and all three games have been close losses where victory was within reach. They’ve also exclusively faced strong teams so far, so maybe their prospects will brighten once they get to an easier part of their schedule.

9) Twins. The pieces are there for some big Twins games, but so far they haven’t been able to put them together and have been operating in something of a funk. If they ever do put it all together, their stock here should go rocketing up, but as long as they don’t, they’ll be down in the doldrums.

10) Fishes. Some encouragement for the Fishes this week, as they had their best game yet by far for their first win. Thus far, though, I still don’t see a specific strength for them and am not optimistic that the success can continue.

11) Wombats. Game Three for the Wombats went about as the first two did. The upside for them: They get their first game away from Steele next week.

12) Brewers. The Brewers are struggling badly right now. Can they ever shake off the jitters to achieve the sort of performance we know they’re capable of?