After a brief hiatus (since we no longer blame anything on Claude Julien, let’s go ahead and assign the Kendrick Perkins trade as responsible for the three-plus weeks of Power Rankings inactivity) here we go with the return of the 2011 WEEI.com Major League Baseball Power Rankings. Every Thursday (or as close as we can get) throughout the season we will be bringing you an updated version of the list, which will be determined by record, ranking within each team’s division and which team would have the best chance at winning if participating in a best-of-seven series.

Feel free to pick apart the admittedly imperfect rankings by emailing kminihane@weei.com or sending a message via Twitter to twitter.com/kirkmin. Have at it.

(Note: Team record and last ranking are in parentheses and all stats are through 5/17.)

1. Indians (26-13, 6). Not exactly a tough choice, and I think we’ve past the point of questioning if this team is for real. They might not win 95 games, but with a five-game lead in a mediocre division is there anyone who really believes they won’t — at the very least — be in the AL Central mix all year?

2. Phillies (25-16, 3). Lost four straight to Atlanta and St. Louis despite only allowing a total of 13 runs. Marco Scutaro (.625) has a higher OPS than Raul Ibanez (.618) and Wilson Valdez has played 36 games at second base with a .298 slugging percentage (looks like Chase Utley will be back next week).

3. Braves (25-19, 13). A run differential of plus-44, second only to the Indians, the Braves are 17-8 since the last edition of the power rankings. The starting pitching has carried this team (the Braves are 11th in the NL in OBP, ninth in OPS) with a group ERA of 2.83.

4. Reds (25-17, 8). Joey Votto (leading the NL in walks, OBP, second in OPS and fifth in slugging) looks like a legitimate candidate in his quest to win back-to-back MVP’s. If he accomplishes the feat, he’ll be just the second Cincinnati player to do so, joining Joe Morgan (1975, 1976). Ironically, if Votto says something so something stupid on television that leads me to throwing my remote at the screen he’ll be just the second person to do so, joining Joe Morgan (1989-2010).

5. Marlins (24-16, 9). Of the 93 NL players currently eligible to qualify for the batting title, Hanley Ramirez ranks 89th in slugging percentage.

6. Cardinals (24-19, 16). As good as Votto has been, Lance Berkman is the quarter-pole leader in the NL MVP race. He leads the league in RBI, slugging (.688, 92 points higher than second-place Ryan Braun) and is hitting .352. In 37 games with the Yankees last year Berkman had a combined total of 18 runs and RBI. In his first 38 games with the Cardinals he has a combined total of 66 runs and RBI.

7. Rays (24-18, 15). The Rays are 24-12 since Manny Ramirez took his stash of female fertility drugs and crawled away from Major League Baseball as its most disgraced rat and only three-time loser. I have more faith in Michael Bay as a director than I do Kyle Farnsworth as a closer, but the guy has been lights freaking out this year (1.26 ERA, .907 WHIP in 18 appearances. Farnsworth, I mean.)

8. Giants (22-19, 5). Same formula as last year — 15th in NL in OBP, 12th in slugging and OPS, but third in ERA and second in WHIP.

9. Rockies (22-18, 1). Ubaldo Jimenz was 15-1 with a 2.20 ERA at the All-Star break last season. He’s 4-10 with a 4.64 ERA since.

10. Athletics (22-20, 11). Coco Crisp leads the A’s in slugging percentage with just 12 extra-base hits in 140 at-bats (his .429 slugging percentage is 43rd in the American League). But a team ERA of 2.68 has the A’s tied for first in the AL West.

11. Red Sox (21-20, 21). Almost impossible for Tim Wakefield and Alfredo Aceves to be worse than John Lackey and Daisuke Matsuzaka (6.69 ERA). Even if Wakefield is the Wakefield we’ve seen since the 2009 All-Star Game (5.34 ERA) it’s still an upgrade.

12. Tigers (22-19, 14). In case you were wondering, Bill Stoneman (54-85, ERA + of 90) had probably the worst career of the 22 pitchers who have thrown multiple no-hitters. Also this: If they remade Back to the Future today Marty McFly would go all the way back t0 … 1981.

13. Rangers (22-20, 2). Ian Kinsler had three homers in 10 at-bats in the season opening three-game sweep of the Red Sox. In the 146 at-bats since, he has two homers.

14. Angels (22-21, 7). John Lackey in 2011: 35 ER, 18 BB in 39.1 IP. Dan Haren and Jered Weaver combined: 30 ER, 22 BB in 129 IP.

