MLB Power Rankings Week 22: Who's No. 1 ahead of final month? - ESPN

MLB teams are mostly split into three categories at this point in the season, as September approaches: those preparing for October, those trying to make a run at playoff contention and those whose focus has turned to next season.

The clubs that are pretty safely in playoff positions are still battling for postseason positioning, with first-round byes at stake and a number of battles in the wild card and division races.

The group of teams trying to play their way into a postseason berth is quite large for this late in the season, with the mediocrity in the American League making it so that as many as eight teams are still in the running for two playoff spots. That group is a bit smaller in the National League, with more teams belonging in the third category of looking ahead to 2027.

So where does your favorite club stand with the final month of the regular season around the corner?

Our expert panel has ranked every team based on a combination of what we've seen so far and what we already knew going into the 162-game marathon that is a full baseball season. We also asked ESPN MLB experts Bradford Doolittle, Jorge Castillo, Buster Olney and Alden Gonzalez to weigh in with an observation for all 30 teams.

Week 21 | Second-half preview | Preseason rankings

Record: 82-51
Previous ranking: 1

At age 30, Jake Bauers is having the best season of his career, leading the Brewers in home runs and RBIs. Bauers attributed his breakout to a shift in his mental approach to dealing with failure — a really hard change for a lot of players — and specifically recalled the turning point, which came after making an out in a game in Pittsburgh in 2025. Bauers has long been known as a player who can be hard on himself, but since that change, he