Richard Castle - contributing reporter
Here we are with another Skynet update and final update of the year. Atlanta's is costing, and even though they lost the winner of the last two AL MVPs, their hitting hasn't stopped producing. Houston holds strong at #3 with Hartford finally making their ascension to the top, taking the #2 and top NL team with their power bats favored over the NOOFs. Nigel White is having an amazing season, just unfortunately that he can't start every game. OKC's rankings are standing firm though the team is jiving much better these days with the second best record since the previous mid-season rankings update.
Either people in Portland cannot read or they just don't care about the opinion of the blog; but with a lack of improving their bats, they've sunk from 2 games to 11 games behind OKC in the division race and are currently 10 games behind Buffalo for the Wildcard 2 slot.
On the other side of the rankings, Milwaukee holds the bottom tightly and in a dog fight for the top overall pick in next year's draft as there are 7 teams within 1 game of each other. Lots of tie breakers going into effect this year.
By record of the current playoff picture as of this writing:
- 88-30 Atlanta (AL-E) - 30-8 since last update
- 82-36 New Orleans (NL-S) - 26-12 since last update
- 78-40 Houston (AL-S) - 25-13 since last update
- 71-47 Hartford (NL-N) - 23-14 since last update
- 70-48 Pittsburgh (NL-E) - 20-17 since last update
- 69-49 Chicago (NL Wildcard 1) - 24-14 since last update
- 68-50 Oklahoma City (NL-W) - 26-11 since last update
- 68-50 New York (AL Wildcard 1) - 19-19 since last update
- 67-51 Monterrey (AL Wildcard 2) - 18-19 since last update
- 67-51 Buffalo (NL Wildcard 2) - 22-16 since last update
- 65-53 Philadelphia (AL-N) - 22-16 since last update
- 63-55 Boston - misses playoffs - trails Monterrey for Wildcard 2 by 4 games
- 61-57 Helena (AL-W) - 20-17 since last update
The NOOFs have taken a bit of a hit, but I'd still love to see the Swamp Series take place; Houston v New Orleans.
Good luck the rest of the way!
