From worst to playoff berth: MLB bottom-dwellers with best chance to reach postseason in 2019

The Cactus League and Grapefruit League seasons have begun and real live baseball has returned. Sure, these games are meaningless, but spring training games are fun in their own way. Before you know it, Opening Day will arrive, and the glorious monotony of the 162-game regular season will return. I can't wait.

Inevitably, the 2019 season will bring surprises. Surprises are what make baseball fun. The game would be boring if it were predictable. A team going from last place one year to the postseason the next usually qualifies as a surprise, though it doesn't qualify as uncommon. In each of the last four seasons a team has gone from last place in its division to the postseason.

Here's the list:

The 2013 Red Sox also went to the postseason (and won the World Series) after finishing in last place in 2012. The 2012 Baltimore Orioles and 2011 Diamondbacks also did the last place-to-postseason thing. It has happened at least every year but one (2014) since 2011. It happens more than you may think!

Last year's six last-place teams combined to go 368-603 (.379). That is a 101-loss pace. Remove the 115-loss Orioles and the five other last place teams still combined for a .397 winning percentage, or a 98-loss pace. In this age of the complete teardown and rebuild, baseball's bad teams tend to be very bad. Will one of 2018's very bad last place teams make the jump to the 2019 postseason? Let's examine.

No shot at the postseason ...Baltimore Orioles

2018 record: 47-115 (61 GB)
2019 SportsLine projection: 56-106 (5th place in AL East)

The good news: SportsLine projects to Orioles to improve by nine wins in 2019. The bad news: Baltimore is still projected to lose 106 games. Woof. The O's lost the sixth most games in baseball history last year and they did that despite having Manny Machado and his .315/.387/.575 batting line for 96 games. Could Baltimore be even worse this season? It's not impossible and that is pretty scary!

The single biggest upgrade the O's made this offseason was in the front office. They hired the bright Mike Elias away from the Astros to be their new general manager and he's started to bring the franchise out of the Stone Age. The Orioles were behind the times analytically and Elias is revamping the team's front office and various scouting departments. Those were the biggest changes made this winter, understandably.

Roster upgrades were minimal. The O's made a few nice waiver claims (Rio Ruiz, Josh Osich), added two interesting young players via the Rule 5 Draft (Richie Martin, Drew Jackson), and rolled the dice on some low-cost free agents (Alcides Escobar, Gregory Infante, Nate Karns, Carlos Perez). That's about it. It was a quiet offseason for the Orioles, who did keep relievers Mychal Givens and Richard Bleier. I thought both would be traded for prospects.

Simply put, the Orioles have one of the worst rosters in baseball -- I am looking forward to seeing Martin, Cedric Mullins, DJ Stewart, and Chance Sisco getting regular playing time -- and they did very little to get better over the winter. Add in a difficult AL East heavy schedule (57 combined games against the Red Sox, Yankees, and Rays), and the 2019 O's would be the most unlikely postseason team in history. It ain't happening.

Miami Marlins

2018 record: 63-98 (26.5 GB)
2019 SportsLine projection: 64-98 (5th place in NL East)

A year ago, the Marlins lost 98 games and they did that while having the best catcher in baseball on their roster. Now J.T. Realmuto is gone, and low-cost free agents like Neil Walker, Sergio Romo and Curtis Granderson won't be enough to compensate. I just can't get over the Marlins having Realmuto, Christian Yelich, Giancarlo Stanton and Marcell Ozuna all on their roster at the same time and in their primes, and deciding they were better off without them. What a world.

Derek Jeter's Marlins are in for another long season. USATSI

Anyway, Miami does have several youngsters with breakout potential like Lewis Brinson, Jorge Alfaro, Sandy Alcantara and Trevor Richards. Overall though, this is a weak roster in a division with four other teams that fancy themselves postseason contenders. The Marlins will play 76 games -- nearly half their season -- against the Braves, Mets, Nationals, and Phillies. That'll do a number on their win-loss record. As bad as the Orioles look on paper, the Marlins have a shot to finish with the game's worst record in 2019. The sport's second longest postseason drought is a safe bet to extend another year.

Maybe, if things break right ...Kansas City Royals

2018 record: 58-104 (33 GB)
2019 SportsLine projection: 76-86 (3rd place in AL Central)

The Royals are on the bubble. I had them in the "no chance at the postseason" group in earlier iterations of this post. Ultimately, I'm sticking them in the "maybe if things break right" group because the AL Central is pretty weak. The Indians remain the class of the division but they spent the winter shedding payroll rather than reinforcing the roster. The Twins have a sneaky strong position player group but could use another starter. The Tigers and White Sox? Rebuilders.

Kansas City's best chance at the postseason involves two things. One, the Indians and Twins dealing with injuries and unexpectedly poor performance, and two, several of their own youngsters breaking out. Specifically, that means Adalberto Mondesi and Brad Keller building on last year's success, Jorge Soler coming back healthy and Ryan O'Hearn showing last season's power numbers were not a fluke. Squint your eyes and there's interesting talent in the projected lineup:

That outfield and middle infield are going to save an awful lot of runs defensively, which is no small thing. Keller, Danny Duffy, Ian Kennedy and Jake Junis are viable big league starters and veteran relievers like Brad Boxberger, Wily Peralta and Jake Diekman provide some bullpen stability. It's a start.

