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MLB 2021 surprise rankings: Giants, Mariners among the most unexpected winners
By Jordan Shusterman
FOX Sports MLB Writer
Everyone knows you can’t predict baseball, but that doesn’t mean we don’t try. We can’t help it!
Every spring training, fans look at how the 30 MLB rosters stack up and form a picture of how the season will play out. Surely, these things will happen! Just look at all the good players on that team! And check out all the less good players on the other team! We’ve got this all figured out!
And yet, we’re always wrong.
Every year, there are more than a handful of teams that remind us how little we understand about this beautiful game we call baseball. With the regular season entering its final weekend, I wanted to rank all 30 teams based on how surprising their 2021 seasons have been.
I went back and looked at the preseason projected win totals from FanGraphs, FiveThirtyEight and PECOTA, as well as the win total over/unders (included below) to help distinguish which teams most drastically overperformed or underperformed expectations in 2021. Then I considered some other factors, such as fan expectations and shocking individual performances, and moved some teams up and down accordingly.
I’ve put all 30 teams into tiers and ranked them based on the general premise of: If I told you in spring training that this team would have this record, how surprised would you be?
Here we go. (Records through the games Wednesday.)
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MAYBE YOU CAN PREDICT BASEBALL
30. Kansas City Royals (current record: 73-85; preseason O/U: 72.5)
No team fell more in line with its preseason projections than Kansas City. Obviously, none of us envisioned Salvador Perez breaking Johnny Bench’s catcher home run record, but on the whole, no surprises here.
OF COURSE THEY WON 100 GAMES — THEY'RE THE DODGERS!
29. Los Angeles Dodgers (current record: 102-56; preseason O/U: 103.5)
Wow, the defending World Series champions who added multiple All-Stars and future Hall of Famers during the season won a ton of games? This is my surprised face. Pencilling in the Dodgers for 100-plus wins is approaching death-and-taxes levels of certainty.
OHIO
28. Cleveland Guardians (current record: 77-81; preseason O/U: 80.5)
27. Cincinnati Reds (current record: 82-77; preseason O/U: 81.5)
There was some truly overwhelming .500 energy radiating from the Buckeye State in 2021, as Cleveland oh-so-slightly underperformed and Cincinnati oh-so-slightly overperformed.
THE BAD TEAMS THAT WERE BAD
26. Texas Rangers (current record: 58-100; preseason O/U: 67.5)
25. Pittsburgh Pirates (current record: 59-99; preseason O/U: 59.5)
24. Baltimore Orioles (current record: 51-107; preseason O/U: 63.5)
23. Miami Marlins (current record: 65-93; preseason O/U: 72.5)
Texas and Pittsburgh were basically exactly as bad as we all expected them to be, while Baltimore was somehow even worse. I consider Miami the most surprising in this bunch just because I thought its young core (particularly on the pitching side) would translate to more wins, especially in a division that ended up being far less competitive than anticipated. Alas, the step forward for Derek Jeter’s Fightin’ Fish will have to wait another year.
THE GOOD TEAMS THAT WERE GOOD
22. Chicago White Sox (current record: 91-68; preseason O/U: 90.5)
21. Houston Astros (current record: 92-66; preseason O/U: 87.5)
The only surprising part of the White Sox's season is that they didn’t clinch the AL Central by, like, Aug. 1, but they rolled to 90-plus wins and largely lived up to the preseason hype. We all knew Houston would be good, but I’m not sure how many people expected the Astros to be this dominant after some underwhelming showings from a few of their stars in 2020. But nope, they are fully operational and maybe the best team in the AL.
THE TEAM WITH THE GENERATIONAL TALENT(S) THAT STILL CAN'T REACH .500
20. Los Angeles Angels (current record: 75-83; preseason O/U: 82.5)
Had Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon not gotten hurt, the Angels probably would have at least gone over 82.5 wins, but the lack of depth sunk this team’s postseason hopes, regardless of how legendary Shohei Ohtani has been.
It’s hard to be surprised when some version of this season keeps happening, regardless of the raw talent on the Angels' roster. That’s six straight seasons under .500 and seven straight without a postseason appearance for the Halos.
CONNIE MACK WOULD BE VERY DISAPPOINTED
19. Oakland Athletics (current record: 85-74; preseason O/U: 86.5)
18. Philadelphia Phillies (current record: 81-77; preseason O/U: 81.5)
Postseason baseball seemed plausible for the Philadelphia A’s if they caught a few breaks from the teams ahead of them, but such luck was not in the cards. At least the Phillies had a winning season for the first time since 2011! Surely the level-headed, respectful fans of Philadelphia will consider that a smashing success.
GOOD TEAMS WITH UNEVEN SEASONS
17. Toronto Blue Jays (current record: 88-70; preseason O/U: 87.5)
A top-five run differential might not be good enough for the postseason this year, but this team really did deliver on the hype after an exceptionally active winter. The Jays were this year's Anti-Padres, if you will.
16. Atlanta Braves (current record: 85-72; preseason O/U: 92.5)
Winning the division despite losing Ronald Acuña Jr. sure is surprising, but much of the rest of the Braves' season went about as expected.
15. St. Louis Cardinals (current record: 88-70; preseason O/U: 87.5)
A 17-game September winning streak is outrageous and obviously surprising, though it really didn’t get the Cardinals any further than what most people expected them to be contending for in March: an NL wild-card berth.
