MLB: Ranking the Teams That Will Regress in 2017

Instead of predicting which teams will improve like before, now we are taking a look at the teams that will take a hit in 2017. Whether it is loss of talent, or their peers getting better, these teams will regress the most in 2017.

Major League Baseball is a tricky, tricky thing to master. The game of baseball is a hard sport to master, and with the game ever so evolving it has become increasingly hard for teams to remain dominant. The longest reigning postseason streak in baseball right now belongs to the Los Angeles Dodgers with 4, a streak that seems small but stands high in the ranks of MLB history. Outside of two abnormalities, the 1995-2007 Yankees and 1991-2005 Braves, the longest postseason streak stands at five. Plus, those two abnormalities occurred mostly at the same time, which may be a statement of the state of the league at that time.

Regardless, only 15 times has a team managed to make it to the postseason four or more years in a row. The New York Yankees account for 6 of these occasions, leaving us with 9 of these occasions. All of this is a testament to how hard it is to remain great at the big league level, a thing that some franchises will fail to do in 2017.

Baseball has the best developmental system in all of American sports, hands down. Arguably, the only sport that may come close is soccer, and that is because massive clubs sign teenagers to compete in a youth academy. Regardless, this great developmental system that baseball has managed to create causes the league to evolve every single year. Players must get better or they will fall behind, much like teams. This is why we see teams go from zeros to heroes, and vise versa.

So, which teams will take the fall from grace in 2017? Using the difference in wins as our ranking metric, lets take a look.