| Rank |
Team
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Last ranking |
Comment |
| 1 |
|
5 |
Eric Hosmer’s hair-on-fire game-tying score in Game 5 perfectly summed up the world champs: Aggressive and never giving up. It also helped this team had the highest contact rate (81.9%) of any team in 2015, which was an antidote to the Mets’ power pitching.
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| 2 |
|
6 |
What a miracle season for the Mets, who made it just three wins away from a championship despite entering the season with very little expected of them. A core of young pitching will help keep them competitive for years to come, but Daniel Murphy is about to become a free agent (and we know he won't hit like that forever) and Yoenis Cespedes is not expected to re-sign, either.
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| 3 |
|
3 |
The American League’s most exciting team — seriously, that Jose Bautista bat flip was awesome — deserves plenty of credit for reaching the playoffs for the first time since 1993. But the drama with departed GM Alex Anthopolous is ridiculous, and leaves this franchise in limbo entering the offseason.
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| 4 |
|
4 |
Cubs-Mets NLCS next year is an extremely popular prediction, but it's so much fun to think about a rematch, especially with another year under the belt for Cubs' young hitters and Mets' young pitchers.
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| 5 |
|
1 |
They might've won 100 games, but they limped into the playoffs and were upstaged by the Cubs and Mets in the NL side of the postseason bracket. Of course, they'll be right back in the thick of things next season because they're the Cardinals.
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| 6 |
|
2 |
A great team had just one game to try to beat the best pitcher in the universe and crack the playoff bracket, but they will get another shot to contend in 2016.
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| 7 |
|
11 |
The franchise thought to still be in rebuilding mode surprised everyone by making aggressive deadline moves, reaching the playoffs and pushing the Royals to the brink of elimination in the ALDS. Fix the bullpen and this is a team that’ll contend for years in the AL West.
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| 8 |
|
8 |
They may lose Zack Greinke, but the core pieces are still there and they have plenty of $$ to toss at the top free agents like David Price.
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| 9 |
|
9 |
Won a thoroughly mediocre division thanks to an August/September surge. Cole Hamels wasn’t a one-year rental, either; he’s under team control through 2019.
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| 10 |
|
7 |
Credit the late-career renaissances of Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Beltran for pushing the Yankees into the AL Wild Card game.
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| 11 |
|
11 |
They win World Series every two years, so you can already pencil them in as 2016's champion.
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| 12 |
|
10 |
Totaled 18.3 WAR from its position players (18th in MLB) despite having Mike Trout (9 WAR, 2nd in MLB).
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| 13 |
|
14 |
A team with the best player in the NL (Bryce Harper) and some of the best pitchers in the game (Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer) shouldn't be too far from contention, no matter how disappointing the end of the 2015 season was.
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| 14 |
|
13 |
Valiant effort to finish over .500 and make a legitimate push for a wild card spot. Continuing this success into 2016 won’t be an easy task, though.
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| 15 |
|
15 |
Biggest win of the season was probably trading away Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn.
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| 16 |
|
17 |
They were right there in the AL Wild Card race the morning of Aug. 20, then lost 15 of their next 18 games.
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| 17 |
|
19 |
Somewhat concerning is Evan Longoria’s regression during his prime: Has a pedestrian .744 OPS since the start of 2014 with 43 home runs; had an .870 OPS with an average of 27 home runs per season from 2008-2013.
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| 18 |
|
18 |
Young core of position players will make this team a popular "sleeper" pick as a contender in 2016. They just need to add some pitching.
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| 19 |
|
16 |
Big-money offseason acquisitions Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez combined for -2.8 WAR, while Wade Miley and Rick Porcello failed to stabilize a bad starting rotation.
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| 20 |
|
21 |
Entered the year as our No. 1 American League team. Adding Nelson Cruz to the middle of the lineup, despite how well he hit the ball, turned out to not help much.
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| 21 |
|
22 |
The slow starts of Adam Eaton and Melky Cabrera, and the August implosion of Jeff Samardzija, crippled any hope the White Sox had of making the playoffs via a mediocre wild card race.
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| 22 |
|
20 |
They won the offseason before 2015 and wound up with a wildly disappointing campaign. Expect them to be a lot more under the radar this winter and bounce back with a solid 2016. Because baseball works that way. |
| 23 |
|
23 |
Did well to get Daniel Norris from Toronto in the David Price deal, but is there enough talent here to make one more playoff run?
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| 24 |
|
24 |
If they get a full year of Giancarlo Stanton and Jose Fernandez, anything can happen. Oh yeah, and they don't have their GM running the show from the dugout, either, so that's gotta help.
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| 25 |
|
26 |
Trading away Josh Donaldson looks like one of the biggest busts of the Billy Beane era.
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| 26 |
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27 |
After everything went right for the Brewers for the first four months or so of 2014, they've come crashing back to Earth the last 14-15 months. Milwaukee's luck will likely even out a bit in 2016, but they still only have a handful of core pieces still around.
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| 27 |
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25 |
Full-on rebuild mode for the Rockies, who traded away Troy Tulowitzki in the middle of the season and will probably shop Carlos Gonzalez this winter, too.
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| 28 |
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29 |
Made a couple nice strides in their complete overhaul, but they're still a few years away from contending.
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| 29 |
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28 |
Votto had a bounceback campaign, but the rest of the core had disappointing seasons or have been shipped out, so 2016 looks bleak.
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| 30 |
|
30 |
Hey, at least it seems like they actually understand that in order to turn things around, they need to tear it all down. Wouldn't shock anybody if they were the worst team in baseball again next season.
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