Every year in Major League baseball, there are multiple teams that seem to come out of nowhere to put together a fantastic season. Teams that weren’t relevant the year before become contenders after one offseason. This article will show the 5 teams that improved the most from the 2017 to the 2018 seasons, followed by a discussion explaining how they pulled it off.
To show which teams improved the most, we took teams win-loss record from 2018 and compared it to the same teams win-loss record from the 2017 season. Using this measure, here are the 5 most improved teams from 2017 to 2018:
- Oakland Athletics: 75-87 in 2017 to 97-65 in 2018 (+22 game improvement)
- Atlanta Braves: 72-90 to 90-72 (+18 game improvement)
- Boston Red Sox: 93-69 to 108-54 (+15 game improvement)
- Philadelphia Phillies: 66-96 to 80-82 (+14 game improvement)
- Seattle Mariners: 78-84 to 89-73 (+11 game improvement)
Honorable mentions: Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays, each with +10 game improvements
Note: All stats info was taken from MLB.com, unless otherwise noted
Oakland Athletics (+22 game improvement)
The Oakland A’s had a phenomenal season, securing the second wild card spot in the American League a season after finishing in last place in the AL West. In fact, the A’s record would’ve been good enough to finish with the best record in the National League (Milwaukee finished with the NL’s best record at 96-67). The A’s pitching staff played a major part in this transition, improving from a 2017 team ERA of 4.67 (23rd in MLB) to 3.81 (11th in MLB). Blake Treinen’s first full season in an A’s uniform was a career season, posting a sparkling 0.81 ERA with 38 saves as the A’s closer.
The A’s offence was the biggest improvement, however. The A’s offence finished fourth in Major League baseball in runs scored, and 3rd in home runs. Compare that to their 2017 season, when they were 17th in runs scored. A full season from Matt Chapman played a major part in this, where he put himself in the MVP discussion in the American League. Chapman finished with a Fangraphs Wins Above Replacement of 6.5, which was good enough for 7th among all MLB position players. He also finished with 100 runs scored. Jed Lowrie (4.9 WAR), Marcus Semien (3.7), Matt Olsen (3.4), and Stephen Piscotty (3.0) all had 3+ WAR seasons, which went a long way to their success. Piscotty was a trade acquisition from the Cardinals before the season, and the trio of Lowrie, Semien, and Olsen each had a bump in WAR of at least 1 WAR above their 2017 total (granted, Olsen got called up during the 2017 season and therefore didn’t play an entire season). OF/DH Khris Davis led the majors in home runs with 48, his third straight season with 40+ home runs. Simply put, their offence had no issue putting runs on the board for the entire regular season.
Atlanta Braves (+18 game improvement)
The Braves moved their rebuild ahead of schedule with their NL East division championship this season, taking advantage of a struggling Washington Nationals team (-15 game drop from 2017 to 2018, worst in the National League) and the offseason fire sale of the Miami Marlins (-14 game drop, second worst in the National League). There were major improvements amongst the pitching staff, with starting pitchers Mike Foltenewicz, Julio Teheran, and Sean Newcomb showing improvement. Also, the team managed to get a 2.83 ERA season out of 34-year-old Animal Sanchez, who did this after having an ERA above 5.80 each of the last 2 seasons. The midseason acquisition of former 1st round pick Kevin Gausman helped out as well, sporting a 2.87 ERA in his 10 starts with the team. Their team ERA of 3.75 (7th in MLB) was improved from 4.72 from a year ago (24th in MLB in 2017).
As for the offence, they went from 20th in the majors to 10th in the majors in runs scored between the two years. Offensive mainstay Freddie Freeman put together another great season like he usually does (.309/.388/.505 with 98 RBI), and the team enjoyed breakout seasons from 2B Ozzie Albies (105 runs scored), 3B Johan Camargo (76 RBI), and rookie sensation Ronald Acuna Jr (26 HR, .917 OPS). Veteran outfielder Nick Markakis had somewhat of a resurgent season as well, finishing with a .297 AVG and 93 RBI’s, his highest RBI total in a single season since the 2009 year when he was with Baltimore.
Boston Red Sox (+15 game improvement)
Boston is a bit of an aberration from this list, as they were still good enough to win the AL East division in 2017 with a 93 win season. They improved upon that to the tune of a 108-win 2018 season, which is the highest win total of any big league team since 2001, when the Seattle Mariners put together 116 wins. To accomplish this, they led the majors in runs scored with 876 runs and finished 8th in the majors in ERA at 3.75. The pitching actually regressed slightly, as they were 4th in the majors with a 3.70 ERA in 2017. Offensively in 2017, they were only 10th in runs scored at 785 in 2017. That is still pretty good, but the Red Sox lineup took it to a whole other level in 2018. They received MVP calibre seasons from Mookie Betts (.346/.438/.640, 32 HR, 30 SB, and was my pick for AL MVP) and free-agent acquisition J.D. Martinez (.330/.402/.629, MLB leading 130 RBI’s). SS Xander Bogaerts (103 RBI’s, .883 OPS) and OF Andrew Benintendi (103 Runs Scored, 87 RBI, .830 OPS) also had phenomenal seasons offensively.
Philadelphia Phillies (+14 game improvement)
The Phillies provided their fan base with a nice surprise, remaining in the NL East race until the final month of the season, which is a great improvement over a last place finish from the 2017 season. Their pitching staff was led by Aaron Nola, who put up Cy Young caliber numbers atop the Phillies rotation (17-6, 2.37 ERA, 224 K’s in 212.1 IP). On offence, OF Rhys Hoskins really shined in his first full big league season (34 HR, 96 RBI, .850 OPS). They also received quality contributions from off-season acquisition 1B Carlos Santana (24 HR, 86 RBI, .352 OBP), 3B Maikel Franco (22 HR, 68 RBI), and 2B Cesar Hernandez (.356 OBP, 95 runs scored).
Seattle Mariners (+11 game improvement)
The Mariners win-loss record this season was a bit of a surprise, as they finished 16 games above .500 despite having a run differential of -34 (they allowed 34 more runs than they scored), which is actually worse than the -22 run differential from a year ago when they had a losing record. Despite that, the Mariners managed to stay in the 2018 AL Wild Card race deep into September. A major reason for this could be closer Edwin Diaz, who led the majors with 57 saves, on top of having a .160 batting average against with 124 strikeouts out of the pen. Because of him, they were able to close out all their slim late-game leads. Solid offensive seasons from OF Mitch Haniger (.285 AVG, 26 HR, 93 RBI), DH Nelson Cruz (37 HR, 97 RBI) and SS Jean Segura (.304 AVG, 91 Runs) helped hand Diaz those leads.
In conclusion, these five organizations did a great job accelerating their development moving forward. We’ll see during the 2019 season if their rapid improvement was a fluke, or if it’s to become a new standard of success for these teams.
BaseballNerd 