Who are the five MLB teams that finished below .500 last year that have the best chance to make the postseason this year?
With a little more than a week left in the slowest-moving MLB offseason ever, baseball fans finally got a little something to chew on with the recent Todd Frazier signing by the Mets. Unfortunately, much of the offseason has been a barren wasteland. Perhaps there will be a flurry of free agent signings in the week ahead. After all, there are plenty of good players still available, a veritable all-star squad of players.
With so many good players still on the market, some teams that finished below .500 last year could even make significant improvements. Others don’t have a chance. The Miami Marlins would likely need to sign Jake Arrieta, Yu Darvish, J.D. Martinez and Mike Moustakas just to be a .500 team. That’s not going to happen. They aren’t spending that kind of cash in free agency after trading much of their talent this offseason. You can cross the Marlins off the list of playoff contenders.
Other teams that face a significant uphill battle this year include the Padres, Tigers, Royals and White Sox. At least the Padres and White Sox have highly regarded farm systems. Baseball America has the Padres ranked third, and White Sox ranked fourth among the 30 MLB team. The Tigers rank 21st, and the Royals are 29th, only beating out the last place Mariners on the Baseball America list.
There’s another group of teams on the next tier above the aforementioned four who would need some serious fortune to sniff a playoff spot. The Reds, Braves, Athletics, Orioles, Phillies, and Mets are in the longshots category, although the Mets could jump up to the next tier if things come together for them.
Then there are the five MLB teams who finished below .500 last year that have the best chance of being playoff contenders this year. They all have flaws that prevent them from being top contenders, but they could still make some noise in 2018. We’ll go from least likely to most likely, starting with a team that had the worst record in the NL last year but added a couple of veteran bats in the MLB offseason.