@BtB: Power Rankings Updated

I've updated my Power Rankings at BtB. This week includes some specific discussion of the Reds' plight. ... It's sort of depressing, unfortunately:

It's been a fun season (for once) to be a Reds fan, as the Reds have gone through an amazing transformation this year into a pitching and fielding team, and it's paying off: 3 games back from the league-leading Brewers, and with help on the way in Joey Votto and Edwin Encarnacion, both of whom appear on the mend. It's been a rough week (the Royals reversed their slide in last week's rankings by sweeping the Reds--and they didn't even need Grienke to do it), but they're still in a great spot at this point in the season and are very much in the hunt.

Unfortunately, the Reds are similar to the Giants in that the power ranking thinks they've been lucky on both offense and defense. The Reds' offense started reasonably well, but this month has spiraled towards atrocious. And unfortunately, our estimates (or rather FanGraphs' estimates, as we're just using their wRC to estimate offense) think they've been lucky by about 13 runs on the season. Similar, our estimated runs allowed is 22 worse than the actual totals, despite the Reds' league-leading fielding and above-average pitching. As a fan, I'm rooting for them. But the power rankings indicate that they've been pretty lucky.