Major League Baseball

The best team in baseball

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 12:55 p.m. ET

foxsports

Which is the best team in baseball right now? There are a handful of ways one could attempt to answer this question.

The Angels currently have the best record at 94-57, so they're a natural pick, and maybe the best selection as they also lead the majors in expected record by BaseRuns and are second in run differential, both measures that attempt to strip some luck out of a team's results. But on the other hand, the Angels were excellent for most of the season in part due to the excellent pitching of Garrett Richards, who is now injured and won't pitch again this season.

Rob Neyer did a nice job of showing that one player does not make or break a team, but good players do matter to some degree, and the Angels are a worse team without Richards than they were with him. His loss doesn't cut out their legs, but it does make them less likely to keep winning at this same pace going forward. And this question of baseball supremacy asks us to care more about the future than the past.

So maybe this isn't such an open-and-shut case. Let's evaluate a few of the top contenders, and look at their claim to the Best Team in Baseball title.

The Angels

They might not have Richards for the rest of the season, but they still have the best player in baseball leading a high-powered offense. And they've spent most of the season bludgeoning their opponents into submission. They've played exceptionally well since Richards got hurt, in part due to the success of unheralded pitchers like Matt Shoemaker, who have given this rotation depth that it just didn't have last year.

But then again, Shoemaker is unheralded for a reason. He began the year in Triple-A, where he posted a 6.31 ERA over 25 2/3 innings. His career Triple-A ERA, in over 400 innings pitched at the level, is 5.38. Pitchers can get better overnight, but we also have plenty of reasons to be skeptical that he's one of the better pitchers in the American League. And if he goes back to being something closer to the 2008-2013 version of Matt Shoemaker, then this rotation suddenly starts looking a little thin again.

Can the best team in baseball really have a rotation featuring Jered Weaver, C.J. Wilson and the hope that a minor-league veteran keeps up his imitation of an All-Star? Maybe. This offense is that good, and the bullpen can help make up for some rotational weakness, but while the Angels have been a juggernaut in 2014, there are legitimate reasons for concern here.

The Orioles

The Orioles have the second-best record in baseball, so if it's not Trout and his boys, then maybe they're the next best pick. Except their resume has plenty of holes as well. They are second in the majors in wins, but just fourth in run differential and fifth in BaseRuns expected record, suggesting that their record isn't entirely indicative of their performance to date. And if we're going to point out that the Angels are relying heavily on Shoemaker, then we have to say the same thing about the Orioles and Steve Pearce.

Pearce has been a revelation for the O's -- he has the same wRC+ as Jose Bautista -- but we shouldn't ignore the fact that he hit .238/.318/.377 in 847 big-league plate appearances before this season began. Pearce has been spectacular for 361 plate appearances this season and there are plenty of reasons to think he can continue to be a solid hitter, but how much do we want to bet on a guy who was put on waivers a few months back to keep outhitting Miguel Cabrera?

The Orioles are a good team, but to believe that they're the best team in baseball, you'd have to believe that guys like Pearce are what they've been in 2014. And history should teach us not to ignore history when it goes against a long-standing track record.

The Nationals

So how about we shift leagues and look at the team with the best record in the NL? The Nationals don't have as many wins as the Orioles, but their run differential and BaseRuns record are both a little bit better. So we're finally looking at a team that might be better than its record indicates. And the Nationals don't have any players who are dramatically outperforming expectations; if anything, they've got a guy on the opposite end of the spectrum in Bryce Harper, and you could even make a case that Stephen Strasburg's 3.34 ERA is higher than we'd expect given his talent and peripherals.

They also don't have a significant injury problem, as they've played without Ryan Zimmerman for most of the year and his potential return could add extra depth at multiple positions. The Nationals are a team without a glaring flaw, which is kind of what you want in a Best Team in Baseball candidate. Their biggest question mark might be which quality starter is going to the bullpen in October, with the likely candidate being Tanner Roark, despite a career 2.56 ERA in the big leagues.

There are nits to pick in Washington, with Drew Storen perhaps not being the kind of lights-out closer a team would hope to have for the postseason run. But this is a very good team from top to bottom, and one without some of the red flags that we find on other top contenders. And perhaps that's why the FanGraphs Playoff Odds model gives the Nationals a 19.4% chance to win the World Series, the highest mark of any team in baseball right now.

That doesn't make the Nationals the only choice for the title, though I do lean in their direction. We're living in an age of parity in baseball, and there's very little separating the teams at the top of the heap. The Angels, Orioles, Tigers, Dodgers and even the A's could also make a case, and it's always foolish to rule out the Cardinals. We don't have the anything like the '27 Yankees right now, which should make this postseason a lot of fun.