Are the Royals going to contend this year? Almost certainly not. That said, there is enough talent here and the division is weak enough to lead me to believe the Royals could sneak up on some people this year and be a real headache for contending teams hoping to rack up "gimme" wins against a 104-loss team from a year ago. 

Texas Rangers

2018 record: 67-95 (36 GB)
2019 SportsLine projection: 73-89 (5th place in AL West)  

A year ago only one team, the 115-loss Orioles, received worse production from starting pitchers than the Rangers. Texas starters posted the second worst ERA (5.37) and FIP (5.18) in baseball. Yovani Gallardo, Drew Hutchison, Ariel Jurado, Yohander Mendez, Matt Moore and Martin Perez combined to make 63 starts and allow 242 runs in 304 2/3 innings. Lordy. That is horrific.

The Rangers rolled the dice on some upside rotation plays this offseason and are hoping to get what they didn't last year: Competence. Drew Smyly and Edinson Volquez are coming back from Tommy John surgery, and Shelby Miller returned from Tommy John surgery last year. They'll join Mike Minor and Lance Lynn in the starting five. The club's starters going from bottom of the league to middle of the pack would represent a significant upgrade for the Rangers.

Offensively, a long-awaited Nomar Mazara breakout would surely help, as would a return to form for Elvis Andrus. More than anything, the Rangers strike me as a team with a chance to be average across the board. Average offensively, average defensively, average on the mound. Average across the board isn't sexy but it's not bad either. Start from a league average base and a few things going right could push you over the hump.

Beating out the Astros for the AL West title won't happen and it'll probably take 90-something wins to secure a wild-card spot. If Smyly and Miller hit on their best case scenarios, and Mazara takes that step forward and becomes one of the game's top right fielders, why couldn't Texas do what the Rays or Athletics did last year? Keep in mind roughly eight of the 15 American League teams are in some sort of rebuild. That means there's that much less competition for a wild-card spot.

Don't sleep on them ...Cincinnati Reds

2018 record: 67-95 (28.5 GB)
2019 SportsLine projection: 70-92 (5th place in NL Central)

Give the Reds credit. So many teams are quick to throw in the towel and rack up losses while waiting out the rebuild these days. Cincinnati lost 90-plus games four years in a row and got sick of it, so they made some smart short-term pickups this offseason. Tanner Roark, Sonny Gray and Alex Wood are nice rotation additions and Yasiel Puig and Matt Kemp add further depth to what already was a sneaky good lineup. I mean, look at this:

Kemp and Derek Dietrich will be on the bench as platoon options and top prospect Nick Senzel should force his way into the picture soon, perhaps in center field. The Reds are going to score some runs this year and the improved rotation will help keep runs off the board. The Reds got better over the winter. There's no doubt about that.

Yasiel Puig and the Reds will be a major headache for NL Central teams in 2019. USATSI

The biggest obstacle standing in Cincinnati's way is its division. The NL Central is stacked. The Brewers, Cardinals and Cubs are clear postseason contenders and the Pirates won't be a pushover. The Reds are in the wrong league. Put them in the AL Central and they'd be a serious threat to go from last place to the postseason. A wild-card spot is probably the more realistic goal here. It is more within reach right now than it has been at any point in the last 4-5 years.

San Diego Padres

2018 record: 66-96 (25.5 GB)
2019 SportsLine projection: 71-91 (5th place in NL West)  

Manny Machado moved the Padres up a tier all by himself. I had them as a "maybe if things break right" tier before the signing. Replacing the potted plant they had penciled in at third base with Machado is a enormous. Going from Greg Garcia and Ty France to Machado is one of the single biggest upgrades a team could've made this winter, and the Padres made it.

One man does not make a team, however, even not one as good as Machado. The Padres also have the game's best and deepest farm system though, with several high-end prospects on the cusp of the big leagues. Francisco Mejia and Luis Urias arrived last year and will see more time this year. Fernando Tatis Jr. and Chris Paddack should arrive this year, along with others. When you have a highly ranked farm system, stuff like this is possible:

Load up on young talent and you give yourself a chance to make huge year-to-year gains. It doesn't have to happen gradually. Young players reach the big leagues and have an immediate impact now more than ever before -- teams are so good at developing players these days -- which puts San Diego in position to make one of those huge year-to-year jumps.

The 2019 season is probably a year premature for the Padres. To me, 2020 looks like their big breakout year, once some of their top young pitchers arrive and their young position players get some big league experience under their belt. That said, I thought 2019 would be the breakout year for the Braves, and 2016 would be the breakout year for the Cubs. Crazy things can happen when you're loaded with young talent and add a prime-aged star like Machado to that core. You can arrive ahead of schedule.

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