15. Yankees (21-19, 4). What’s kind of lost in the Jorge Posada mini-series is that he’s been a more productive (would you accept less crappy?) hitter than Derek Jeter this season. OK, Jeter is batting .253 vs. .179 for Posada, but Posada has a 56-point edge in slugging and 34-point lead in OPS.

16. Blue Jays (21-20, 20). I want to believe, Jose Bautista. I really do. But we’ve all been burned too many times, right? We are smack in the middle of the “guilty until proven innocent” era, where 54-homer seasons only hurt when it comes to presenting your case as a guy on the up-and-up.

17. Brewers (20-22, 18). Great profile of Bob Uecker currently running on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. Along with Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, one of the two underrated comedic geniuses of the last 30 years (and here’s proof — sorry for the blurry screen, worst since the VHS copy of the Nicole Eggert skin-buffet Blown Away that I stole from Danny Martin’s locker in 1993).

18. Royals (20-21, 10). I think we can go ahead and declare that it’s not going to work out for Kyle Davies. He’s 1-6 with a 7.43 ERA (only Lackey has a worse ERA and WHIP among AL starters) this season and 43-62 with a 5.60 ERA for his career.

19. Nationals (20-21, 24). Jerry Hairston is 36 years old and has a .234/.299/.346 line. Not sure why he’s on a major-league roster at this point, much less playing every day for the Nationals (he’s played 36 games).

20. Dodgers (20-23, 12). Total attendance for the Dodgers-Pirates three-game set last week: 37,060. There is a myth Out There that the Dodgers are  a road draw comparable to the Sox or Yankees. Not true, of course. People move from Boston and New York to other places, people move to Los Angeles from other places and don’t go back. Don’t confuse tradition with the ability to pack a ballpark in Pittsburgh.

21. Orioles (19-21, 17). The good: Mark Reynolds has seen his K rate drop (at least 204 in each of the last three years, on pace for 168 this year). The bad: Everything else. His OPS is down 100 points from last year (and 239 points from 2009) and he’s averaging a HR every 30.6 at-bats (one every 16.3 at-bats in Arizona).

22. Pirates (18-23, 26). I probably write about this too much, but you really have to be a hell of a hitter to make up for awful K/BB numbers. Pedro Alvarez — who had 16 homers in 96 last year but stuck out 119 times against 37 walks — was a safe bet to crash back to reality this year and he has, hitting just a single homer in 119 at-bats (with just 10 walks and 41 strikeouts).

23. Cubs (17-23, 19). Kerry Wood had a 0.69 ERA for the Yankees in 24 games last season. Seemed a no-brainer to keep him — for short money, even — as the eighth-inning guy, but they went the Rafael Soriano route, paying him $12 million a year, or eight times as much as the Cubs paid Wood, who has an ERA of 2.25 in his 16 appearances.

24. Mets (19-22, 30). Jason Bay has eight home runs and 53 RBI in 116 games with the Mets. I’be given Theo a lot of hits this year, but he deserves credit for passing on Bay, who still has three years and $51 million left on his deal.

25. Padres (18-24, 22). The player who has hit cleanup the most times this season for the Padres is Chase Headley, who has one HR in 156 plate appearances this season (and 33 HR in 1,831 PA).

26. Diamondbacks (18-23, 25). Ian Kennedy is quietly making the jump in Arizona this year. He’s 4-1 with a 3.05 ERA and ranks in the NL top 10 in WHIP, hits per nine innings, innings pitched and HR allowed per nine. Easy to knock the Yankees for giving up on him, but the did get Curtis Granderson back in the three-team deal, and he has carried the Yankees the first two months of the season.

27. Mariners (17-24, 29). Why you should only care this much about win/loss records when comparing pitchers: John Lackey is 16-16 since the beginning of the 2010 season, Felix Hernandez 17-16. In that span, Lackey has an ERA of 4.95 and a WHIP of 1.47, Hernandez has an ERA of 2.48 and a WHIP of 1.07.

28.White Sox (18-25, 23). Omar Vizquel (44 years old) is third among active players and 46th all-time with 2,814 hits. In his 23 MLB seasons, he has finished in the top five in hits in exactly zero times and the top 10 once (eighth, 1999).

29. Astros (15-27, 27). Bill Hall is on pace for 205 strikeouts, 35 walks, nine HR and 57 RBI.

30. Twins (13-27, 28). RIP, Harmon Killebrew, who retired after the 1975 season with 573 career home runs, at the time good for fifth on the all-time list. Today he stands 11th, having been passed by guys like Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Alex Rodriguez. Always nice to be reminded of one of the indisputable truths of our time: The Steroid Era sucked.