14. New York Yankees (current record: 90-68; preseason O/U: 95.5)
Arguably no team had more peaks and valleys than this Yankees club, which made it quite a bumpy ride for fans and haters alike. Yet here they are, in solid postseason position once again. That they never came even remotely close to catching the Rays remains the biggest surprise of their year.
13. Boston Red Sox (current record: 89-69; preseason O/U: 80.5)
If there was ever a time and season to quietly have the fourth-worst record in baseball, the Red Sox sure pulled it off beautifully in 2020 (hi, Marcelo Mayer!). Last year’s ugly results in a 60-game season managed to cloud how good this team was capable of being in a full 162. Maybe we should have seen this one coming.
THE FIRE SALES
12. Chicago Cubs (current record: 68-90; preseason O/U: 79.5)
We all knew the Cubs were likely to trade Kris Bryant at some point this season, but I’m not sure how prepared we were for it to be a full-on Everything Must Go Sale in July. The Anthony Rizzo trade in particular ratcheted up the rebuild for the North Siders in dramatic fashion.
11. Washington Nationals (current record: 65-94; preseason O/U: 84.5)
The Nationals seemed to be candidates to act similarly if their season went south, and that’s exactly what happened. But the Max Scherzer/Trea Turner blockbuster was one of the most stunning deadline deals in recent memory, and it completely altered the trajectory of the Nationals franchise for the short and long term.
LET'S STOP DOUBTING THESE GUYS!
10. Milwaukee Brewers (current record: 95-63; preseason O/U: 82.5)
9. Tampa Bay Rays (current record: 98-60; preseason O/U: 85.5)
There are a lot of parallels between these two organizations, and they slot into the back half of my top 10 on the basis of their dominance within their respective divisions. Both front offices and coaching staffs have earned the benefit of the doubt that they’ll win more games than the pure talent on the roster suggests. However, that doesn’t necessarily make it any less astounding when they’re chillin’ at 95-plus wins yet again with a totally new cast of characters.
WOW, THEY REALLY WEREN'T ALL THAT BAD!
8. Colorado Rockies (current record: 73-85; preseason O/U: 63.5)
The Nolan Arenado trade left such a bad taste in the mouths of Rockies fans and neutral observers alike that Colorado seemed destined for a 100-loss season, but the Rockies have been stunningly competent this year, particularly in the second half.
7. Detroit Tigers (current record: 75-83; preseason O/U: 66.5)
The Tigers appeared to still be in the early stages of their rebuild but will likely finish third in the weak AL Central, thanks to breakout seasons from Jeimer Candelario, Akil Baddoo and an improved bullpen.
A few months ago, I thought both of these teams could be in the running for the No. 1 pick in the 2022 MLB Draft, so consider me capital-S surprised.
OH MY GOODNESS, HOW WERE THEY SO BAD?
6. Arizona Diamondbacks (current record: 50-108; preseason O/U: 72.5)
Every season, it feels like there is one below-average team that inexplicably plummets to the very bottom of the standings. We assumed Colorado would be the true doormat of the NL West, but it turned out to be Arizona this year, which has gone a combined 5-31 against the Dodgers and Giants.
The D-backs' only highlight of the season — Madison Bumgarner’s seven-inning no-no on April 25 in Atlanta — was followed up by the longest road losing streak in MLB history (24 games). Snake-bitten snakes? It sure seemed that way. Ouch.
YIKES!
5. New York Mets (current record: 75-83; preseason O/U: 89.5)
The Mets … sigh … had too many ridiculous things happen to them for it to even be worth listing them all, but suffice it to say things sure didn’t go as planned.
4. Minnesota Twins (current record: 71-87; preseason O/U: 88.5)
The Twins were supposed to be neck-and-neck with Chicago atop the AL Central, and they ended up at the very bottom.
3. San Diego Padres (current record: 78-80; preseason O/U: 95.5)
The Padres won the hearts of America in 2020 and had one of the splashiest (that’s a real term) hot stove seasons in recent memory, only to somehow finish around (or below!) .500 in embarrassing fashion.
These are three teams with sky-high expectations coming into the season, all flailing and failing in spectacular, unique fashion.
FUN DIFFERENTIAL > RUN DIFFERENTIAL
2. Seattle Mariners (current record: 89-70; preseason O/U: 71.5)
It remains to be seen whether this remarkable run by the Merchants of Chaos Ball will end the franchise’s 20-year postseason drought, but Seattle deserves to be way up on these power rankings regardless.
The rosiest-colored glasses could not possibly have foreseen this team making this much noise down the stretch, as the M's have continued to shrug off every possible metric suggesting that they might not actually be all that good and keep winning anyway.
THE BEST TEAM IN BASEBALL, SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY
1. San Francisco Giants (current record: 104-54; preseason O/U: 75.5)
The only correct answer. While we were wholly distracted and starstruck by the seemingly burgeoning Dodgers-Padres rivalry, the Giants went ahead and made us all feel very silly by posting the best record in baseball.
I’m sure Giants baseball boss Farhan Zaidi was more optimistic about this team than the general public, but I would love to know what the organization's internal projections forecasted for 2021. The Giants certainly surprised us — have they surprised themselves, too?
Either way, this is undoubtedly one of the most improbable Best Teams In Baseball ever, and I can’t wait to see how far they can ride this magic wave in October.
Jordan Shusterman is half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball analyst for FOX Sports. He lives in D.C. but is a huge Seattle Mariners fan and loves watching the KBO, which means he doesn't get a lot of sleep. You can follow him on Twitter @j_shusterman_.
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