2019 MLB season: Looking at potential playoff sleepers

Which teams could surprise during the 2019 MLB season? Let’s take a look at a few sleeper playoff teams.

How do we define a sleeper? It comes from the idea of “sleeping on”  a team, but who is generally doing the sleeping? Is it the media? Is it the fans? Is it the other teams? None of this is particularly clear, but even if we can’t necessarily define a sleeper, it can be described through examples in the past. Coming into the 2018 season, the Oakland A’s were seen by media and fans alike as mediocre, at best. But the A’s rode some unexpected performances to 97 wins and a Wild Card berth.

While there is a place in the discussion for projection systems like Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA, they miss by a lot on a few teams every year, as there are aspects of baseball that are inherently unpredictable. There are many players every season who are projected to be no more than roster-filler that end up becoming above-average performers. Conversely, there are teams with players who massively underperform or get injured that finish with a far worse record than their projection.

This is what makes baseball fun to watch over the course of a season. If the projection systems were perfect, there would be no point to watch. Every season, there are individuals and teams that create storylines that nobody expects going into the season. Each year, there are hundreds of intersecting narratives that create a fascinating story over the season.

On that note, let’s take a look at the sleeper teams that could make a surprise run at the postseason in the 2019 MLB season.